Katrina vanden Heuvel | The Nation

This week marked the tenth anniversary of the Iraq invasion and the beginning of a war that The Nation opposed fiercely and early on. Running scores of articles and editorials against the misguided mission, our writers sought to create an intelligent dialogue around the issue and provide alternative policies to move us forward in a more peaceful way.

The Nation’s first editorial on the subject ran on June 20, 2002: “War on Iraq Is Wrong.” In clear and certain terms, the editors outlined the glaring weaknesses in the administration’s argument for war and its obtuseness over the consequences of invasion. “If the United States proceeds alone or with only tacit support from others, Iraq’s collapse into anarchy cannot be ruled out,” warned the editors. “Democrats and Republicans, and all citizens with civic courage, must challenge a policy that poses a clear and present danger to international and American interests.”

In an open letter to Congress on September 25, 2002, the editors continued their informed criticism of the overthrow of the Iraqi government. Though the passage of an authorizing resolution seemed a foregone conclusion, they urged the members of Congress to speak out and stand together against the invasion. The silence of party leaders in the face of a simple, clear, and strong case against the war was troubling and The Nation demanded that our representatives act in the interest of the country, rather than fall prey to egoism and power politics. “Reject the arrogance—and the ignorance—of power,” urged the editors. “Show respect for your constituents—they require your honest judgment, not capitulation to the executive. Say no to empire. Affirm the Republic. Preserve the peace. Vote against war in Iraq.”

Hindsight, as they say, is 20/20.

Several years after the invasion, in a piece written for AlterNet, John Tirman, executive director of MIT’s Center for International Studies, recognized The Nation’s prescience in a list of the “heroes of resistance” who opposed the war before it began. Alongside the select members of Congress who voted against the initial war resolution (thirty-one senators, 133 representatives), he cheered on many who have contributed to The Nation over the years. “In the face of severe opprobrium and intimidation, a sizable number of Americans saw the charade for what it was and rued the oncoming disaster. We need to understand why this fiasco occurred, and listening to the voices of those who opposed it for ethical and strategic reasons from the outset helps to unravel this puzzle.”

Today, ten years later, our criticisms of US involvement in Iraq been shown to be tragically prescient. This week’s print issue features Patrick Cockburn’s reporting on the American legacy in Iraq. The picture is not positive. The country is mired in a permanent crisis of sectarian violence, pervasive corruption and dysfunctional government. There is little to show for the reconstruction projects that the US has invested over $60 billion in, and Iraqis are living with a catastrophically broken infrastructure, in a state of dissolution. But, Cockburn contends, the establishment of this parasitic state dates to well before the US invasion.

Veteran antiwar activist Tom Hayden, CODE PINK’s Jodie Evans, foreign policy blogger Robert Dreyfuss and activist-writer Nathan Schneider further reflect on the legacy of the invasion and the destruction, and disillusionment, that followed. In OpinionNation, their responses explore the range of emotions that many have looking back on the past decade, and the lessons to be applied to the future. Hayden argues that long wars require a long peace movement; Evans considers all that she’s witnessed, and all that was unimaginable at the time; Schneider looks at the life of one young peace activist and the consequences of her engagement with the antiwar movement; and Dreyfuss argues that the point is moot: Iraqis won’t be debating whether the invasion was good or bad, because they are dead.

Many more contributors offered smart and salient commentary on the anniversary of the war this week on TheNation.com, and Greg Mitchell’s prolific assessment of the lead up to the war deserves highlighting. He covers who got it right (the Dixie Chicks, select national newspapers) and who got it wrong (Bob Woodward), and reflects on the mea culpas of the media and warmongers.

So are there any benefits to be found in this unbroken record of waste, futility and shame? Nation peace and disarmament correspondent Jonathan Schell looks within the borders of Iraq to find lessons that can prevent the same fate in Iran. To avert catastrophe in the postcolonial era, he argues we must recognized that counterinsurgency (“COIN”) warfare is “a fool’s game” and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction cannot be stopped through military force. While the parallels between Iraq and Iran are striking, the fates of the two countries are not intertwined. It is a moral imperative that we avoid a second Iraq and heed lessons learned from history.

For ongoing thoughtful and measured reporting on the role of the United States in the world, check back in regularly with The Nation as we continue to examine the government’s actions.

The Nation interns select their favorite articles of the week.

The budget proposal released by Congressman Paul Ryan this week relies on an alarming $5 trillion in cuts, the majority of which take a hatchet to our healthcare system and other essential services.

As Bryce Covert reports, this most recent iteration is bad for nearly all but the wealthy, but it would do particular damage to the interests of American women. She shares shocking statistics of women’s dependence on Medicaid and Medicare—making up the majority of beneficiaries of both programs—and shows how slashing discretionary spending will hurt a number of programs that women are enormously reliant upon. “Women voters roundly rejected [Ryan] and his running mate in 2012,” writes Covert. “This budget does nothing to address their needs and works against the most vulnerable among them.” For many of those reasons, NETWORK, the same Catholic social justice lobby that opposed Ryan’s economic extremism in the fall, issued a statement challenging the latest iteration of his austerity agenda.

“Reasonable people might ask: What is Paul Ryan thinking?” writes John Nichols, noting the marked similarities between this budget plan and the economic roadmap from Ryan’s failed vice presidential run. A rehash of old proposals cloaked in rhetoric, the new Ryan budget is a “Bumper-Sticker-Slogan Budget”: one that was roundly rejected by American voters in 2012 and does not stand a chance of passing Congress this time around. So what’s his angle? The limelight. Ryan was posturing for the base, just in time for the Conservative Political Action Conference, which started Friday with an opening speech by none other than the House Budget Committee chairman himself.

Also released this week, the Senate Democrats’ budget plan comes fast on the heels of President Obama’s major victory eliminating the Bush tax breaks for high income individual earners. George Zornick asks whether that victory will survive. As the administration and congressional Democrats slowly insinuate concessions into the budget negotiations, the compromises they make may actually end up complementing Paul Ryan’s plan. “The administration,” reports Zornick, “though not eager to make a big public show of it, made it known from the beginning that it would be willing to lower the top rates again during comprehensive tax reform that closed loopholes for the wealthy elsewhere.”

For a much more appealing alternative to the Ryan budget, Zornick points to the vision outlined by the Congressional Progressive Caucus this week: the “Back to Work” budget proposal. A clear, humane and truly progressive plan, the CBC budget prioritizes job creation and public investments across programs indispensable to the growth of the nation. It offsets an increase in spending with common sense measures that reduce military spending and introduce smart and sensible tax solutions, and ultimately create a plan that will reduce public debt over the next decade. As the only budget to sincerely focus on getting people back to work, Zornick argues that the CPC’s budget deserves thoughtful consideration and some real attention.

For continued insight into Congressional budget negotiations and what they mean for our future, check back in regularly with The Nation as we continue to report on the state of politics in real time.

Attorney General Eric Holder. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite.)

Editor’s Note: Each week we cross-post an excerpt from Katrina vanden Heuvel’s column at the WashingtonPost.com. Read the full text of Katrina’s column here.

“The government of the United States,” wrote Chief Justice John Marshall in his famous decision in Marbury v. Madison, “has been emphatically termed a government of laws, and not of men.” This principle—grounded in the Constitution, enforced by an independent judiciary—is central to the American creed. Citizens have rights, and fundamental to these is due process of the law.

This ideal, of course, has often been trampled in practice, particularly in times of war or national panic. But the standard remains, central to the legitimacy of therepublic.

Yet last week Attorney General Eric Holder, speaking for the administration with an alarmingly casual nonchalance, traduced the whole notion of a nation of laws.

First, the attorney general responded to Senator Rand Paul’s inquiry as to whether the president claimed the “power to authorize a lethal force, such as a drone strike, against a US citizen on US soil and without trial.” After noting that the United States has never done so and has no intention of doing so, Holder wrote that, speaking hypothetically, it is “possible to imagine” an extraordinary circumstance in which that power might become “necessary and appropriate.”

Editor’s Note: Each week we cross-post an excerpt from Katrina vanden Heuvel’s column at the WashingtonPost.com. Read the full text of Katrina’s column here.

Organizing for Action Chairman Jim Messina, who announced following critical coverage that the group would not accept donations from corporations, federal lobbyists or foreign donors. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak.)

What are we to make of Organizing for Action?

OFA—the direct descendant of those other OFAs, Obama for America and Organizing for America—has recently been drawing headlines and inspiring headaches. That’s because it’s an organization with multiple souls. On the one hand, OFA promises to finally do what the Obama team failed to four years ago: Engage and mobilize the campaign’s grassroots volunteer army into a potent force for fighting Republican obstructionism after the election. On the other hand, OFA itself is structured in a way that encapsulates much of what’s broken about our current politics: big-dollar donors trading money for access. Can OFA both exemplify our predicament and ameliorate it?

Last weekend, OFA drew scorching critiques from the editorial boards of the The Washington Post and the The New York Times. Both expressed understandable alarm over OFA’s funding structure: The plan is reportedly to raise half of the organization’s budget in donations of over $500,000, and to reward those donations with quarterly “advisory board” meetings between top donors and the president himself. The Post said the group “should be renamed Paying for Access.” The Times called the funding structure “nothing more than a fancy way of setting a price for access to Mr. Obama.” (The White House pushed back on the report on Monday.)

Common Cause President Bob Edgar was at least as harsh, saying last week that the new OFA “apparently intends to extend and deepen the pay-to-play Washington culture that Barack Obama came to prominence pledging to end.”

As both papers noted, the Obama strategists (including Obama for America Campaign Manager-turned-Organizing for Action Chairman Jim Messina) behind OFA have particular financial flexibility because they’ve organized the group as a 501(c)(4) “social welfare group,” exempt from many requirements under our broken system of campaign finance law. That’s a system that the president has repeatedly recognized needs reform.

All of this invites charges of hypocrisy (always a tailor-made media storyline) and there have been plenty. But the Obama team is facing a challenge that doesn’t lend itself to clear-cut answers: How can you effectively do combat within the system as it exists, while also fighting to transform it? How do you plot a course that’s neither unilateral disarmament against the Right, nor surrender to Politics-As-Usual?

President Obama may be sincerely trying to plot such a course. There’s no doubt he’s sometimes stumbled along the way. As clean elections advocate Jonathan Soros told Bill Moyers last month, “The president has missed a number of opportunities to show leadership on this issue. And I think that’s been both unfortunate and a bad choice politically for him.”

Does this new OFA represent another missed opportunity? With critical fights ahead on issues from guns to immigration, and an all-out and well-funded opposition, I’m glad OFA will be mobilizing the grassroots (and that the president is keeping an eye towards 2014). And I don’t begrudge them the need to raise money, or expect them to fully embody a more progressive legal regime that doesn’t yet exist. Nonetheless, I wish the Obama team had shown a greater measure of audacity, and hope, by embracing a different funding model: focusing more on smaller-dollar donations, and setting out to truly prove, as the Obama and Dean electoral campaigns did, that serious money doesn’t only come from millionaires. (And it’s not as if the White House needed another vehicle to reward $500,000 donors with access; alas, there are already ambassadorships.)

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“We are very concerned about the precedent the OFA move creates for future presidents and elected officials at all levels,” Free Speech for People Executive Director John Bonifaz told me last week, “a new way to allow corporations and the wealthy few to gain disproportionate influence and subvert the democratic process.” For Bonifaz, a stalwart advocate for a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United, February ended on a mixed note. On February 22, the White House released a response to Free Speech for People’s online petition urging that Obama include a call for a constitutional amendment in his State of the Union address. Obama didn’t do so, but the White House response told the petitioners, “You’re right” and “President Obama agrees with you.” That response went live on the same night as the Times story reporting on OFA’s planned reliance on high dollar donors. As Bonifaz told me, “I think the timing of the White House response to our petition is not coincidental and that it demonstrates we need to keep the pressure on for presidential leadership on the amendment front.”

So how should we feel about the new OFA? Another anti-corruption advocate, Public Campaign President Nick Nyhart, says it’s still too soon to tell. If Organizing for Action “makes a difference in what gets done, and there’s little evidence that deals cut with donors undermined other issues or forced compromises,” says Nyhart, then “it was the right decision given the realities of where money politics already are.” If not, he adds, “then we should learn from that too.”

The good news is, the principled pushback from concerned citizens and campaign finance reformers seems to be getting results. In a CNN op-ed published this morning, after suggesting that some of OFA’s critics were confused, Messina wrote, “We have now decided not to accept contributions from corporations, federal lobbyists or foreign donors.” That goes beyond previous commitments by OFA, which—to its credit—had already agreed to more disclosure and restrictions than the bare minimum required by law. (Unfortunately, as the AP reported today, corporations seeking to use their money to earn meetings with administration officials could still do so through the trade group Business Forward, which “has said it will ramp up its operations.”)

As OFA’s new role evolves, it’s good to know its leaders are listening to concerned citizens and critics. They should know that we’ll be watching.

Another attempt to fight back against big business’s clout, the proposed financial transactions tax, is a good idea whose time has come, Katrina vanden Heuvel writes.