The estimable Peggy Noonan asked last week, “Can the Republican Party recover from Iraq?,” adding, “It’s still digging out, and whether it can succeed is an open question.” Republicans can succeed by boldness, clarity, and courage, but by no other means. Americans trust the Republican Party to look out for their security in a pinch. By a margin of 63 to 28, the Pew Institute reported March 26, they favor military force to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons. Just 8% are undecided. There’s the Republican majority on foreign policy. Even Western Europeans (excepting Greece) favor the use of force if needed, albeit by smaller majorities.
Why aren’t we appealing to this majority? Apparently we are so browbeaten by the public backlash against the blunders in our nation-building exercise that we are afraid to ask the public to support a limited, mainly aerial attack on a terrorist nation on the verge of becoming a nuclear power. If that’s the best we can do, we deserve the contempt of the voters. Mitt Romney hid under his chair during the second presidential debate on foreign policy. It didn’t do him any good. This kind of timidity goes back to the Bush administration, which feared that an extension of the conflict would lead to a public backlash against the war…
It’s pointless to take potshots at Obama for failing to act on Syria. What we should say is this: “Iran is the main source of instability in the Middle East. Iran’s intervention in Syria has turned the country into a slaughterhouse. By showing weakness to Iran, the Obama administration encourages its murderous activities elsewhere in the region.” American missteps set up the Syrian civil war, as I argued in a March 19 post. Most of this goes above the heads of the voters. But they are wise enough to know that it’s extremely dangerous for an America-hating band of murderers in Tehran to get hold of nuclear weapons.
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