OxBlog

Thursday, April 22, 2004

# Posted 3:11 PM by Patrick Belton  

MR KERRY, CALL YOUR OFFICE: In only a few sentences yesterday, Senator Kerry managed both to insinuate that democracy should take a back seat to security in Iraq, and that US troops should be happy to cut and run with Iraq stable but undemocratic. To give him his due, here's the full bit:
Democracy "shouldn't be the measurement of when you leave," Kerry said. "You leave with stability. You hope you can continue the process of democratization -- obviously, that's our goal. But with respect to getting our troops out, the measurement is the stability of Iraq."(SF Chronicle)
While I'd like to be charitable, it's pretty clear that what Kerry's doing here is establishing a lower bar for withdrawing troops from Iraq, which is tied in turn to downgrading the importance of democracy promotion in the US engagement in Iraq. Pretty dispiriting stuff - weren't the Dems once the party which had habitually criticised administrations for privileging security over democracy?
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