More Good Fighting

Just so you don't think I am a complete mark for Peter Beinart, I will link to, and admit that I don't disagree with, an article by Frank Rich in the NY Review of Books that criticizes Beinart's book.

Rich has some really good things to say about The Good Fight. First of all, he doesn't want to let Beinart, and other Iraq War supporters in the Democratic party, off the hook so easily for supporting the invasion of Iraq. Even though Beinart actually admits that he was wrong without trying to suggest that Bush lied to him, his admission can seem a bit disingenuous in how he explains it. The fact is that there isn't a good reason why any Democrats should have supported the war, and any attempt to explain it away doesn't ring true. There was all the evidence at the time that containment would have worked, that Saddam wasn't stupid enough to use any WMDs that he might have had, and that this war would make us less safe in the war on terrorism.

Rich also takes issue with Beinart's focus on the far left, anti-war wing of the Democratic party. According to Rich, the Michael Moores and Cindy Sheehans are a small fraction of the party and therefore Beinart need not worry that they will dominate liberal foreign policy. The Good Fight does take aim at the far left, especially the bloggers, that spend more time thinking about how to attack Republicans than how to fix foreign policy. I see where Beinart is coming from; I would like to see more people in both parties focus on the war on terrorism and other international threats than battling each other. I share Beinart's fear that the partisan far left will dictate foreign policy, but I hope Rich is right that I need not worry.

Overall, Beinart's book doesn't really break much new ground. But its benefit is that it puts this intelligent liberal foreign policy proposal in the context of past popular Democratic platforms, and does it in a way to encourage Democrats to take this and run with it. His book is accessible, which means there is a hope that it will reach people who don't know this policy is out there. So even though it in't original, if it reaches more people, than it needed to be written.