After Iraq, whither the American left?

• Author: Bresler, Robert J.
• Position: State of the Nation - Editorial

AS SADDAM HUSSEIN'S STATUE went crashing to the ground on April 9, with it went the hopes of the American Left and the antiwar movement of re-creating their glory days of the 1960s. The American Left had been moribund in the 1950s and came to life in the 1960s on the anger of many, especially the young, against the protracted war in Vietnam. Since then, every time the Left has reached for a foreign policy issue, it has either evaporated or backfired on them. In the 1980s, Pres. Ronald Reagan threw the nuclear freeze movement off balance with his proposals for missile defense and deep cuts in Soviet-American arsenals. As the Cold War ended, the Left stood speechless when Reagan and Pres. George H.W. Bush signed arms controls treaties that cut nuclear weapons to levels the nuclear freeze movement hardly imagined. The Sandinista regime in Nicaragua, which the American Left romanticized, was repudiated by the Nicaraguans themselves in 1990s voting and has yet been able to win an election.

Prior to the 1991 Gulf War, the Left-liberals in Congress opposed giving George H.W. Bush the legal authority to rescue Kuwait. This effort was accompanied by the usual demonstrations outside the White House, complete with the cast of familiar Hollywood personalities. The rapid victory in the Persian Gulf and the liberation of Kuwait again had the Left gasping for air. After Sept. 11, many voices on the left considered the incident a consequence of American foreign policy arrogance rather than a manifestation of mindless religious fanaticism and global terrorism. When the military effort to remove Al Qaeda and the Taliban from Afghanistan took a few weeks to get results, some on the Left questioned the operation.

For a short while, the war in Iraq seemed to give the Left a chance to build a "movement." The European and Arab streets were filled with protesters; the American academic community and the mainstream churches were in opposition; one major Democratic candidate for president, Howard Dean, was riding the issue for all he could; and in the early days of the war, the liberal media was talking about a quagmire. Many on the Left could see 1968 all over again with Dean as the next Robert Kennedy or Eugene McCarthy. All that ended when American troops entered Baghdad to Iraqi cheers. I am sure that it was not possible for the Left to feel the same exhilaration over this stunning victory as that of the vast majority of Americans.

When the American Left wrings...