Tuesday, October 19, 2004
An alternative reality scenario that almost makes it....
I love alternate reality scenarios. In my opinion, we don't ask the question 'what if?' nearly enough.
So I became hopeful I found a good one when I came across this piece written by William Tucker in The American Spectator.
Tucker creates an 'alternate reality' - well, a dream - where John Kerry wins the presidency.
For these kinds of scenarios to make their intended impact, they have to develop some kind of relationship with reality. Tucker does this by painting a rosy scenario at the beginning of Kerry's 'dream' term in office. A speech is made to the UN. Allies are consulted. Some progress is made towards getting where Bush wanted to go, but with a little more speed and camaraderie.
Where Tucker falls off the boat is about halfway through his dream, when that relationship with reality suffers from a divorce.
After events take a turn for the worse in our 'dream' Iraq, Kerry decides to negotiate with the UN for a pullout of 140,000 troops.
I don't care who you support for president. I don't care what you think of the war in Iraq. I don't care what you think of John Kerry, or what you think of his thinking of Iraq and the UN. He is simply not going to negotiate with the UN for a withdrawal of all US forces from Iraq.
It's plausible that some form of scaling back could take place. It's plausible that some perhaps misguided ploy of appeasement could be attempted by a 'dream' President Kerry. But it's not going to be a negotiated pullout to solve an escalating situation in Iraq. Even Kerry would know that he'd be crucified in America if he just thought about such a shameless act of retreat - sanctioned by the UN, no less.
If you're going to give us a plausible Kerry 'dream world' presidency, perhaps with the intention of scaring people with the very thought, please give us something a bit more realistic. I think you can paint a picture of Kerry presidency as suffering from misguided notions of international peace and cooperation without making him out to be a bone-head.
I like the attempt. I don't like its execution.
