Paul Waldman poses questions for 2016 presidential candidates:
- How do [you] view the extraordinary propaganda campaign the Bush administration launched to convince Americans to get behind the war?
- Does that make [you] want to be careful about how [your administration would] argue for [its] policy choices?
- Did Iraq change [your] perspective on American military action, particularly in the Middle East?
- What light [do the lessons learned from the war] shed on the reception the American military is likely to get the next time we invade someplace?
- What does it teach us about power vacuums and the challenges of nation-building?
- How [do the lessons learned from the war] inform [your] thinking on the prospect of military action in Syria and Iran specifically?
- Given the boatload of unintended consequences Iraq unleashed, how would [you], as president, go about making decisions on complex issues that are freighted with uncertainty?
Number 7 is of particular interest to me. “If I knew then what I know now…” is all well and good but how will the candidate approach complex issues where there’s inherent uncertainty? Do they acknowledge downside risk? If so then how do they try to get a handle on it?
Taking Waldman’s questions in a slightly different direction: Dick-waving is easy foreign policy when the counterparty is ISIS. ISIS does not possess a nuclear triad. What do you do when the counterparty acts provocatively and possesses the capability to annihilate us? That’s not a problem with an easy solution. Revealing detailed strategy obviously wouldn’t be constructive but please convey that your approach is more nuanced than “We’re gonna beat the crap out of ’em cuz we’re America!”