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home > by publication type > issue tracker > The Candidates on the War on Terror
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November 8, 2007
Democratic Candidate | Republican Candidate |
When the Bush administration launched the “Global War on Terror” in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, critics argued that the phrase implied perpetual war (IHT). Still, as the United States invaded Afghanistan and Iraq as primary fronts in the broader war on terror, President Bush initially met little opposition from Congress or other politicians around the country. Military operations in the war spread to other targets. The United States bombed al-Qaeda targets (BBC) in Somalia in early 2007, and in the summer of 2006, President Bush called Lebanon, where Hezbollah forces were at war with Israel, a “flashpoint in a broader struggle between freedom and terror that is unfolding across the region.”
Six years after the 9/11 attacks, the term “war on terror” was fading from the accepted political lexicon. When NBC anchor Brian Williams asked the Democratic candidates to raise their hands if they “believe there is such a thing as a global war on terror,” only half of the participants in the April 2007 Democratic debate raised their hands. Majority Democrats on the House Armed Services Committee in early 2007 banned (Army Times) the term “global war on terror” from the 2008 defense budget, saying they wanted to “avoid catch phrases.” But most Republicans continue to frame the conflict in Iraq and beyond as part of a greater war against Islamic fundamentalists.
Sen. Obama (D-IL), like his fellow Democratic candidates, has been critical of the Bush administration’s policies relating to the war on terror. In a recent Foreign Affairs article, Obama called the Bush’s response to 9/11 “conventional thinking of the past, largely viewing problems as state-based and principally amenable to military solutions.” As a result of the actions taken under the auspices of the war on terror, Obama says, “the world has lost trust in our purposes and our principles.”
Instead, Obama says, U.S. efforts in the Middle East should focus on empowering “forces of moderation” by increasing “access to education and health care, trade and investment” and support for civil society. Like Clinton, Obama says the government’s priority should be preventing terrorist groups from obtaining weapons of mass destruction.
In a August 1 speech, Obama called for a greater counterterrorism focus on Afghanistan and the tribal region of Pakistan. With regards to Pakistan, he indicated that under his leadership, “if we have actionable intelligence about high-value targets and President Musharraf won't act, we will.”
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Sen. Biden (D-DE) was one of the four Democratic candidates at the April 2007 debate to say he does not believe in the war on terror. He has argued that the phrase and the doctrine behind it are problematic. “Terrorism is a means, not an end, and very different groups and countries are using it toward very different goals. If we can’t even identify the enemy or describe the war we’re fighting, it’s difficult to see how we will win,” he said in 2006.
He did not always object to the idea of a war on terror. In 2002, Biden wrote in The Hill that the goal of the war on terror should be “to prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction and the means to make them.”
Editor's Note: Sen. Biden withdrew his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination on January 3, 2008.
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Sen. Clinton (D-NY) disagrees with John Edwards’ contention that the war on terror is simply a political slogan and said in the June 2007 Democratic debate that she believes Americans are now “safer than we were.”
Clinton says the main priority in the war on terror should be in preventing “Iran, al-Qaeda and the like” from obtaining weapons of mass destruction. When the Jewish Press asked Clinton in October 2006 how she views the war on terror, she responded, “I don't think our strategy is working. Six years ago, North Korea and Iran were not as close as they are today to having nuclear weapons.”
In a 2004 speech at the Brookings Institution, Clinton outlined her ideas on “how best to fight the wider war on terror.” She emphasized the importance of building alliances and doing away with the widespread perception of U.S. unilateralism and arrogance. She also said she supported Sen. Joe Biden’s proposal to establish an “international antiterrorist organization” modeled on NATO and that an increase in the number of troops in the Army, National Guard, and Reserve force is necessary. She also called for increased funding for global education and development programs, which she said would likely reduce anti-Americanism abroad.
Editor's Note: Sen. Clinton withdrew her candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination on June 7, 2008.
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Sen. Dodd (D-CT) criticized the Bush administration for “conflating Iraq with the war on terrorism.” He argues that Iraq has distracted the United States from the “looming threat” in North Korea, Iran, and “most importantly, the greater war on terror,” by which he presumably meant the fight against radical jihadists affiliated with Osama Bin Laden.
Dodd voted to approve the use of military force in both Afghanistan and Iraq, though he now supports troop redeployment from Iraq.
Editor's Note: Sen. Dodd withdrew his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination on January 3, 2008.
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Edwards has made criticism of the war on terror—which he calls a “bumper sticker”—one of the cornerstones of his campaign. Edwards argues that the war on terror is a political slogan meant to “justify everything [Bush] does: the ongoing war in Iraq, Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, spying on Americans, torture.”
In a speech at the Council on Foreign Relations Edwards said: “The worst thing about the Global War on Terror approach is that it has backfired—our military has been strained to the breaking point and the threat from terrorism has grown.” Instead, Edwards says, the United States should forge a new strategy focused on “strong and creative diplomacy,” poverty reduction efforts, improved intelligence methods, and a new defense policy with a clarified “post-Bush, post-9/11, post-Iraq” mission.
Still, Edwards did not always object to the term or doctrine. On the 2004 campaign trail, Edwards often referred to it and criticized (CNN) efforts in Iraq as turning “the focus away from the war on terror.”
Editor's note: Edwards dropped out of the race for the Democratic nomination on January 30, 2008.
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Gravel said in the June 2007 Democratic debate that he does not believe there is such a thing as the “war on terror.” Gravel is critical of the Bush administration’s war on terror initiatives, including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the USA PATRIOT Act.
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Rep. Kucinich (D-OH) has opposed virtually all aspects of Bush’s war agenda, including the USA PATRIOT Act and the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. When asked to explain his position in the June 2007 Democratic debate, Kucinich said “the global war on terror has been a pretext for aggressive war” and that as president he would reject “war as an instrument of policy.”
Editor's Note: Rep. Kucinich withdrew his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination on January 25, 2008.
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Richardson says he believes “there is such a thing as a global war on terror.” He believes the focus should be shifted from Iraq to Afghanistan, al-Qaeda, and “jihadist terrorists.” Particularly, he says, U.S. efforts should center on preventing terrorists from obtaining nuclear weapons.
Richardson says much of the violence in the Middle East, particularly involving Israel and Hezbollah, could have been prevented if the United States had placed a permanent envoy in the region. He has also called for an international peacekeeping coalition force to stabilize the Middle East.
Editor's Note: Richardson withdrew his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination on January 10, 2008.
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Though McCain has criticized the mismanagement of the war in Iraq, he employs much of the Bush administration’s rhetoric about terrorism, often arguing that if the United States pulls out of Iraq, the terrorists “will follow us home.” (AP) McCain, a vocal supporter of the troop surge in Iraq, has also called for permanent U.S. military bases (AP) in Afghanistan.
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Sen. Brownback (R-KS) argues that “winning the war on terror requires the emergence of moderate governments across the Middle East.” Particularly, he says, the United States should encourage a “political equilibrium” in Iraq by helping to facilitate some sort of accord between Sunnis and Shiites. He also advocates increased security on Iraqi borders and says U.S. troops should “chase the foreign fighters out of Iraq.”
He says a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq could result in a disastrous radicalization of the governments in the region, and thereby “reverse the gains that we have made in the war on terror and extend the war on terror for years to come.” Brownback has generally backed the Bush administration’s tough measures in the war on terror, including the Patriot Act and the detention of so-called “enemy combatants” in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
Editor's Note: Sen. Brownback withdrew his candidacy for the GOP presidential nomination on October 19, 2007.
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As the chair of the Congressional Advisory Panel to Assess Domestic Response Capabilities for Terrorism Involving Weapons of Mass Destruction, Gilmore has made numerous recommendations for the management of the war on terror, ranging from suggestions on more efficient intelligence-gathering methods to managing Defense Department operations.
Gilmore says the objective should be “to create some stability” and ensure self-determination (Human Events) in the countries where the United States is fighting terrorism. Gilmore also says “we should guard against losing any of our fundamental freedoms as a result of the war on terrorism.” (WashPost)
Editor's note: Gilmore withdrew his candidacy for the Republican nomination in July 2007.
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Giuliani, responding to Edwards’ criticism of the war on terror, said at the June 2007 Republican debate, “This is not a bumper sticker; this war is a real war.” Still, Giuliani generally now refers to “the terrorist war against us,” rather than the “war on terror,” he told TIME. But while he has changed the term to refer to U.S. efforts to combat terrorism, his policies on Iraq, Afghanistan, homeland security, and U.S. defense policy in general do not appear to vary greatly from the Bush administration’s.
In a May 2007 Republican debate, Giuliani lashed out at Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) for claiming that U.S. policies in the Middle East provoked the 9/11 attacks.
Editor's note: Giuliani dropped out of the race for the Republican nomination on January 31, 2008.
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Huckabee criticized Democrats like Edwards who “delusionally deny that the war in Iraq is part of the war on terror even as we fight al-Qaeda there.” He calls the war on terror “generational” and “ideological” and argues that the United States is actually “engaged in a world war.”
Editor's Note: Huckabee withdrew his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination on March 4, 2008.
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Like Huckabee, Rep. Hunter (R-CA) appears to have no qualms with the war on terror as a policy.
He fully supports the Bush agenda in Iraq and stresses the importance of border security in the fight against terrorists.
Editor's note: Hunter dropped out of the race for the Republican nomination on January 19, 2008.
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Rep. Paul (R-TX) is strictly non-interventionist and criticizes military campaigns in Afghanistan—where he says the United States replaced “one group of thugs with another”—and in Iraq. He also has opposed many homeland security measures taken in the name of the war on terror, like the implementation of the PATRIOT Act, which he argues undermines “the liberties and privacy of all Americans.”
Charles Peña, author of Winning the Un-War: A New Strategy for the War on Terrorism, is an adviser to Paul's campaign. Peña is a senior fellow at the Independent Institute, a senior fellow with the Coalition for a Realistic Foreign Policy, a senior fellow with the George Washington University Homeland Security Policy Institute, and an adviser to the Straus Military Reform Project.
Editor's Note: Rep. Paul withdrew his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination on June 12, 2008.
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Romney appears to support the idea that the United States is engaged in a global war against terrorism and “the jihadists.” In a recent Foreign Affairs article, Romney wrote that U.S. center of attention should not be limited to Iraq and Afghanistan because “the jihad is much broader than any one nation, or even several nations.” For this reason, Romney writes, any anti-terror efforts must focus more broadly on preventing “radical Islam” from attaining its ultimate goal, which he says is “to replace all modern Islamic states with a worldwide caliphate while destroying the United States and converting all nonbelievers, forcibly if necessary, to Islam.”
Editor's note: Romney dropped out of the race for the Republican nomination on February 7, 2008.
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Rep. Tancredo (R-CO) echoes many of Romney’s views on fighting terrorism. He stresses that the war is not limited to the countries where the United States is engaged militarily, but rather that the struggle is against “radical Islam” as a whole, which he calls a “civilization bent on destroying ours.”
Editor's Note: Congressman Tancredo formally withdrew his candidacy for the GOP presidential nomination on December 20, 2007.
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Like most of his fellow Republican candidates, Thompson does not appear to agree with the criticisms of the war on terror from Democrats like Edwards and Biden.
To win the war on terror, Thompson says, the United States must “rebuild our military,” use medical diplomacy to gain allies, and follow his “three-step plan” for Iraq, which includes allowing the Iraqi parliament to vote on whether the United States should remain there.
Editor's note: Thompson dropped out of the race for the Republican nomination on August 12, 2007.
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