HOW HE SEES IT National security: Is seeing believing?

By JAMES KLURFELD
LONG ISLAND NEWSDAY
If a Democrat is going to beat President Bush come November -- and as I write this it appears that Democrat would be Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts -- he is going to have to make the case that he can better protect the nation's security than Bush.
For all the attention that domestic issues are getting in the Democratic primaries, I still believe that foreign policy will be the determining factor in 2004.
The conventional wisdom is that the Democrats will lose on the national security issue. The Democrats appear to be reluctant and uncertain in using American power. Say what you will about Bush, his national security approach has been neither weak nor uncertain. Flawed? That's another matter. But one major reason Kerry has become the front-runner is that Democrats believe he, a decorated war hero, can stand up to Bush on using military force.
Reality vs. image
As is often the case, reality is different from image. Kerry has been part of the Democratic problem. He voted against the Gulf War in 1991, for the war in 2002, but against the $87 billion funding bill for the post-Iraq war period. Those votes look more like political opportunism than solid judgments about the nation's security needs. Howard Dean has criticized Kerry's flip-flops on the Iraq issue, but that's child's play compared with what the Bushies will do to him.
But a closer examination of the Bush administration's record on national security shows that it isn't all that it is supposed to be, either. The Democrats have to somehow get across to swing voters (the Democratic base already believes the war in Iraq was wrong) that Bush and his vaunted foreign policy team have proven to be nearly incompetent in handling the nation's security. They have to demonstrate that not only was the decision to launch a war against Saddam Hussein unnecessary at the time, but the manner in which it was done was stupendously bungled.
For instance, the decision in the summer of 2002 to take on Iraq inevitably meant that not as much attention would be paid to al-Qaida and the terrorist threat it represents. Solid Republicans such as Brent Scowcroft, the retired general and former national-security adviser to two Republican presidents, made that very point in August 2002.
Even more damning, it was clear to many foreign policy experts before the war began that it would be essential to have broad allied support, including the United Nations, for what was certain to be a very difficult but equally critical nation-building effort. The Bushies ignored every expert, every warning, every offer of help from officials who had experience in Iraq. They knew better. Rebuilding Iraq wasn't going to be that hard once the big, bad guy was gone, said the Pentagon. Read the new reports about how the Pentagon's neo-conservatives rejected expert advice (George Packer in The New Yorker in November, James Fallows in the current Atlantic Monthly). It smacks of malfeasance.
The one Democrat who has made these points most clearly is Wesley Clark, the retired general. Unfortunately, his late start and his wooden campaigning -- an inability to answer totally predictable questions such as why he said he supported the war resolution -- have hurt his campaign. But there are no better indications that the Bush camp knows it's very vulnerable on these points than the actions it has taken in recent days: trying to bring the United Nations into the reconstruction effort and this week's Chicago Tribune report of a major new offensive against al-Qaida. Karl Rove, the president's political guru, clearly has more common sense than Veep Dick Cheney, the real leader of the neo-cons.
Kerry talks about working with allies, which is fine but not enough. In laying out his plans for the country, he must also demonstrate he understands the importance of using force to protect the nation's interests and how to combine that with aggressive diplomacy. Bush is vulnerable on what should be his biggest asset. But the Democrats still haven't demonstrated they will provide an acceptable alternative.
XKlurfeld is editor of Newsday's editorial pages. Los Angeles Times-Washington Post News Service