In my Townhall column this week I question the way some Presidential candidates might approach future threats.
Edwards says he now believes he was “wrong” when he voted to authorize force in 2002. What is not clear, is what he thinks was wrong about the vote. You have to make decisions based on the best information you have at the time. It is of little value for me to know how Edwards or any of the other senators would have voted “knowing what they know now.” Unless a presidential candidate is claiming to be a fortuneteller, how they would have voted were they able to see into the future is really of very little consequence…
What I want to hear from the Senators running for the White House is why they voted the way they did in 2002, and whether or not they would apply the same decision-making skills when deciding how to respond to future threats. If not, I want to know how they would change their decision making to deal with the same set of circumstances. If intelligence was wrong in Iraq, then it can be wrong in any other situation we are faced to confront. I want to know how, if in any way, the candidates have changed the way they would approach future threats in light of the experience in Iraq and now being painfully aware that human intelligence is imperfect. I fear the result is a reluctance to again take any action against a threat unless we have world consensus. It will be interesting to see how many candidates run on that message.I don’t know how Hillary will deal with threats from Iran or North Korea, but she is promising to end the war if elected.
