Elevator Speech

Real national security depends on protecting our interests, advancing our goals and values and prudent and realistic engagement with the threats we face. Military force is most important as a deterrent; we have the strongest fighting force in the world but our national interests are best secured when we lead the world toward greater cooperation not when we engage in conflict. But while it is important to stress the wider aspects of real national security, when American troops are engaged overseas discussions of national security will focus on prevailing against threats and securing the peace.

In discussing the Iraq War, the issue is U.S. security not Bush’s lies. Americans remain conflicted over whether withdrawing from Iraq will serve our security or erode it. Don’t hesitate to remind people that Bush got everything wrong, but the case for withdrawal cannot be made because Bush lied us into the war, or that it is costly, or even that it isn’t going well. The case must be about our future security—why getting out of Iraq serves our security and why staying only weakens it.

• Be strong and speak with conviction. Americans are looking for and deserve leaders who will level with them, tell them what they believe and state their case with conviction—not politicians who put their finger in the wind to see where the polls are then duck and dodge for fear that ideologues on the right will hammer them. Stand up. Level with Americans. Indict the administration that has driven us to a place where only bad choices remain, and make your case clearly.

• Indict the policy and support the troops. American soldiers have performed valiantly in Iraq in an occupation that their leaders did not plan for. We should honor and applaud their service, even as we indict the leaders that so misused them. This is an administration—led by men who have never served in the military—that has failed to provide the forces and equipment needed and failed to provide a plan for victory.

• Invoke the brass; reclaim the flag. Retired generals are criticizing the civilian leadership that has led the United States into this mess. For Americans, they have enormous credibility as nonpartisan, patriotic experts.