Iraq: Republican Presidential Candidates Struggle With the War

May 13, 2015 5:54 PM EDT

Jeb Bush still doesn’t know how to talk about Iraq.

The all-but-certain Republican presidential candidate’s strategy for handling his trickiest political inheritance has swung wildly in recent days, earning criticism from both sides of the aisle.

On Saturday the former Florida governor appeared to say he would have supported the 2003 invasion of Iraq even if he knew weapons of mass destruction weren’t present. By Tuesday, Bush was backpedaling, claiming he “misheard” the question. And by Wednesday he was punting, arguing against answering “hypothetical” questions about a war that claimed 4,491 U.S. lives.

No candidate this year is haunted by that conflict like Bush, who must weigh political and familial considerations. But he’s not alone in his struggles. In a campaign dominated so far by foreign policy themes, GOP presidential hopefuls are increasingly torn between the need to project toughness and the need to acknowledge what many voters see as the defining error of the last Republican commander-in-chief.

It’s a balancing act driven by the demands of the electorate. Years of surveys show the American public’s rejection of a war launched on faulty intelligence: a 2014 NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, for example, found 71% of voters thought the war “wasn’t worth it,” compared to just 22% who thought it was. At the same time, the tumult rippling across the Middle East—from the rise of the Islamic State (ISIS) to the unrest in war-torn nations like Libya, Syria and Yemen—has rejuvenated the nation’s hawkish impulses. A succession of polls this year suggest most Americans support sending ground troops to fight ISIS.

As a result, GOP candidates have embraced anew a muscular foreign policy that had atrophied for much of the Obama presidency. Promises to calm the chaos of the Middle East have dominated early candidate cattle calls, while tough talk on Iran has taken the place of Obamacare as a stump speech fixture. Even Sen. Rand Paul, who advocates a restrained foreign policy as part of the party’s more isolationist wing, introduced an amendment to significantly boost the defense budget. After announcing his presidential bid in April, the Kentuckian posed in front of a retired aircraft carrier in the port of Charleston to repeat his call. On a recent trip to South Carolina, Sen. Marco Rubio invoked Liam Neeson’s avenging promise from the movie Taken: “We will look for you, we will find you, and we will kill you.”

Photos: Meet America's Top 10 Political Families

Bush Family Portrait — The Bush family dynasty begins with Prescott S. Bush, who represented Connecticut in the Senate from 1952 to 1963. His son George H. W. Bush served as Vice President, Director of the CIA, and President from 1989 to 1993. His son George W. Bush was governor of Texas and, from 2001 to 2009, President of the United States. George W's brother Jeb served as governor of Florida and is thought to be a possible contender for the White House in 2016. Getty Images

George Bush On Family Vacation — Then Vice President George H. W. Bush sits with his sons George W. and Jeb while vacationing in Kennebunkport, Maine, in August 1983. Cynthia Johnson—Getty Images

Politics Personalities. USA. pic: May 1963. Washington D.C. President John F. Kennedy, right with his brother the Attorney General Robert Kennedy. John F. Kennedy (1917-1963) became the 35th President of the United States serving 1961-1963. — Joseph P. Kennedy was a multi-millionaire, U.S. ambassador to Britain and the patriarch of a political dynasty that included his sons pictured above, Robert Kennedy (left), U.S. Attorney General, U.S. Senator and candidate for President assassinated while campaigning in 1968, and John F. Kennedy (right), President of the U.S. from 1961 until he was assassinated in office in 1963.Rolls Press/Popperfoto/Getty Images

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Dick Cheney Poses For A Family Photo — Cheney's daughters Liz (left) and Mary (right), pictured here at home in Wyoming in 1978, had a highly public row later in life, when Mary, who is gay, called out Liz for refusing to support same-sex marriage.David Hume Kennerly—Getty Images

US - 2012 Elections - Romney Town Square Rally — Both George Romney and his son Mitt rose to national political prominence but neither held the top job. The elder Romney, who served as Governor of Michigan, ran unsuccessfully for the GOP nomination in 1968. Mitt Romney served as Governor of Massachusetts and secured the Republican presidential nomination in 2012. He was defeated in the general election. Getty Images; Corbis

George W Romney — George Romney announced his intention to run for governor of Michigan, with his son Mitt and his wife Lenore by his side, on February 10, 1962. RDA/Getty Images

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Stewart Udall family — The large Udall clan also includes local officials, congressmen and state legislators. AP

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America’s original political dynasty, the Adams family had a hand in some of the most consequential events in the country’s history. John Adams was a member of the Continental Congress, a signatory to the Declaration of Independence, and served as America’s first President from 1797 to 1801. John Quincy Adams became the first son of a President to become President, serving from 1825 to 1829. National Archives/Getty Images (2)

The bellicosity is one element of a broader strategy that includes also blaming President Obama for the mess in the Middle East and tethering Bush to his older brother. “If we knew then what we know now and I were the president of the United States, I wouldn’t have gone to war,” New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie told CNN. Paul told the Associated Press that Bush’s comments represent “a real problem if he can’t articulate what he would have done differently.”

“Knowing what we know now, of course we wouldn’t go into Iraq,” Sen. Ted Cruz told The Hill.

Rubio went even further in an interview Wednesday at the Council on Foreign Relations. “Not only would I have not been in favor of it, President Bush would not have been in favor of it. He said so,” he said.

Turning Iraq into a centerpiece of the campaign is fraught with risk for Republicans, who have wrestled with the demons of a misbegotten war for a decade now. In 2004, the GOP made support for the conflict into a proxy for patriotism and rode the decision to victory in the presidential election. But by 2006, Democrats regained control of Congress amid the persistent casualties and growing sectarian violence sweeping Iraq.

Two years later, Obama’s early opposition to the war helped vault him past Hillary Clinton in their epic primary contest. He then used Sen. John McCain’s outspokenness for the war against him, mocking McCain’s suggestion that there might be an American presence in Iraq for 100 years. In 2012 Obama won re-election while highlighting his commitment to end the war.

But as the stability of Iraq crumbled in the wake of Obama’s troop withdrawal, Republicans sensed they could regain the upper hand. GOP candidates have criticized Obama for not leaving a larger security force in place to support the Iraqi government. Party strategists believe the path to the presidency hinges in part on an ability to disavow George W. Bush’s mistakes while blaming Obama for making the mess much worse.

Recognizing it won’t be easy, some of the party’s presidential contenders are treading lightly. In a speech laying out his foreign policy vision Wednesday, Rubio only briefly alluded to Iraq, implying that Obama’s troop drawdown was too swift and invoking “Afghans worried that America will leave them like we left Iraq.”

The delicate balancing act is sharply different from the strategy employed by the likely Democratic nominee. After years of standing by her vote to authorize the war, Clinton wrote in her 2014 memoir that she “got it wrong. Plain and simple.”

It was a reflection of how the politics of the issue had shifted—and may be shifting still.