Sharon: The Right Man for the Job

As the saying goes, "only Nixon could go to China." Having spent his whole career building up a reputation as the ultimate fire-breathing anti-communist, Nixon was effectively inoculated against the criticism that would have been heaped upon anyone else had they attempted to normalize relations with "Red China."

Similarly, Ariel Sharon's career uniquely positioned him for the difficult task of removing Israeli settlers from Gaza. As guest contributor Aluf Been observed in yesterday's LA Times:

"It is no small irony that it is Sharon, of all people, who
carries out the task of leaving Gaza. My generation of
Israelis grew to treat him as a reckless user of force,
who launched an adventurous, but morally and politically
wrong, invasion of Lebanon in 1982. In his many Cabinet
roles, he was always the patron of the settlement
enterprise, using the settlers' religious fervor to realize
his concept of topographic superiority over the
Palestinians."

As with Nixon, Sharon's conservative, hawkish credentials gave him a degree of political cover that his liberal and moderate predecessors never had. And to Sharon's enormous credit, he cashed in that political capital to do the right thing, the responsible thing. His courageous decision to withdraw from Gaza has infuriated the far Right in Israel, resulting in countless death threats. But it is nevertheless, clearly the right thing to do. To see a politician do something so contrary to the wishes of his base is a rare thing indeed. And sometimes it's the only way that the really difficult problems ever get solved.

Though much less significant, Bill Frist's recent reversal on stem cell research was another welcome occurence. We're going to need a lot more of that sort of political courage in the years to come if we hope to solve many of the problems our country faces. To take one obvious example, our country cannot continue to run enormous deficits. At some point, taxes will have to be raised. But over the last decade or so, the Republican party has cast itself as the dogmatically anti-tax party. At both the federal and state levels, the GOP has recklessly cut taxes and shamelessly vilified Democrats for opposing these irresponsible cuts. As a result, we are running record deficits at the federal level, and the costs of programs like Medicare and Medicaid are rapidly rising, as is the price tag of the war in Iraq. At the state level, constant tax cutting has left schools, universities, and public services desperately underfunded. We can't keep borrowing money forever. At some point, taxes will have to go up. But because they have been so vilified over the years on this particular issue, Democratic politicians are in a poor position to make the necessary changes. It would be political suicide. Therefore, we will likely have to wait and hope that some responsible Republican politician will eventually "pull a Sharon" and do the right thing. This has already started to happen at the state level, with some Republican governors pushing through much needed tax increases. So long as Bush is in the White House, however, there is little chance of any progress at the federal level. We can only hope that Bush's successor is a little more responsible.