New Haven Independent

Lamont, in his first public speech since his defeat in the November general election to U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman, took issue with President Bush’s decision to embark on this “new strategy” in Iraq. He spoke to hundreds of members of Yale’s Political Union.

“It’s the same strategy, just with a few more troops,” he said in regard to President Bush’s proposed “surge” in troop levels. “It’s more of the same, and it’s not working.”

Lamont reiterated his opposition to the continued American presence in Iraq, a stance that gained him widespread support during his campaign to unseat the incumbent Sen. Lieberman. But he stopped short of advocating complete withdrawal from the country and instead made clear that “we have a human, strategic, and political obligation to the people of Iraq” to restore the country to normalcy after the war and long American involvement.

Lamont commended the findings of the Iraq Study Group, chaired by Jim Baker and Lee Hamilton, whose report advocated continued support even while most Americans were removed from the line of fire. As a response to President Bush’s call for reinforcements, Lamont argued for a renewed debate on the merits of the war and called for the creation of a “bipartisan alternative” to the position advocated by the Administration”“which he called “the least likely path to success”“a necessity, he said, given that “the American people do not support the war, and they do not support the surge.”

In that regard, little seems to have changed since last year. “It’s the beginning of ‘07,” he said, “but it looks like the beginning of ‘06.” And he found that many of the ideas he raised in his campaign have become holdovers in today’s discussion surrounding Iraq. “I supported a lot of stuff that’s in Baker-Hamilton but at the time was a lot more controversial.” The problems in the war effort that Lamont showcased during his bid for the Senate still remain open and in need of resolution. He offered a “Top Ten” list of things made worse by the American operations in Iraq, which included his concerns over the financial cost of four years of military operations and the possibility that Americans themselves were in part responsible for the escalating sectarian violence that has bordered on civil war.

When pressed by several audience members on whether the withdrawal of troops might end up facilitating more violent conflict, Lamont responded by remarking how little is really known about the situation in the Middle East and, more particularly, Iraq. “I am certain of no thing, and certainly nothing in that part of the world,” he said. He has little hope that the aftermath would involve Sunni and Shi’a “sit[ting] down together to sing ‘Kumbaya,’” but the present reality placed American soldiers in harm’s way, with the only thing that Sunnis and Shi’ites agree upon being the fact that “it’s okay to kill Americans,” he said.

Again and again, Lamont emphasized his belief in the unlikelihood of finding an American-driven answer to the problems plaguing Iraq. “There is no military solution to the situation in Iraq,” he said”“an opinion, he told those assembled, shared by high-ranking military officials, members of both parties, and “maybe even by Joe Lieberman,” he joked.

The matter of that last election and his then-opponent was oft-discussed, yet Lamont too touched on his plans for the future.

“One of the reasons politicians get so desperate in these campaigns is that they have no other place to go to” if they suffer defeat, he said, before mentioning several works-in-progress. Lamont is slated to teach at Harvard University’s Institute of Politics for a semester; he hopes to complete some policy work for Yale’s School of Management, his alma mater (Class of 1980), in addition to the continued running of his business.

Lamont also declared that he still might have more to do in the public arena, possibly as consultant for an independent policy institute with the means to contribute to policy discussions at the state level, where he has found innovations occurring. Citing the examples of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California and Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, he said, “States are the labs of creative thinking.”

With 2008’s presidential election not too distant, Lamont voiced his support for Sen. Chris Dodd, whose announcement ceremony he attended. Considering the rest of the challengers, Lamont was hardly discriminating, in light of who they would be replacing: “I really like them all. I mean, they’re all so much better than the alternative.”