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 "If this is a war, and I believe it is since they have declared
war on us, we need to declare war on them," Republican White House
hopeful Jeb Bush said in New Hampshire on Tuesday.
Until this fall, U.S. politicians had been wary of invoking war
after two costly and protracted conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Americans had simply had enough.
But now, after deadly attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, Bush and
many of his fellow Republican candidates are peppering their
speeches with the highly charged word to cast the threat posed by
Islamic State in stark terms.
And it's not just glib rhetoric. Opinion polls suggest that
Americans, more fearful after the attacks and looking for strong
leadership, may now be more receptive to such language, even though
the candidates have been careful not to say much about what the
United States should do to prosecute such a war.
The Republicans' rhetoric is in stark contrast to that of President
Barack Obama and the leading Democratic presidential contender,
Hillary Clinton. They are largely avoiding the word over fears that
IS propagandists could seize on it to suggest the West is at war
with Islam itself.
 “This is not, and we should not let it become, a clash of
civilizations," Clinton said on Sunday. But even as she cautioned
against being drawn into war, she too used militaristic language.
"The vast majority of Muslims are on our side of the battle unless
we drive them away,” she said.
Republican candidates have not felt so constrained.
“We need to come to grips with the idea that we are in the midst of
the next world war,” New Jersey Governor Chris Christie said at a
forum last week in Washington.
Senator Marco Rubio of Florida has said he would support Congress
formally declaring war on IS, while Senator Ted Cruz of Texas has
said, “We are at war” and that “we have a president who doesn’t
recognize the enemy who has declared war on us.”
Donald Trump, the front-runner for the Republican nomination, on
Tuesday defended his proposal to ban all Muslims from entering the
United States, saying the country was at war, and that President
Franklin D. Roosevelt had behaved similarly during World War Two.
"You see a little bit of an under-reaction from the Democrats and an
overreaction from some of the Republicans,” said Vin Weber, a former
Republican congressman from Minnesota and a member of the Council of
Foreign Relations.
If voters remain fearful of an attack, Republicans will hold the
advantage, Weber said.
"As long as the threat is real in their minds they are more with
Republicans," he said. "If the threat fades they will be more
inclined to want to avoid the chance of renewed conflict (in the
Middle East)."
 WAR-WEARY NO MORE?
Amid the din of battle cries, what is not clear is whether the
candidates talk about "war" because it is an easy three-letter word
that trips off the tongue, or whether it is part of a deliberate
strategy to tap into a jittery electorate.
“It harkens back to the politics of fear and national security that
we saw in 2002 and 2004 that George W. Bush used,” said Brian
Katulis, an analyst with the left-leaning Center for American
Progress. Republicans increased their majority in Congress in the
2002 midterm elections and Bush won re-election to the White House
in 2004.
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The candidates clearly view voters as hungry for a more aggressive
tone and Americans no longer as war-weary as they were in the 2008
and 2012 elections, when Obama ran - and won - on promises of ending
the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
A Washington Post/ABC News poll taken last month after the Paris
attacks in which 130 people were killed in suicide bombings and
shootings showed almost 60 percent of those surveyed believe the
nation is “at war with radical Islam.”
And a Reuters/Ipsos poll taken last week showed that voters view
Republicans as having a better plan to combat terrorism than
Democrats by 35 percent to 20 percent, even though the party's
presidential candidates have been reluctant to commit to ramping up
large numbers of U.S. ground forces in the region.
Congress, which hasn’t formally declared war since World War Two, is
debating whether to pass a new Authorization of Military Force that
would provide congressional sanction to prosecute the conflict
against Islamic State.
CHALLENGE FOR CLINTON
In the meantime, Democrats are "struggling to try to find the enemy
while not painting all Muslims with a broad brush," said Jim Manley,
a former top aide to Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada.
On the issue of terrorism, the Washington Post poll showed voters
trust Clinton more than any other candidate in either party. Yet it
also suggested voters were losing faith in Obama on the issue, with
just 40 percent of Americans saying they trust Obama to handle
terrorism.
That places further pressure on Clinton to distance herself from
Obama’s foreign policy by talking tougher about Islamic State, while
also keeping some distance from the world view of her Republican
opponents.
Future45, a Super PAC funded by conservative billionaire Paul
Singer, launched an ad campaign on Tuesday hammering Clinton for her
role in crafting the administration’s policy on Syria when she was
secretary of state. The ad will run on cable news networks and
online in key primary states such as New Hampshire.
“As our ad lays out, she made real decisions that had long-term
consequences in Syria,” said Dan Conston, a spokesman for the group.
“She is not without responsibility.
(Additional reporting by Steve Holland Amanda Becker; Editing by
Caren Bohan and Ross Colvin)
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