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May
29, 2002, 1:35 p.m. By NR Editors, from the June 17, 2002, issue of National Review |
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rom
the beginning, the comforting thing about the war on terrorism has been
the assumption that the U.S. would win. How could we not, given our enormous
wealth and military power, and the backwardness of al Qaeda and the countries
associated with it? But political will isn't so easily quantifiable. As
President Bush's will has seemed to flag, he has suffered a loss of momentum
on all fronts: He appears to have been distracted from pursuing regime
change in Iraq by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; Pakistan has been
returning to old habits, releasing many of the militants it arrested at
the start of the year and allowing jihadists — in a possible provocation
to war with India — to continue to cross the border into Kashmir;
and the U.S. uniformed military leadership has reportedly succeeded in
at least postponing, and may be trying to kill off entirely, a U.S. invasion
of Iraq.
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This last item is the most disturbing, and is another sign that America's military leadership can be unimaginative and backward-looking. The uniformed bureaucracy successfully resisted Donald Rumsfeld's efforts to wrench the military from its taste for 1970s- and '80s-era weapons systems last year, and it is fighting a rearguard action against them still, even after the demonstration of the effectiveness of the new-generation military in Afghanistan. The tussle over Iraq appears to be another front in this civilian-military battle, with the generals trying to make policy instead of simply executing it.
That said, the Joint Chiefs may have legitimate worries. They reportedly say there aren't enough refueling planes to support a sustained air campaign against Iraq, because those planes are so old and rickety (one third are in repairs). They also are said to worry about having to keep tens of thousands of troops in Iraq after the war, given other commitments around the world and their belief, repeatedly stated publicly, that the military is already short 50,000 troops. This is the "hollow" military that Republicans complained about in the 1990s coming home to roost, as U.S. forces feature an odd combination of fantastic technology, personnel shortfalls, and rust-bucket equipment. The longer President Bush goes without addressing this problem with even larger defense-spending increases than he has proposed, the more it becomes his responsibility, rather than Bill Clinton's.
Also, the military can't be blamed for not relishing the idea of sending U.S. troops into battle against an adversary armed with chemical and biological weapons. But this should reinforce the urgency of toppling Saddam's regime. Liberals have long told us that we needn't bother to develop a missile defense because the possession of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) by a rogue state wouldn't deter the U.S., but instead make it certain that the U.S. would launch a preemptive attack. Well, now we have a real-world test — and the U.S. is indeed being deterred. A WMD capability has now become that much more valuable to every rogue state around the world. Just imagine if Saddam definitely had nuclear weapons — the Joint Chiefs probably wouldn't even want to think about invading. This is why President Bush said "time is not on our side."
It isn't just Saddam's WMD capability that should prompt the U.S. to rid the world of his regime as soon as possible, but the fact that his ouster can be just the beginning of an effort to transform the Middle East and to root out Islamic radicalism at its sources. It would give the U.S. the foothold to work on toppling, or radically changing the behavior of, Tehran, Damascus, Riyadh, and their client, whoever that may be at the time (Arafat or some other Palestinian strongman), in Ramallah. Bush will repeatedly have to overcome the forces of inertia or timidity in Washington, and around the world, to pursue this task. If the initiative can be lost — as in fact it has been — it can also be regained.
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