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speak, with some justification, of yesterday's war with Afghanistan.
There are disruptive days ahead, without question, but the military
enterprise is over. And the whole of the sentient world hangs on,
asking: What next?
Why anything
next? Because, of course, when Mr. Bush formulated the national
purpose in response to the New York/Pentagon attacks, he said it
whole: We will chase down the aggressors and their network,
and those governments that give shelter to them are governments
with which we will contend. Later, the president focused direct
attention on the government of Iraq. He said that the attempted
development in Iraq of ultimate weaponry (atomic, bacteriological,
chemical) was not something we could safely assume had been arrested
by the United Nations commission that was permitted intermittent
searches after the Gulf War. What he did not go on to say is what
now keenly needs to be said, namely, Here is what the United
States is going to do about it.
It's worth
reflecting on very recent history, featuring the same country and
the same leader. When Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, President Bush
maneuvered to get the United Nations Security Council to vote a
resolution to the effect that Iraq should retreat from its aggression.
In November of 1990, President Bush did two things. He urged that
the U.N. set a deadline (January 15, 1991) for Iraq's removing its
army; and, at home, he ordered the Defense Department to double,
from the initial 200,000, the number of U.S. troops mobilized to
enforce the U.N. resolution. At the time, George Ball, who had served
as undersecretary of state for Kennedy and Johnson, declared that
the president had gone from a resolution to an ultimatum, and that
ultimatums historically served as preludes to war. Moreover, he
said (Mr. Ball was very assertive in manner), "ultimatums are
a decidedly 'non-Arab' procedure. The Arab peoples do not like irrevocable
decisions that may lead to violence. There is an old Middle Eastern
saying that if an Arab should ever cross the Rubicon, he would pick
up the Rubicon and take it so that he could cross and recross it,
as events evolved."
Well, as events
evolved, we did go to war, we won it with minimum casualties, and
now, eleven years later, we need a new ultimatum.
The formulation
of it requires that we demand what the morally intelligent public
worldwide would understand — complete, unfettered access to
Iraqi laboratories. But also, the ultimatum must specify that Saddam
Hussein be removed from any cockpit from which he could give military
or political directions that would obstruct our purpose. In short,
the ultimatum should require Saddam Hussein to remove himself from
office.
To where?
That is a matter
of detail. In this space a few weeks ago St. Helena loomed as an
appropriate cloister. And arrangements could reasonably provide
for aides of whatever reasonable size he wished, excluding only
access by them to electronic communications.
Now ultimatums
should be believable. The ultimatum to Hitler in 1939 that he leave
Poland alone or face war from Great Britain and France did not protect
Poland, but the threat was carried out; war was declared. If it
is (roughly) correct that our bombing resources have increased by
a thousand to one since using them against Hitler, they have, incredibly,
increased by a factor of ten to one since first using them against
Saddam Hussein. What this means is that whatever Hussein's distribution
within Iraq of his inventory of weapons, we can in quick time immobilize
Baghdad, and the work of an invading army would be quick and decisive.
Two days after we began to act on our ultimatum, Saddam Hussein
would be dreaming of the pastoral delights of St. Helena.
The ultimatum
is the honorable means to proceed on our agenda. Few Americans question
the historic mandate of our country at this critical point in the
evolution of organized violence. This is this generation's Manhattan
Project. Al-Qaeda has got to be demolished, and the civilized way
to go about it is to give the enemy a reasonable alternative. Via
ultimatum.
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