Restraint Returns
A bad policy.

March 13, 2002 8:20 a.m.

or the last eleven years, the United States has taken action in the Middle East, and made demands on Israel, that have weakened Israel's national security and contributed substantially to the daily murder of her citizens by Palestinian terrorists. I fear that the Bush administration's traveling down the same bloody road.

Prior to the commencement of the Gulf War in January 1991, President George H. W. Bush and Secretary of State James Baker, with the backing of then-Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Colin Powell, were so concerned about keeping Arab states (including a terrorist state like Syria) in a U.S.-led coalition against Iraq that they imposed an extraordinary demand on Israel: If Israel is attacked by Iraq, she must not respond. Even though the U.S. knew Saddam Hussein had deployed SCUD missiles within reach of Israel and that he had threatened to use chemical weapons against her, Israel was to do nothing.

Iraq did, in fact, launch 40 SCUDs at Israel. Throughout the attacks, Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir was warned by President Bush to adhere to his policy of "restraint." Shamir had little choice but to comply.

The first Bush administration was obsessed with its Gulf War coalition the way the character Colonel Nicholson was obsessed with building and protecting The Bridge on the River Kwai. It became an end in itself. But the Arab states knew the Iraqi SCUD attacks on Israel were a ploy by Hussein to strip them from the coalition, and there was no evidence they would have pulled their relatively small numbers of troops from the field.

Surely Saudi Arabia, which the U.S. was protecting, and Kuwait, which the U.S. was liberating, had no such intentions. Egypt gave no indication it would bolt. Jordan sided with Iraq without any supposed provocation from Israel. And the military outcome would have been the same had no Arab state remained in the U.S.-led coalition.

While Iraq was driven from Kuwait, Hussein was not driven from power. Even more problematic for Israel, the first Bush administration's restraint policy survived as well. Indeed, from that time forward, it has been invoked by the U.S. to blunt the deterrence of Israel's military might and the certainty of her swift retribution, including in Israel's dealings with Yasser Arafat.

In recent years, Israel has withdrawn from Jericho, Gaza, and Hebron in pursuit of "land-for-peace." She was prepared to hand over the Golan Heights to Syria for assurances of peace, which were not forthcoming. Israel also pulled out of southern Lebanon, which had served as a buffer zone against missile attacks from terrorists linked to Syria. And, of course, 20 months ago, ex-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered Arafat over 90 percent of the land he had formerly demanded, including a significant portion of Jerusalem, all of which was rejected.

America's restraint policy today has evolved into a morally vacant process where brutal terrorist acts against Israeli citizens — at bus stations, shopping malls, market places, restaurants, community centers, teenage night clubs and toy stores — are treated no differently than Israel's acts of self-defense.

This is best illustrated by administration officials' comments over the weekend. After several days of some of the worst terrorist savagery in years, Secretary of State Powell said on CBS's Face the Nation that "this is the time for both sides to exercise maximum restraint. ..." On NBC's Meet the Press, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice said, " ... without making any judgments about Israeli efforts to defend itself, we're simply asking all parties to create better conditions for peace .…"

These comments are ominous for Israel. President Bush came to office as a critic of his predecessor's peace efforts. During his campaign, he even promised to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital. More recently, with his announcement of the Bush Doctrine — which commits the U.S. to fighting terrorism and terrorist states — Israel had every reason to expect America would abandon the restraint policy.

Just as restraint is not an appropriate policy in response to terrorist attacks against U.S. citizens, it is no more effective or moral when imposed on Israel.