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 he
tired voices of past criticism are now using the present pause in
the war to postulate another American predicament. Oddly, learning
nothing from the immediate past, they are beginning now to advance
a second-generation of pessimistic prognostications. These new myths
are as fallacious as were their earlier parent legends about the
Afghan winter, the Arab street, the sanctity of Ramadan, and so
on.
Now we are
told an attack against Iraq will supposedly inflame the Muslim world.
Toppling Saddam Hussein will cause irreparable rifts with the Europeans
and our moderate allies, and turn world opinion against America.
Almost all these identical arguments were used against our decision
to bomb the Taliban. Earlier in the campaign against Milosevic,
we were likewise once warned that public opinion in the Orthodox
states — Russia and Greece particularly — was running
90 percent against our action and thus could only lead to permanent
estrangement from such critical countries. In fact, both are now
more embarrassed than proud that they ever supported such a murderer
in the first place. Yet according to our present critics, the past
lessons of a freed Panama, a freed Grenada, a freed Kuwait, a freed
Serbia, a freed Bosnia, a freed Kosovo, and a freed Afghanistan
— all at little cost in American or civilian dead — can
only mean that we shall prove both weak and amoral in freeing Iraq?
In fact, recent
military history has confirmed the wisdom of the ages: Armed action
is judged simply on two criteria — morality and effectiveness.
Had we quit in Serbia, Milosevic would not now be on trial. European
Muslims would still be dying; and Americans would still be on the
receiving end of years of moral censure. Similarly, the world said
little when we acted against the Taliban because they knew our cause
was just and we won. Had we carelessly slaughtered innocent civilians
or failed to rout Mullah Omar, we would still be listening to lectures
in the U.N. General Assembly. If we fight successfully in Iraq,
waging a devastating campaign that distinguishes Saddam Hussein's
thugs from the Iraq people, we will be as quietly praised as we
are publicly upbraided.
The Greek idea
of hubris is on everyone's lips — as if Oedipus-like, after
ridding the neighborhood of the murderous Sphinx, our conceit is
now leading us to a predestined rendezvous with Nemesis. The conventional
wisdom of our Theban chorus of critics is that we are now blood-drunk
on our victories and thus seeking a self-righteous and perpetual
war against inequity — cynically either to guarantee large
defense budgets at home or to expand American hegemony abroad.
The opposite
is more likely true. If we practice diplomacy and military action
creatively and forcefully, in the future we can be far less
visible and active in the Middle East than we are now. The key is
to make our current enemies into friends and in some sense our present
"friends" into enemies. Should Hussein leave Iraq —
a secular and wealthy state — and the people craft some sort
of moderate government, there would be three immediate and beneficial
effects. We would end U.S. belligerent action in the skies over
the Gulf; Iraq would serve as a model and catalyst for Iranian reform
next door; and we could exit Saudi Arabia and put the Gulf sheikdoms
on notice that what transpired in Baghdad can and should happen
to them.
Our goal eventually
is to help establish regional moderate governments that reject both
autocracy and fundamentalism, and thereby do not serve as sanctuaries
for those who kill Americans. Just as the removal of Milosevic was
critical in the formation of a post-Cold War moderate Eastern Europe,
so too a change in Iraq might foster a similar spread of sanity
in an otherwise insane region. No doubt, future reform governments,
after being liberated by direct and indirect U.S. action, will prefer
to look to Europe, and resemble more the quasi-socialist governments
there than our brand of unfettered democracy and capitalism. We
could care less.
Since our ultimate
aims are simply to provide stability in the region, consensual government
is the only ultimate mechanism for bringing American combat
troops back to our shores. If we want Americans closer to home and
peace in the region, we can neither have friends like the Saudis
nor enemies like the Iraqis and Iranians. We can confront them all
now or later, but ultimately confront them we must. These are regimes
— like the other "axis" Korea — who in a few
years will be willing and able to kill millions of us. None of them
are impressed by a Tomahawk missile, a U.N. resolution, or a few
million dollars in American bribe money.
As we enter
the cold war against terrorism, suddenly we are hearing once again
from European diplomats. Their renaissance is mind-boggling: wrong
about everything from the abrogation of the ABM treaty to the bombing
in Afghanistan, Phoenix-like they now have arisen from the ashes
of past prattle to lecture us that we must go it alone on Iraq.
But surely, if the past is any guide to the present, this is prima
facie evidence that we are exactly on the right course. As we have
seen since 9/11, the Europeans have shown a new type of amorality,
in some ways every bit as pernicious — but far more insidious
— than their past creed of imperialism and colonialism. Embracing
cultural relativism, utopian internationalism, and moral equivalence
as apparent virtues, what really is the litmus of European ideology
is instead simply inaction and a rather crass utilitarianism.
If future action
against Iraq implies complications and costs, the Europeans will
demur — citing concerns for morality rather than sacrifice
— only to become its greatest patron and trading partner should
we rout Saddam Hussein. If the Israelis decide that they have had
enough of suicide bombers and surround the pistol-packing Mr. Arafat's
house, the Europeans will call for replacing Mr. Sharon — fearing
everything from more terror in Paris, harassment of Europeans abroad,
lost business, and possible oil disruptions emanating from an unstable
Palestine. If there is a need for peacekeepers from Bosnia to Kabul,
the Europeans will pose as the real moralists — as long as
the expensive, hazardous, and unpopular prerequisite work of ridding
evil is first accomplished by Americans. And so it is reductionist
but nevertheless true that we can almost gauge the morality and
wisdom of our own action by the degree to which EU diplomats and
bureaucrats oppose it.
After the campaign
in Afghanistan, some warn that we now find ourselves over committed
and languishing in a "quagmire." The American people,
in a more sober and judicious fashion, are purportedly waking up
to what we have gotten ourselves into in this war against terrorism
and the "axis." In truth, support for Mr. Bush's action
even after nearly six months of war is still steady at about 85%
approval rating. The U.S. military is stronger, not weaker, after
its war against the Taliban — a textbook example of how to
wage a deadly campaign across the globe without incurring numerous
American and civilian casualties.
The real problem
on our campuses and in our media is that so far Afghanistan has
proved no Vietnam. Mullah Omar was not Uncle Ho; bin Laden was as
hairy but not as smiley as Che. A few stray bombs on an al Qaeda
stronghold did not make a My Lai. B-52s were somehow different this
time — same plane, but weird new smart and accurate bombs.
Johnny Walker makes a poor Rosenberg or Hiss. The recent movie Black
Hawk Down was hardly the easily caricatured Green Berets. Prayer
mats and Fruit Loops at Guantanamo were not Tiger Cages. Noam Chomsky
and Susan Sontag are now as likely to be in the AARP as screaming
in the campus quad. And Jane Fonda at her age could hardly pose
with a Stinger in a cave, miles from the nearest camera — more
likely to be groped than kowtowed to by her hosts. Our thirty-something
pilots and special forces are not naïve 18-old-year draftees
of the past. Nor is Mr. Rumsfeld a McNamara or Mr. Bush a Texan
LBJ. The Taliban lacks red-starred caps, Mao-suits, and the cute
phrases of The National Liberation Front.
And so just
as in the first lull between Sept. 11 and Oct. 7, we are now in
another — completely natural — breathing spell between
the end of the organized resistance on Dec. 18 and more challenging
operations in the months ahead. Skeptics here and abroad keep waiting
— or rather hoping? — for that one great American blunder
to come, but so far the American people aren't holding their breath.
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