April
3, 2003, 11:40 p.m.
Tired Refrain
The Appeasement
Movement’s not surrendering.
he Appeasement Movement has not quite given up on its campaign to convince
Americans that the war in Iraq is going badly amiss. But some members,
at least, are recognizing that this line of argument grows decreasingly
persuasive with each American victory on the ground.
And so, for example,
Ohio congressman and Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich is
now saying that the U.S. shouldn't be waging war at a time when "we
can't assure retirement security for older Americans." (One wonders:
Did Charles Lindberg ever make that case to FDR?)
Kucinich also is continuing to assert that America is "going it alone
in the world community," taking "unilateral" action against
Saddam Hussein.
It's time to put this tried-and-untrue notion to rest, once and for all.
There is nothing remotely "unilateral" about U.S. foreign policy
in regard to Iraq.
The current conflict, as even Kucinich should recall, has its roots in 1990
when Saddam attempted to swallow Kuwait, along with every last drop of its
oil. President George H. W. Bush assembled a coalition of nations that,
with explicit U.N. Security Council approval, drove Saddam back to Baghdad.
(By the way, that was an exceptional event: The Security Council has given
its approval for the use of force on only one other occasion, the Korean
War — and then only because the Soviet Union was boycotting and therefore
did not exercise its veto.)
Having accomplished the mission, the U.S.-led coalition decided not to dislodge
Saddam, not to make him pay for his aggression or for his crimes against
humanity including, for example, his mass slaughters of Iraqi Kurds and
Shiites.
No peace treaty was signed, but there was a ceasefire — contingent
on Saddam agreeing to conditions. Among them: He was never again to commit
mass murder or otherwise brutalize the Iraqi people, and he would surrender
his weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
Saddam agreed to the conditions — then proceeded to flout them. He
also expressed his gratitude for the leniency shown him by President Bush
by attempting to assassinate President Bush in 1993. In response, the U.N.
issued more resolutions and imposed economic sanctions on Iraq. None of
which stopped Saddam from doing whatever he chose; none of which stopped
Saddam from preparing for the next battle in the epic struggle that, he
declared, had begun in 1990 but was far from over.
In the aftermath of 9/11, President George W. Bush recognized that Saddam
would have to be stopped, one way or another. For an American leader to
continue to turn a blind eye to an anti-America megalomaniac developing
WMD, he realized, would be irresponsible. He understood, too, that when
Saddam got ready to deploy those WMD, terrorists would provide a handy —
and hands-off — delivery system.
That Saddam has conspired with terrorists for years is no longer in doubt.
The CIA has documented Saddam's terrorist training camp at Salman Pak, southeast
of Baghdad, complete with an airplane fuselage in which hijackers learn
their trade. Terrorist mastermind Abu Nidal called Baghdad home for years.
Saddam has been a generous investor in Hamas and similar organizations.
When American troops and pro-American Kurdish partisans stormed an Ansar
al-Islam camp in northern Iraq a few days ago, evidence of al Qaeda links
were all over the place. And in testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee
on February 11, Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet stated plainly:
"Iraq has in the past provided training in document forgery and bomb-making
to al Qaeda. It also provided training in poisons and gasses to two al Qaeda
associates."
U.N. Resolution 1441, painstakingly negotiated by Secretary of State Colin
Powell, unambiguously gave Saddam one "final opportunity" to surrender
his WMD. Saddam chose not to avail himself of that opportunity.
It's true that France and Russia then decided to undermine 1441 and the
16 other resolutions passed since the suspension of the Gulf War. They did
so for several reasons, not least that they have been making good money
selling weapons to Saddam in flagrant violation of U.N. prohibitions they
claim to support.
So President Bush assembled a "coalition of the willing" —
more than 40 nations that support (1) toppling Saddam, (2) destroying his
WMD and (3) liberating the Iraqi people.
Whatever you want to call all that, it's hardly "unilateral."
But even if it were, what would be the alternative? Presumably it would
be a "multilateralism" construed to mean not a coalition of like-minded
nations acting in concert — as in the present conflict — but rather
America granting to the U.N. Security Council the exclusive power to legitimize
the use of force.
Does anyone really think that Jacques Chirac, Vladimir Putin, and presumably
also the rulers of such micro-states as Guinea and Cameroon should have
the right to grant or deny the U.S. permission to send its troops to defend
its vital security interests or to stop egregious violations of human rights?
We know where such multilateralism leads. We have experience to draw upon.
It led to Osama bin Laden's hijacking of Afghanistan. It led to the killing
fields of Cambodia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Somalia, and Rwanda. It leads to Zimbabwe,
where a nation is being ruined by a racist dictator. In all these cases
and so many more, the U.N. has done nothing remotely useful or constructive.
Are members of the Appeasement Movement really making a case for such multilateralism?
They'd be better off returning to Kucinich's argument that the U.S. should
refrain from fighting terrorism until and unless we can "assure retirement
security for older Americans."
— Clifford D. May, a former New York Times
foreign correspondent, is president of the Foundation
for the Defense of Democracies, a nonprofit think tank on terrorism,
and an NRO contributor.
<% dim printurl
printurl = Request.ServerVariables("URL")%> 
he Appeasement Movement has not quite given up on its campaign to convince
Americans that the war in Iraq is going badly amiss. But some members,
at least, are recognizing that this line of argument grows decreasingly
persuasive with each American victory on the ground.
