April
17, 2003, 7:15 a.m. Victory
and After
Where
to go from here.
By NR
Editors
addam
Hussein’s regime is dead, as the man himself may be. Three weeks of war
freed Iraqis from his tyranny, and the region and the world from the threat
it posed. Our coalition has suffered only 154 casualties. Dictators from
Damascus to Pyongyang are newly fearful of American power and resolve.
And we are confident that the dead regime’s weapons of mass destruction
will soon be found and destroyed. This is a victory in which President
Bush, Prime Ministers Blair and Howard, our armed forces, and the people
of America, Britain, and Australia can take pride. As Brink
Lindsey noted on his website, America’s response to the brutal murder
of its citizens was not to strike out blindly for revenge. It was “to
liberate 50 million people in Afghanistan and Iraq from two of the most
hideous tyrannies on earth.”
Opponents
of the war are now saying that they never doubted that it would be won so
easily. But this is simply untrue. Politicians, journalists, and retired
generals opposed to the war made inflated projections of bodybags coming
home. The risk of war for American troops was, indeed, the most popular
argument that opponents of the war made. The idea that we were in a quagmire
was also the point they made most relentlessly once the fighting had started.
They were foolish then, and they look it now. Some of these people made
the same predictions before the first Gulf War; they clearly do not learn
from experience. But the rest of us should know not to trust their judgment
in future foreign-policy controversies.
Those controversies
are already coming upon us. Although we have won a great victory, this
is not a moment for resting on laurels. We still have to find and destroy
the regime’s weapons of mass destruction. The war on terrorism is still
going on, and we face many challenges — and temptations. The public
may be tempted to believe that we can return to pre-9/11 normalcy, and
the Bush administration may be tempted to think that it should now turn
its attention almost exclusively to domestic issues. We hope that the
president will soon make a prime-time address making it clear that these
temptations will be resisted. We are not, and should not be, looking for
new military battles to fight. But we do need to remain engaged in changing
the political order of the Middle East.
The immediate challenge
is, of course, to bring order and governance to Iraq, followed by humanitarian
assistance and reconstruction aid. Some looting and chaos following the
Baathist regime’s collapse was to be expected, and is not a black mark
on America’s record. But it needs to be brought to an end. The debts incurred
by the old regime should be voided, and sanctions lifted. The State Department
and the CIA continue to snipe at Ahmad Chalabi, an Iraqi democratic leader,
claiming that he lacks popular support (something that is indisputably
true of the various generals and thugs whom the CIA has preferred to Chalabi).
Nobody is suggesting that America install Chalabi or an associate in power.
But he and other democratic leaders should be given the chance to prove
themselves, to demonstrate and build whatever support they can. We should
welcome help from other countries and even from the United Nations, so
long as they do not interfere with a process of democratization for which
many of them lack enthusiasm.
We should also reject
the fantasy, popular in some quarters, of a permanently demilitarized
Iraq. We want a free Iraq to be a peaceful one, but it is in a tough neighborhood
and will need to be able to defend itself.
The larger challenge
is to create a new, non-totalitarian political order in the Mideast. We
may be able to exert a positive influence on the region through forms
of pressure short of war, the exemplary force of our operation in Iraq,
and, we hope, the spillover effects of Iraqi liberalization. The tough
rhetoric from the Bush administration toward Syria is a welcome sign that
we intend to use the troops we have parked next door to modify its behavior.
At the same time, it may be wise to demonstrate that we have no relish
for occupying Arab states by quitting Saudi Arabia. The strategic logic
of our troop presence there no longer applies.
Many Americans,
and even more Britishers and Europeans, believe that solving the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict should also be on our agenda. Oddly, this advice is usually given
by people who also warn us to avoid hubris in the Middle East. We can
continue to urge Israel to halt the settlements, and to urge the Palestinians
to reform their government. But we should not encourage the illusion that
we can solve this conflict.
Finally, there is
the vexed question of our relations with Europe — or rather, with
European nations. Here our policies should be guided neither by a petty
desire for revenge against France and Germany nor by the felt diplomatic
imperative to make nice. Our interest lies in strengthening the power
of our friends in Europe and marginalizing our foes. That means that we
should continue to cultivate our ties to Eastern Europe. It also means
that we should stop encouraging the centralization of political power
on the Continent. For several years, we have told Eastern Europe to join
the European Union and have blessed the EU’s efforts to devise a common
defense and foreign policy. It is hard to imagine a European policy more
perversely counter to our interests. And it is time for the Bush administration
to show the same boldness and imagination in its approach to alliance
diplomacy that it has shown, to such good effect, in Iraq.
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addam
Hussein’s regime is dead, as the man himself may be. Three weeks of war
freed Iraqis from his tyranny, and the region and the world from the threat
it posed. Our coalition has suffered only 154 casualties. Dictators from
Damascus to Pyongyang are newly fearful of American power and resolve.
And we are confident that the dead regime’s weapons of mass destruction
will soon be found and destroyed. This is a victory in which President
Bush, Prime Ministers Blair and Howard, our armed forces, and the people
of America, Britain, and Australia can take pride. As 
