March 25, 2002, issue

A People’s Constitution
By Ramesh Ponnuru

We tend to regard the protection of the Constitution as the exclusive business of the Supreme Court. Indeed, the Constitution is regularly assumed to be identical to the Court's interpretations of it. Politicians and journalists say that policies are "unconstitutional" when all they really mean is that the Court has held those policies to be unconstitutional. But there is an older understanding of the Constitution that holds that responsibility for its protection is shared. If Bush were to veto the campaign-finance bill as a violation of the First Amendment, he would take a small step toward restoring that sound, but now dormant, understanding.

Arab American in Chief
By John J. Miller

James Zogby is probably the most important Arab-American leader in the country — but he's also running an organization that for all practical purposes is an arm of the Democratic party. When the Washington Post described Zogby's recent criticisms of attorney general John Ashcroft, it merely cited Zogby's affiliation with his Arab American Institute, which it called "influential." This is accurate, but the Post failed to note an even more important fact: Zogby campaigned hard for Gore and has given thousands of dollars to Democrats. "I may be partisan, but the institute is not partisan," he insists. But this is a difficult line to walk, and it's not clear that Zogby succeeds at it. His Arab American Leadership PAC regularly gives more than 70 percent of its funds to Democrats, including left-wingers such as Jesse Jackson Jr. and Barbara Lee.

“A Very, Very Bad Bunch”
By Sam Dealey

From its inception over 35 years ago, the People's Mujahedin of Iran has consistently engaged in attacks on American interests overseas. It has killed U.S. servicemen and civilians, and bombed U.S. business offices; it participated in the 1979 seizure of the American embassy in Tehran. A 1994 State Department report indicates that the Mujahedin has trained and fought alongside Iraqi troops on a number of occasions, and that "Saddam Hussein has been one of [its] primary financiers, providing weapons and cash totaling an estimated hundreds of millions of dollars." Yet despite its inclusion on the State Department's select list of global terrorist organizations for the last six years, New Jersey Democrat Robert Torricelli and other members of Congress still fully support the group. Indeed, at least two congressmen — James Traficant, an Ohio Democrat, and William "Lacy" Clay, a Missouri Democrat — wrote to Colin Powell on the group's behalf after September 11.

That Continental Army
By John O'Sullivan

The European Union's Rapid Reaction Force (ERRF) began its current life as a way for Tony Blair to demonstrate his credentials as a "good European" despite Britain's holding aloof from the euro. Britain pledged 12,500 ground troops, 18 warships, and 72 combat aircraft to the proposed 60,000-strong Euro-army. The idea met with immediate criticism: What was the European army for? In what kind of crises would it intervene? And where? The underlying problem is that while the ERRF needs substantial military investment to be a credible force, the European nations want to maintain low defense expenditures. Their armed forces are therefore heavily reliant on the U.S. for such tasks as airlifting troops or electronic spying. Senior soldiers recognize these realities and seek to cut back on potential commitments. But the politicians want the glory of creating a specifically European defense institution — even if it can't defend anything.

When in the Rome Treaty…
Lee A. Casey & David B. Rivkin Jr.

The new International Criminal Court (ICC) would be a first: For the first time in history, an independent international institution would be capable of punishing individual Americans for actions it considers to be violations of international law. It would be unlike the United Nations, in that the U.S. would not have veto power over its actions. Its prosecutors and judges would have the legal right to demand the extradition of any American citizen — from the president himself down to John Q. Public — they believe may have committed any of the offenses identified in the court's statute. These include "crimes against humanity," "genocide," and "aggression" — horrific offenses, to be sure, but defined broadly enough in the ICC treaty to include such ambiguous items as "outrages against personal dignity" and "serious injury to mental health."

Forms! Forms! Forms!
By Theodore Dalrymple

I was asked to tick a series of yes/no boxes: Have I ever been involved in terrorism? Have I ever been involved in sabotage? Have I ever been involved in actions intended to overthrow or undermine parliamentary democracy? On reading these questions, I was prey to a fantasy of almost hallucinatory intensity. I saw Osama bin Laden's lanky form handing out questionnaires on an Afghan mountainside, asking his followers such yes/no questions as, "Have you ever been employed by the CIA or MI6? Have you ever voted in a democratic election? Have you ever been a member of any movement that promoted liberal democracy or equality for women?" Lest Americans imagine that this kind of idiocy is confined to the British, I should perhaps point out that visitors to the United States are asked to declare on their arrival form, by the simple expedient of ticking a box, that they have not engaged in genocide.

Uncle Sam Wants Them
By Rob Long

Last week I discovered, buried in some article, that the average age of the men and women aboard the USS John C. Stennis is 21. Twenty-one. These are young people who, in different circumstances, might be listening to irritating music and getting our orders wrong and driving too fast down our streets. So those who argue, as I do, that the War on Terrorism should be expanded to include Iraq (and why stop there?) are in a bind. We didn't, most of us, serve. We didn't, most of us, even seriously consider it. The closest I came to military service — besides my years as a Boy Scout — was heading to the post office in 1983 to fill out my Selective Service card. It never occurred to me to forgo my years as an indolent, feckless Ivy League liberal for 100 push-ups and getting yelled at by a mean man who didn't respect my personhood.

Ashcroft With Horns
By Jay Nordlinger

After Sept. 11, everything changed, they say — and many things did. The dominant press took a new look at the administration. President Bush — formerly a clueless frat boy — was okay. Donald Rumsfeld — once a Ford-era caveman — was okay too. And Colin Powell, who'd never been not-okay, was even more okay than ever. But John Ashcroft, the attorney general? Definitely not okay — in fact, something of a terror. It could be that the Left needed something to hold on to: something familiar and comforting; something "9/10." And that something was, to a degree, John Ashcroft as devil figure: Ashcroft as threat to the Constitution, as enemy of civil liberties, as representative of dark, religious impulses in the land. It was almost as if, after the planes got through destroying all those people, many said, "The terrorists must be stopped, I grant you. But John Ashcroft must be stopped too!"

The Nukes We Need
By Rich Lowry

The Chinese learned from NATO air campaigns in the Gulf and the Balkans that digging is the best way to counteract NATO's mastery of the air. As for the Russians, they have a tradition of digging going back to the Cold War, with one facility under Yamantau Mountain reportedly as large as the area inside the Washington Beltway. As the war on terrorism has now also become a war on weapons of mass destruction (WMD), this drive underground cannot be ignored. The U.S. is finally — a decade late — taking account of the end of the Cold War by drastically reducing its operational strategic nuclear force from roughly 6,000 warheads to 2,000. But it makes no sense to react to the changed international environment only by scrapping the old force. The arsenal should also be updated to deal with new realities, most importantly by developing an earth-penetrating nuke, designed to target deeply buried WMD sites.

Get Tight
By Mark Krikorian

One important taboo remains: We can't discuss the levels of immigration as a homeland-security issue. Indeed, the idea of any connection between immigration and terrorism continues to be dismissed by many people. INS commissioner James Ziglar, for instance, observed that in discussing terrorism, "we're not talking about immigration, we're talking about evil." He has even employed the "if-X-then-the-terrorists-win" cliché, saying: "If, in response to the events of September 11, we engage in excess and shut out what has made America great, then we will have given the terrorists a far greater victory than they could have hoped to achieve." But there are compelling reasons that a reduction in the legal admission of foreign citizens is imperative for homeland security. The first reason is a very practical one: The INS simply cannot function as it should at the current level of admissions.

Special Energy Section
Oh, No! That ’70s Show — Jerry Taylor
Even if every drop of oil we consumed were to come from Texas, a cutback in OPEC production would raise domestic oil prices just as high as it would if all of our oil were to come from Saudi Arabia. In 1979, for instance, Great Britain was "energy independent": All of its crude oil came from the North Sea. Yet the price spike of 1979 hit Britain as hard as it hit Japan. No country can wall itself off from the world market. Moreover, once oil is in a tanker or refinery, there's no controlling its destination. During the 1973 embargo, some of the oil OPEC exported to Europe was simply resold to the United States; the rest served to compensate for the non-OPEC oil that was diverted to the U.S. market. Then-Saudi oil minister Sheik Ahmed Zaki Yamani later conceded that the embargo "was more symbolic than anything else."

Drilling Is Destiny — William Tucker
Despite improved technology, both American oil production and reserve capacity have steadily declined since peaking in 1970. President Nixon became concerned when foreign oil suddenly jumped from 29 percent to 35 percent of domestic consumption between 1972 and 1973, just before OPEC dropped the hammer; in 2001, we imported 59.2 percent of our oil, the highest in our history. And barring some completely unanticipated development, we will continue to import more than 50 percent of our oil into the foreseeable future. "The real effort should be toward diversifying supply and preparing to deal with sudden interruptions," says John Lichtblau of the Petroleum Industry Research Foundation. "That's why we have the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. We may whittle down the growth in consumption and stem the decline in domestic supplies, but we're never going to achieve energy independence. That dream died with the Carter administration."

Gas and Gasbags… — Henry Payne & Diane Katz
The dust had barely settled on lower Manhattan before calls went forth to relinquish our "gas-guzzlers" in the name of energy independence. The energy package crafted by majority leader Tom Daschle advocates "biodiesels," and even the "oil men" in the Bush administration have advocated doling out millions in research subsidies for hydrogen fuel cells that supposedly would replace the internal-combustion engine. The project, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham announced in January, is "rooted in President Bush's call to reduce American reliance on foreign oil." In fact, the price of oil has declined since Sept. 11, as it consistently has for decades, and with producers scattered all over the world, no single nation or region can stop the flow. But supporters of a comprehensive energy policy seem undeterred by these realities. "Logic," Robert Samuelson writes in the Washington Post, "is no defense against instability."

Books, Arts & Manners
Third Thoughts on Divorce — Maggie Gallagher
For Better or For Worse: Divorce Reconsidered, by E. Mavis Hetherington and John Kelly

Sons of Adamses — Forrest McDonald
America's First Dynasty: The Adamses, 1735-1918, by Richard Brookhiser

Steinbeck Reconsidered — Tracy Lee Simmons
America and the Americans, and Selected Nonfiction, by edited by Susan Shillinglaw and Jackson J. Bensonn

Sunday School for Atheists — Andrew Stuttaford
The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass, by Philip Pullman

City Desk: On the Avenue — Richard Brookhiser on Madison Avenue

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