Hosni Mubarak, president-for-life of Egypt, called Ariel Sharon a “fatso,” saying, “I hear he eats an entire lamb for dinner.” Well, actually, if you read the Arab press, you know that Sharon really bloats himself on the blood of Arab children.
It’s bad enough that the New York Times is using both its news and editorial pages to crusade against Bush administration policy toward the “axis of evil.” It has run front-page stories on the negative economic effect of a war with Iraq and on the “setbacks” caused by “Bush hard-liners” to warmer ties with North Korea. Now the Times has gone further, trying to recruit Henry Kissinger to its side of the argument. In a confused front-page story, the former secretary of state was said to have made a “break” with the administration over Iraq. But Kissinger has expressed his support for preemptive action against Iraq. His “break” with the administration consisted merely of an admonition that an attack on Iraq should not be contemplated unless America is willing to do what it takes to ensure that a postwar Iraqi government is both peaceful and viable. Bush, Rumsfeld, et al. have hardly disavowed such a goal. There is, however, one respect, not mentioned by the Times, in which Kissinger differs from the administration. He believes that a demand for weapons inspections should be the prelude to an attack on Iraq. Vice President Cheney believes, as we do, that inspections would provide only “false comfort,” since the Iraqi regime has evaded them in the past. But this is a tactical, not a strategic, difference. Kissinger has not joined the anti-war hard-liners at the Times, and they will simply have to find a new story. May we suggest a piece on the economic effect of Saddam’s taking over the Arabian peninsula?
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