Another useful column by Jim Hoagland in today’s Washington Post comparing the Clinton and Bush approaches to multilateralism. The former asked the allies first, delayed committing ground troops, preferred limited and ultimately counter-productive strikes, and talked endlessly. The latter commits the U.S. immediately, consults with his close allies (Britain and Russia), always pledges ground troops if necessary, and then watches as other allies – Germany, Italy, France – race to join in. The other difference, of course, is that Bush has wisely never promised an easy ride – or consulted the polls to find one. It seems clear enough to me that this war is only just beginning. It will soon encompass Iraq, and may well include targets in Africa. Because Bush commits the U.S. first and then asks the allies if they wish to follow, he doesn’t need to engage the tortured and usually fruitless efforts to bring every ally aboard before doing anything. If he stays the course, the contrast between his successes and the failures of the past will only deepen with time.
STRATEGERY: Check out my latest column on Bush’s war management opposite. My apologies for not updating the letters page for a few days. I’ve been swamped with work.
HARVARD SIGNS UP: In a fascinating sign of the times, Harvard’s new president, Lawrence Summers gave a speech last week – barely covered in the national media – that seems to me a cultural milestone. “The post-Vietnam cleavage between coastal elites and certain mainstream values is a matter of great concern and has some real costs,” Summers said in an interview with the Crimson. “The United States is engaged in a conflict that is very widely seen as between wrong and right, fear and hope, and is without the moral ambiguity of Vietnam,” he went on. Hard to see his predecessor saying something that bold. Summers even brought up the thorny issue of allowing ROTC back on campus since it was banished in the 1970s. The military’s policy of persecuting gay servicemembers is one reason a reconciliation hasn’t yet taken place. But Summers clearly wants a rapprochement. “[This crisis] provides an opportunity for some reconciliation of values,” he added. With any luck, the military will at some point return the favor. We need our elite universities providing the military and intelligence services with the best the country can offer. And we need a military that will not destroy talent for an anachronistic relic of discrimination.
AS IF I HAD NEVER READ A BOOK: The full text of Leon Wieseltier’s account of visiting Ground Zero, which I quoted from last Saturday, is now up on TNR’s website.
MORE ORWELL FOR TODAY: “The mentality of the English left-wing intelligentsia can be studied in half a dozen weekly and monthly papers. The immediately striking thing about all these papers is their generally negative, querulous attitude, their complete lack at all times of any constructive suggestion. There is little in them except the irresponsible carping of people who have never been and never expect to be in a position of power.” – England Your England, 1940.
A HAMAS ODE TO ANTHRAX: Here’s a charming “open letter” from a regular columnist for the Hamas Weekly. Usually the columnist writes open letters to various prominent politicians or terrorists. For his latest screed, according to MEMRI (scroll down to item 297), he addressed his thoughts to anthrax: “Oh Anthrax, despite your wretchedness, you have sown horror in the heart of the lady of arrogance, of tyranny, of boastfulness! Your gentle touch has made the U.S.’s life rough and pointless. You have filled the lady who horrifies and terrorizes the world with fear, and her feet almost fail to bear [her weight] in horror and fear of you. Because of you, she has lost confidence in the moment in which she lives, or in which she will live. You have entered the most fortified of places; [you have entered] the White House and they left it like horrified mice … In sound mind, I thank you and confess that I like you, I like you very much. May you continue to advance, to permeate, and to spread. If I may give you a word of advice, enter the air of those ‘symbols,’ the water faucets from which they drink, and the pens with which they draft their traps and conspiracies against the wretched peoples … Turn the bodies of the tyrants into matches burning slowly and gradually, so that they understand that the truth belongs to Allah and that they should give those entitled to rights their rights.” This is one of the most convincing arguments for extending this war to all such Islamo-fascist terrorist entities that threaten the West.
The Dish 