Month: March 2003

I fully understand the frustration of many with U.S. and U.K. perseverance in the Security Council. But I do think it’s worth it. If, by some miracle, we get a majority and France vetoes, the impact will be huge for the worldwide legitimacy of the war and – just as importantly – for the marginalization of Paris. A few days is worth that effort, even if it fails. But more important, what matters is the appearance of effort. Bush and Blair’s speed-dialing their way around the globe has already flushed something valuable out: the French refusal to countenance any compromise that has a firm deadline for Iraqi disarmament. Blair was particularly smart to send this message out via the Tory leader, Iain Duncan-Smith, helping to rally Middle England behind Blair and against Chirac: “He made the reason for this as the fact that the French have become completely intransigent and literally threatened to veto anything that is put forward to the U.N. Security Council,” Duncan-Smith told the press. I think the British and American public will see this for what it is, and take some of the blame for war off the Anglo-American alliance. I think that’s one reason polls show a sharp uptick in American support for getting this war over with soon. Maybe the British polls will follow. My bet is that Blair will survive a successful war and that such an outcome could even strengthen his hand against the leftists in his party who are resisting real reform domestically. So a short delay is a good thing on the whole. Bush, as usual, is canny enough to see this. Rummy, as usual, isn’t.

Le Monde’s London correspondent pontificates about Chirac’s moral high-ground. But look at all the sensitivity about his country’s place in the world. And check out this admission:

Mr Chirac does not endorse Baghdad, and he finds Saddam’s regime as despicable as do Bush and Blair. But he fears the American hawks will ignite Muslim fundamentalism worldwide. The fear of domestic conflagration and terrorism are also ever-present: there are 6 million French Muslims to take into account.

No mention of the absurd idea that Saddam will disarm more effectively if pressured by Hans Blix rather than the American and British armed forces. Just the simple fact of yet more French appeasement and fear. But more to the point: I don’t think this mouthpiece for Paris realizes he probably added a few points to Blair’s approval ratings. This is becoming not just a war against Saddam but against his allies. Yes, his allies. The French.

MERCHANDIZING MERCHANT: Interesting piece in the New York Times yesterday on Natalie Merchant’s decision to use the web and her own reputation to promote music that would be hard to produce through the big record companies. It’s not exactly the right analogy, but it’s similar to what a few writers are beginning to do to reach readers unfettered by corporate pressure, editorial control or anything but their own freedom. I hope her example inspires others – and increases the musical diversity out there.

Interesting analysis from Charles Davis, former analyst of Soviet military and foreign policy for the Defense Intelligence Agency and National Intelligence Council (found via blogger Titusonenine). It was thinking about Castro that got him to re-evaluate Saddam:

My main reason for opposing war was that I believed that Saddam was deterred from using weapons of mass destruction as both the United States and Soviets were deterred during the Cold War. However, in reviewing the 1962 Cuba crisis, I found that when the United States was putting pressure on the Soviets to remove their missiles from Cuba in 1962, Castro was screaming at Moscow to launch a nuclear attack on the United States from Cuba — even though Castro knew that Cuba would have faced destruction from the U.S. response. This unnerved Khrushchev because he knew the conflict would then probably escalate to full-scale nuclear war. Khrushchev was perfectly willing to threaten to use nuclear weapons but was constrained from using them; Castro, however, would not have been so constrained had he had them.

Interesting to think of a Saddam constrained by the more rational Soviets. And chilling.

THE STOCK SURGE: Why? One view is from, natch, the New York Times: “Markets Rally as a U.N. Vote Is Delayed.” But Reuters, of all places, suggested another scenario: “Stocks Rally on Speculation of Short War.” Take your pick, I guess. But I suspect the latter. This waiting game can hardly be a tonic for investment. But a quick war could send the market soaring.

“The French rejected our tests before the Iraqis. Enough said.” – a British “official” talking to the New York Times. Yep. Enough said. Can we get Saddam now please?

“Oh no, some Americans have changed the name of toast and fries in a pathetic protest of what we feel is an obstruction of our genuine security concerns. How exactly is that a bigger deal than France, this week, officially banning the booing of their National Anthem, an offense now punishable by prison time and cash fines? We Americans may be jingoistic flag-waving primitives, but we’re still allowed to jeer the national anthem.” – from the Letters Page. More jolly frog-bashing <a href = follows.

Some alternative interpretations.

“I do not believe in vile acquittals, phony appeasements, easy forgiveness. Even less, in the exploitation or the blackmail of the word Peace. When peace stands for surrender, fear, loss of dignity and freedom, it is no longer peace. It’s suicide.” – Oriana Fallaci, in her stirring piece in the Journal this morning. It really is a tour de force. I don’t agree with all of it, but I do understand and believe in its fundamental message. We are at war; we are under attack; this new war against Iraq is not a pre-emptive war started by us. It is the second part of a long and perilous self-defense against the forces of Islamism and totalitarianism. In all the petty shenanigans of the new League of Nations, we should try not to forget that, as Fallaci rightly reminds us. Remember, remember the 11th of September. That’s still what all this is about.

Who else do you think this is:

One senior official referred to the frantic negotiations with an epithet and put the blame for the delays on the Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain, who had insisted on the new resolution to gain crucial political support at home.

C’mon, Rummy. Patience. It’s worth another day to get those nine votes. It’s not over till it’s over.

AND AGAIN: Check out this piece from CNN:

To the dismay of the U.S. officials involved, the secret effort [for Iraqi military surrender] was first publicly hinted at Tuesday by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. When asked at a press conference how the Iraqi military could signal support for the U.S. effort, Rumsfeld said, “They are being communicated with privately at the present time. They are being, will be communicated with in a more public way. And they will receive instructions so that they can behave in a way that will be seen and understood as being non-threatening.”

First offending a critical ally, now his own administration. He’s a great defense secretary but his lack of an edit function in public isn’t helping anyone.

THE JEWS: Here’s a quote worth reading:

We charge that a cabal of polemicists and public officials seek to ensnare our country in a series of wars that are not in America’s interests. We charge them with colluding with Israel to ignite those wars and destroy the Oslo Accords. We charge them with deliberately damaging U.S. relations with every state in the Arab world that defies Israel or supports the Palestinian people’s right to a homeland of their own. We charge that they have alienated friends and allies all over the Islamic and Western world through their arrogance, hubris, and bellicosity. Not in our lifetimes has America been so isolated from old friends. Far worse, President Bush is being lured into a trap baited for him by these neocons that could cost him his office and cause America to forfeit years of peace won for us by the sacrifices of two generations in the Cold War.

Chomsky? Moran? International ANSWER? Nah. It’s our old friend, Patrick Buchanan. And it’s an even older charge, dual loyalty. Buchanan goes off on a somewhat deranged tirade – with some truly ugly moments:

Cui Bono? For whose benefit these endless wars in a region that holds nothing vital to America save oil, which the Arabs must sell us to survive? Who would benefit from a war of civilizations between the West and Islam? Answer: one nation, one leader, one party. Israel, Sharon, Likud.

Does anyone else hear the rhetorical echo here of “Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Fuhrer”? It seems to me that it should be perfectly legitimate to talk about the influence of, say, AIPAC, in Washington; and indeed, the force of thinkers sympathetic to the state of Israel on American foreign policy. As Mike Kinsley tartly notes, if AIPAC can boast of its own influence, why can’t others decry it? But the notion that this war needs justification beyond what is obviously America’s and the West’s self-interest seems to me to be paranoid and a little creepy. I’m not going to rehearse all the arguments again – but as a red-blooded British-born Irish Catholic, I need no Jewish heritage to appreciate them. And the fact that Buchanan doesn’t even fully address the broader reasons and instead goes off on a rant against some American Jews is proof enough of where he’s coming from. These are ugly times. And they just got uglier.

The most concise and devastating piece yet on the alternative to war against Saddam appeared in the Washington Post yesterday. If you haven’t yet read it, do so now. Here’s the money quote from Walter Russell Meade:

Sanctions are inevitably the cornerstone of containment, and in Iraq, sanctions kill. In this case, containment is not an alternative to war. Containment is war: a slow, grinding war in which the only certainty is that hundreds of thousands of civilians will die. The Gulf War killed somewhere between 21,000 and 35,000 Iraqis, of whom between 1,000 and 5,000 were civilians. Based on Iraqi government figures, UNICEF estimates that containment kills roughly 5,000 Iraqi babies (children under 5 years of age) every month, or 60,000 per year. Other estimates are lower, but by any reasonable estimate containment kills about as many people every year as the Gulf War – and almost all the victims of containment are civilian, and two-thirds are children under 5. Each year of containment is a new Gulf War. Saddam Hussein is 65; containing him for another 10 years condemns at least another 360,000 Iraqis to death. Of these, 240,000 will be children under 5.

That’s the difference between the French and much of the American “peace” movement. The French are at least candid about their hope that a pretense of disarmament could lead to renewed trade with Saddam. The more legit peace protestors, when they occasionally diverge from haranguing the evils of America, presumably want the sanctions maintained. That’s neither justice nor peace.

Dan Drezner makes a hopeful case for future Iraqi democratization in TNR Online. He looks at over-looked factors such as proximity to emerging demcocracies (Turkey) and the impact of defeat in war:

The area specialists aren’t necessarily wrong; democratizing Iraq won’t be easy. But the conditions aren’t nearly as barren as these experts suggest, and the potential upside is enormous. If a democratic transition were to succeed in Iraq, then Syria, suddenly surrounded by established democracies (Israel and Turkey) and emerging democracies (Iraq and Jordan), might start to feel nervous as well. Combine democratization in the Fertile Crescent with the continued liberalization of Morocco, Bahrain, and Qatar, and suddenly the neocon vision of a fourth wave of democratization spreading across the Middle East begins to look plausible.

I’m not sure I’m as hopeful. But the situation isn’t as hopeless as the State Department makes it out to be. (On that subject, Lawrence Kaplan’s devastation of Foggy Bottom in the current TNR is terrific as usual. But you’ve got to pay up for the piece.)

POSEUR ALERT: “It’s time to create a new vocabulary of dissent, one that makes a clear connection between war fever and thug power. There’s no more urgent task. The dawgs of war are about to be unleashed. Thousands will die, billions will be spent and most of us will have to do with less. These are the wages of following a leader who is strong but wrong. He’s the man; we’re his bitches.” – Richard Goldstein, in the Nation.