Month: March 2003

Check out this advertisement recently published in the Weekly Standard:

The text is not what I’m getting at. I’m all for the right to free speech – even hateful hysteria. But the imagery is truly shocking. It’s out of Der Sturmer. It’s portraying a gay priest as an animal, a wolf or a dog. It descends into the most vicious anti-gay stereotypes – the limp wrists, the foppish clothes, the clerical cape. If the equivalent kind of image of a black person – huge lips, Afro hair, bongo drums, etc. – or of a Jew – hook-nosed, money-counting, devious – were presented to a respectable publication, it would never see the light of day. Yes, it’s an ad. But even ads are vetted for basic standards of taste and decency. This one is a piece of Goebbels-style hatred. And yet the Standard’s editors seemed to have no problem with it. How depressing.

From the email in-tray:

I’m out on the street smoking a cigarette and this black dude, wearing a “No War Against Iraq” T-shirt and a bag on his shoulder, comes up to me and asks, “Sir, are you against the war or for the war?” “For the war,” I say, at which point he pulls a T-shirt out of his bag that says, “Kick Saddam’s Ass!,” and tries to sell it to me. I said, “No thanks,” and he moved on. Is this a great country or what?

A similar thing happened to me at the “Women For Peace” march last Saturday. I asked one of the button-vendors if he had a “Go Saddam!” button. He said he didn’t, but it might be a good seller. Then as I walked away, shaking my head, he yelled back: “We’re gonna kick that guy’s ass!” He seemed quite enthusiastic about it. War profiteers. It says something about where we are that they’re almost reassuring. More letters can be found here.

Alan Cowell’s report from London on the alleged precariousness of Tony Blair as prime minister is a masterpiece of hyperbole. If you know anything about British politics, you will immediately recognize the people quoted upfront in the piece as extremists of various sorts. Tam Dalyell is described as a “maverick.” He’s actually a far-left extremist, whose visceral anti-Americanism is legendary. To make him your source in your lead while consigning the second most important figure in British politics, Gordon Brown, to the last paragraph is simply bizarre. The inference is that left-wing MPs could simply vote Blair out of office. But Blair controls the committee which would allow such a vote to take place and it’s solidly behind him. Clare Short, for her part, is not in any sense “influential,” as Cowell describes her. She too is from the pacifist left of the party, and Blair’s decision to ignore her has been widely viewed in London as a sign of Blair’s strength, not his impending demise. Cowell concedes there is no threat to Blair’s parliamentary majority. To get a measure of where opinion currently hangs, check out the Guardian this morning – one of the major press opponents of his policy. It still dissents but accompanies this with admiration of Blair’s honesty. Of Blair’s political future, the Guardian opines:

For his pains, hot and furious criticism has been heaped upon his head, sometimes in this newspaper. It is possible that the damage will be lasting, possible that his standing is permanently impaired. But there is one thing Mr Blair cannot be accused of: he may be wrong on Iraq, badly wrong, but he has never been less than honest.

That doesn’t sound like the sound of an impending coup to me; and a few calls to London this morning confirms this. Yes, some far-left Labour party members would be happy to see him go. But even the Daily Telegraph concedes that the left agitators “[a]t present represent a small but vocal minority and there is no sign yet of widespread support for challenging the Prime Minister.” I’m not saying Blair isn’t in trouble. He’s far more exposed than Bush. But the tenor of the New York Times’ story reeks of Rainesian intervention to me. Cowell must know this story is excessive. But his editors have a war to undermine.

Yesterday, I suggested that in some ways, we’re headed backward toward the nineteenth century. This stimulating, long, essay by Lee Harris in TCS argues the opposite: that weapons of mass destruction together with fantasist Islamism or nihilist totalitarianism make our predicament completely and world-historically new. I wish I could see a way to rebut this theory easily, but I cannot. I’ve learned a lot from Robert Kaplan’s analysis of a complete security breakdown in whole parts of the globe; what I haven’t put together coherently in my own head – because I’m afraid to? – is what the combination of world anarchy and destructive technology could lead to. In the past, we conceived of the threat of warfare coming from rival states which had built up various means of economic and thereby military strength. But now we have the reality of completely weak states, or parasitic states, or failed states or neo-states (like al Qaeda) getting nukes by buying them, or stealing them or smuggling the component parts. They can also find ways to detonate them anonymously so that the civilized world is incapable of rational response or even rational deterrence. It seems to me that the chances of something like this happening are extremely high.

THE PRE-EMPTIVE OPTION: Which leaves us with very few good options. But the obvious one is pro-active pre-emption: going in and getting rid of such regimes and entities, destroying them, or occupying them. But doing so – invading terrorism-sponsoring states, before they have formally attacked us – violates the basic principles of the international order we have understandably come to cherish. So we have a profound – and new – conflict between security and sovereignty, between a catastrophe-free world and international law. You might be able to find a way to square this cricle if all the civilized countries in the world agreed about the nature of this new threat and exercized collective security against rogue states – but it would have to be collective security with one standard for the civilized world and one for everywhere else. Our current U.N. (which includes rogues states and makes no distinction between them and others) naturally doesn’t recognize such a double-standard. Moreover our civilized partners simply don’t believe that the threat is that grave. Even after 9/11, even many Americans don’t believe the threat is that serious. This is therefore the key context of our current impasse. Europeans simply don’t believe that we’re living in a radically more dangerous and unstable world. Or they think that mild measures can temporarily solve the problem – like porous and largely inneffective inspection regimes in Iraq. So we are at a deadlock. And if we cannot get consensus on Iraq – with umpteen U.N. resolutions and the precedent of a previous unprovoked war – what hope is there of getting consensus if Iran’s mullahs go nuclear? Or North Korea’s nut-case gets several nukes? Or someone else out there we have yet to hear from decides to go to heaven via a suitcase nuke in L.A.?

A DISMAL THOUGHT: I’m left with the conclusion that we will only get such a consensus in favor of pre-emption after the destruction of a major Western city, or a chemical or biological catastrophe. In this sense, Blair and Bush may simply be ahead of their time. And what they see as the potential threat is so depressing and terrifying that it’s perhaps only understandable that the world for a while will wish to look the other way. The truth is and we may as well admit it: we have failed to convince the world, just as Churchill failed to convince the world in the 1930s. And as 9/11 recedes a little, we are even tempted to falter in this dreadful analysis ourselves. The difference between now and the 1930s, of course, is that we may now have Churchill in office – but before the world has become convinced of his rectitude: history repeated as a deeply tragic farce.

STILL, SKEPTICISM: To add to the complications, we may be right about the basic analysis but wrong in this particular case. Perhaps North Korea is more potentially dangerous and therefore worthy of more immediate attention than Iraq. We live in an opaque world, however good our intelligence, however solid our leadership. I liked this point of Harris’s:

Once the world-historical magnitude of the risk is understood, it is possible for men of good will to differ profoundly over the wisdom of this or that particular response – and not only possible, but necessary. But this must be done in a climate free of pettiness and personalities: the cult of naxefve cynicism – that oxymoron that characterizes so much of what passes today for intellectual sophistication – must be dismantled and as soon as possible if we are to make our response as intelligent and as creative as it must and can be. To call prudence appeasement is wrong. But to call the United States’ response a bid for empire is simply silly.

I’m a little chastened by that criticism. Some on the far left and right are indeed appeasing, or even sympathizing with the enemy. Others on the near left are putting partisanship before strategic clarity. (Others on the left are fully clear-sighted about what is at stake.) But some criticism of our Iraq policy is well-intentioned and based not on denial but mere prudential disagreement. On balance, I think war against Saddam now is essential. In fact, in retrospect, I fear we may have lost a lot by not going to war unilaterally months ago. But the most important thing – and this is the main import of Harris’ essay – is to remember the new realities we’re all trying to make sense of. Just because they’re truly terrifying doesn’t mean we can safely try to forget them. And it is impossible to keep that context clear in our minds without also constantly remembering that day eighteen months ago. There really is a connection between 9/11 and Iraq – at the deepest and most meaningful level imaginable. We may endure more such days before we summon the will to do what we have to. Or we may have the luck and the leadership to prevent it. I’m praying for the latter.

I’m a big fan of Donald Rumsfeld. But really his outbursts are getting out of hand. What on earth was he thinking when he opined that it was “unclear” whether the coming war would be undertaken alongside the British? The U.S. is desperately trying to build support for a war against Saddam and Rumsfeld has inadvertently kicked the most solid ally in the teeth. He achieved many things at once: he emboldened the left-wing critics of the war in Britain, undermined Blair at a critical moment, and, in some British eyes, devalued the importance of the British military contribution. Rumsfeld later retracted the remarks, but the damage has been done. This is an extremely delicate diplomatic moment and Rumsfeld has all the subtlety and restraint of the new superbomb. He must simply understand the wisdom of shutting up at moments like this. And Bush must tell him.

I’m back to daily delivery of the New York Times, so I get to digest it all at once, uninterrupted, over coffee on the couch, on dead tree. The editorial page today gives us small snippets of an entire world view. Just a sprinkling herewith. Here’s Kristof on American response to terror:

When the White House looks at Iraq, all it sees is hidden weaponry. It never notices the seething complexities in which we are about to embed our young men and women.

I’ll leave aside the notion that complexities can somehow “seethe.” Does Kristof actually believe that no-one in the administration has given any thought to the problems of governing a post-Saddam Iraq? Notice he doesn’t say they are under-estimating the problem. He says they never notice it. Only a New York Times writer is smart enough to see that. Then here’s the economic expert, Krugman, on the looming deficit:

[R]ight now the deficit, while huge in absolute terms, is only 2 – make that 3, O.K., maybe 4 – percent of G.D.P.

I take Krugman’s broader point about the deficit, and agree with it. But why such contemptuous sloppiness? There’s a critical difference between 2 and 4 percent of GNP. Isn’t there? Or take the lead op-ed, dripping with condescension toward people whose faith leads them to see some divine providence in human affairs. But it also includes more simple untruths:

So the White House and its backers can safely predict that the unpleasantness [of this war] will be over in a few weeks, with low casualties on both sides.

When has the White House said this? The piece doesn’t substantiate it because it can’t. What I’m getting at is not the validity of critiques of the administration. Or even turning the Times into a partisan platform. What’s dismaying is the sheer reckless condescension of the rhetoric, the assumption of Timesian omniscience, the contempt – not just disagreement – with which they view an administration grappling with some of the most difficult issues any administration has had to grapple with in recent times. It’s ugly and it’s cheap. And it’s getting uglier and cheaper all the time.

“I am astonished that this story has generated so little comment. Does the U.S.A. actually need 12,000 illiterate African Muslims at this point in time? There are, of course, all sorts of taboos in play here–the immigration taboo, the Muslim taboo, the race taboo, so perhaps I should not be astonished. But can’t we at least talk about this? Presumably Americans, a humane and compassionate people, would like to have some kind of refugee policy: but is this the one we want? If there has been any large public debate about this, I missed it.” – John Derbyshire, National Review Online. From time to time, I get emails advising me to rename this award for right-wing hyperbole. And then Derb makes a statement like this. He wonders why Americans aren’t outraged at the fact that a group of Africans, persecuted for centuries, now have a chance of freedom in the new world. Derb, that’s the meaning of America. After all this time, do you still not get it?

My friend Michael Ledeen may be a little too gloomy about the future of Franco-American relations, but he’s right to note how this crisis is spawning some very old phenomena. It’s long been a dictum of “realist” foreign policy analysis that shortly after one great power arises, another just as surely emerges to counter-balance it. In the past, that has meant militarily – but it could also be expressed diplomatically. Since the end of the Cold War, realists have been waiting for this to happen, but couldn’t see how. China is still too militarily weak. Terrorist Islam operates on an asymmetrical level, but, as we saw in Afghanistan, it’s still vulnerable to conventional military superiority. But if combined with the diplomatic and economic clout of the fading Euro-Asian powers – France, Germany and Russia – it could still manage some kind of balance. That, perhaps, is what is happening now. But, of course, these old powers are riding a terrible tiger in Islamist terror, hoping it will eat them last, terrified it is actually in a stronger position to devour them first. The counter-balancing alliance is therefore real but also terribly fragile. Certainly far more fragile than the shared values and military power of the Anglosphere. I think we should think of this riveting period as a time when new alliances are being tested for future use. Some might work; others won’t. But that makes it all the more important to keep our nerve and make this war so successful it deters such potential hostile alliances from taking root.

HITCH ON THE POPE: I laughed out loud several times reading Hitch’s latest. Money quote:

One wonders what it would take for the Vatican to condemn Saddam’s regime. Baathism consecrates an entire country to the worship of a single human being. Its dictator has mosques named after himself. I’m not the expert on piety, but isn’t there something blasphemous about this from an Islamic as well as a Christian viewpoint? I suppose if Saddam came out for partial-birth abortions or the ordination of women or the acceptance of the homosexual lifestyle he might be hit with a condemnation of some sort.

He also homed in a wonderful piece of inanity from that most inane of creatures, Jimmy Carter: the term “substantially unilateral.” Why didn’t Howard Dean think of that?

SONTAG AWARD NOMINEE: “Quite probably the worst thing about the inevitable and totally unjustifiable war with Iraq is that there’s no chance the U.S. might lose it. America is a young country, and intellectually, emotionally, and physically, it has been exhibiting all the characteristics of an adolescent bully, a pubescent punk who’s too big for his britches and too strong for his age. Someday, perhaps, we may grow out of our mindless, pimple-faced arrogance, but in the meantime, it might do us a ton of good to have our butts kicked. Unfortunately, like most of the targets we pick on, Iraq is much too weak to give us the thrashing our continuously overbearing behavior deserves, while Saddam is even less deserving of victory than Bush.” – novelist Tom Robbins, Seattle Weekly.

CNN has it as its lead headline. Can Howell keep spinning for de Villepin indefinitely?

PRECEDENTS FOR JIMMY: Thanks for your many emails. Here are two that cover the bases of post-presidential meddling:

Jimmy Carter is, fittingly, in the company of two other presidential runts: John Tyler and Millard Fillmore. John Tyler actively favored secession and went on to serve in the congress of the Confederacy until he died in 1862. After inadvertently destroying his own party and leaving himself no vehicle for nomination, Fillmore, a notorious bigot, left office in 1853. He returned three years later and ran for president on the anti-anyone-but-white-Protestants platform of the Know-Nothings. Shortly after Lincoln’s assassination, an angry mob, recalling Fillmore’s pro-slavery, anti-Lincoln machinations, surrounded Fillmore’s Buffalo, NY mansion and forced him to splatter the mansion exterior with black ink and to hang black crepe. (New York in those days resembled The Simpsons’ Springfield – angry mobs always at the ready and requiring little incitement.) Tyler and Fillmore are all but forgotten to history. I suspect the same fate awaits Mr. Carter.

Then there’s Teddy Roosevelt:

Before the Cold War/World War II, however, I can think of former President Teddy Roosevelt’s critiques of Wilson’s foreign policy decisions during the neutrality period (1914-1917). Roosevelt was much more to the right on the question of Germany’s attacks on our shipping and urged that Wilson use a firmer hand with the Germans. Wilson, not certain that he had the support of the entire country for war just yet, was not particularly interested in picking a fight just yet. Carter is not Roosevelt; TR was calling for firm action, not greater passivity. Still, the Wilson administration had a devil of a time placating TR’s supporters in Congress. After Wilson brought us into war in 1917, TR actually volunteered for form another unit like the Rough Riders. Wilson politely ignored this. Although it would be a massive public relations stunt, I can’t see Carter forming a brigade of human shields, however firm his convictions against Bush’s actions.

Carter as a human shield? Oh please, please.

EVEN PRETTIER IN PINK: Here’s an anti-Lysistrata chick-hawk. Who says you can’t make love and war?

FAIR-WEATHER HAWKS: The Mickster has a great post on all those Democratic hawks who have suddenly decided it’s getting far too nerve-wracking to stay in the game. So long, Josh! Been nice hanging for a while. That’s not to say I don’t respect Josh’s reasoning. Unlike others, he offers an actual alternative: keeping a quarter of a million troops in the Gulf for months, accepting Saddam’s chemical and biological weapons, and asking the French to help pay for it. But that alternative is so transparently pie-in-the-sky it’s hard to take it seriously.

This weekend was full of foreboding. How could it not be? I was lucky enough to be at a wonderful wedding, but even there, the talk was of whether this was another 1914. Were we about to cross a Rubicon that could escalate beyond our control? Could the president carry a divided country through the difficult military terrain ahead? Was a catastrophe in a major American city an inevitability? Would war against Iraq hasten it? But these questions, however worthy, are unanswerable. What is answerable to some degree is whether we have a real alternative to war. Not even Dominique de Villepin believes the current inspections regime can go on for ever. But we know something now that we didn’t know even a month ago. We know that even with the threat of imminent war, backed by 250,000 troops and a president who clearly threatens conflict with credibility, the inspections are not achieving meaningful disarmament. Saddam is that cool. Moreover, he is still upping the ante. He’s angling for lifting of sanctions. He’s dismissing concerns about weapons that are clearly illicit. He’s not even disarming at any serious pace the token missiles he has agreed to destroy. So even with maximum pressure, he’s playing for time. To be sure, we don’t have absolute maximum pressure. We have a divided security council, massive peace demos and papers like the New York Times already bailing on a united front. But even so, the pressure on the dictator must surely be intense. This much is certain: even if we could keep 250,000 troops in the region indefinitely, no future containment regime will ever be as effective as it is now, which is to say it isn’t effective at all. (Philip Bobbitt makes a related point in the New York Times today.) So our practical choice is either war very shortly or the long-term toleration of a free Saddam, able to buy weapons, buoyed by having stared down the U.N. once again. In other words, I think we’ve essentially tested the limits of international pressure on Saddam Hussein; and the results cannot guarantee security at any credible level for any reasonable length of time. What more do we need to know?