Month: March 2003

“The truth is: Bush’s diplomatic headaches have much less to do with his own poor diplomatic skills than with the simple fact that he is trying ambitious things. Rather than simply forestall crises, postpone them, avoid them or fob them off onto others, Bush is actually doing the hard thing. He’s calling for real democracy in the Middle East. He’s aiming to make the long-standing U.S. policy of regime change in Iraq a reality. He actually wants to defeat Islamist terrorism, rather than make excuses for tolerating its cancerous growth. And when this amount of power is fueled by this amount of conviction, of course the world is aroused and upset.” – more on this theme in my latest column, posted opposite.

Compare the reports in the London Times with the New York Times or the Washington Post (zilch) on the alleged undisclosed drone aircraft buried in the appendix to Hans Blix’s report to the U.N. last week. I don’t know what to make of it. It seems a big deal to me, although the NYT makes a bigger deal about cluster bombs. I’m not an arms inspector, so I’m not sure why this discrepancy in coverage exists.

Glenn Reynolds and Oxblog think I got a little excessive yesterday with my posting on the editorial of the New York Times. I’m not entirely sure why. Of course the Times’ editors are arguing what they genuinely believe is in the interests of the country – and they will continue to do so once the war has started. I never suggested otherwise. But I do think – and I’ve thought from the beginning of this conflict – that we will be extremely lucky not to experience a deep domestic divide in the context of wartime. By domestic war, I simply mean a deep domestic fight over the legitimacy of the war in Iraq. That’s a wrenching experience I hope won’t happen. But in many ways, it already has. To take one simple example: has there ever been a case when a former president has actually publicly undermined a sitting president at a critical time in U.N. diplomacy, essentially advising critical foreign governments to balk at America’s requests on the eve of a war? If someone knows of a precedent for Jimmy Carter’s op-ed, please let me know.

“NOT AS MANY AS BUSH”: On a more minor front, I was walking the beagle on Saturday in my local D.C. park and stumbled across the pretty-in-pink “Women For Peace” demo. The demonization of the president was far more evident than any criticism of Saddam Hussein. In the few conversations I managed to have without losing my cool, I asked some of the demonstrators whether they were aware of how many people Saddam Hussein had killed in his short time on earth. “Not as many as Bush,” came one reply. “America is the true terrorist nation,” another opined. Now I am second to no-one in defending these people’s right to say whatever they believe, and it was a beautiful day for a feisty demonstration. But what can one make of the arguments one hears? Maybe it’s because I’m surrounded by these sentiments, but it’s hard not to wonder what these people will say or do once this particular phase of the war actually gets under way.

ANGER AND FRIVOLITY: And what was with the pink? Are we going to have color-coordinated demos now? I gleaned that the pinkness was some sort of feminist statement – but isn’t the association of women with pretty and inoffensive colors the opposite of a feminist statement? And then a friend forwarded me a first hand reported email from the march. Get a load of this:

Everybody assembled at Malcolm X Park and then marched down 16th street to the White House. I marched with a contingent of local anarchist friends who had formed up the “F.A.G. Bloc.” I spent most of the march carrying one end of a banner that read: “FISTS ARE 4 FUCKING, NOT FOR FIGHTING.” We also had signs that read “MASTURBATE FOR PEACE” and my favorite, “TIT CLAMPS NOT WAR CAMPS.” We were joined at points by the radical cheerleader bloc … If we’re going to have rallies and marches like this, I think this style is the way to go. ;-)

What does one say about this – except that some part of our culture doesn’t even begin to know how to grapple with grave matters of peace and war, life and death?

Finally, after weeks of tortued, incoherent, meandering opportunism, the editors of the New York Times have come to their finger-in-the wind conclusion. No war against Saddam. Here’s their reasoning:

[A] far larger and more aggressive inspection program, backed by a firm and united Security Council, could keep a permanent lid on Iraq’s weapons program. By adding hundreds of additional inspectors, using the threat of force to give them a free hand and maintaining the option of attacking Iraq if it tries to shake free of a smothering inspection program, the United States could obtain much of what it was originally hoping to achieve. Mr. Hussein would now be likely to accept such an intrusive U.N. operation. Had Mr. Bush managed the showdown with Iraq in a more measured manner, he would now be in a position to rally the U.N. behind that bigger, tougher inspection program, declare victory and take most of the troops home.

Let’s unpack that paean to wishful thinking. At bottom, the Times editors believe Hans Blix rather than Colin Powell. They believe that what Saddam is doing – dismantling a few al Samoud missiles – is real progress. They believe the inspections are working in getting Saddam to disarm his chemical, biological and potentially nuclear weapons. And they think that a few hundred more inspectors would finish him off. Well, not quite. They think the threat of force is also a necessary complement to the U.N.’s almighty suasive power.

SHEER ESCAPISM: How does recent history come to bear on this argument? Saddam has given up a couple dozen already declared al Samoud missiles under threat from 250,000 allied troops. The Times wants us to believe that after the United States has taken “most of the troops home,” Saddam will then do everything else we need to keep us and the region secure. Huh? If anything, the reverse will surely happen. As the Times itself reports, Saddam has already interpreted the divisions on the Security Council as an opportunity to demand that economic sanctions be lifted. In other words, even with a quarter million troops breathing down his neck, and war potentially days away, Saddam is confidently demanding a global reward for the minuscule disarmament he has fitfully done. What is the likelihood that after we withdraw most of our troops, he would then do what he has refused to do so far? I’d say: zero. Yet that’s the essential logic of the Times’ editorial. Surely they are not so divorced from reality as to actually believe that. Or do they think that Dominique de Villepin is so intimidating a figure that in conjunction with a few hundred Swedes and Finns, Saddam will buckle?

THE HOME FRONT: The Times also fails to answer an accompanying basic question: do we then retain the sanctions? I see no rationale behind this editorial – except fear of American isolation and what the Times calls the need for a “strong international body to keep the peace and defuse tension.” Somehow, the Times believes that the U.N. will be strengthened by a tyrant observing U.N. Resolution 1441 being abandoned. And such a policy does mean that. 1441 demanded immediate and complete disarmament. Not a new process of years of U.N. “policing” – effectively using the United Nations as a legitimizer of Saddam’s regime, just as it became a legitimizer of Milosevic’s genocide in the Balkans. What, after all, is the difference between this and the 1990s? Nothing. But somehow we all knew it would come to this, didn’t we? The Times has been campaigning for appeasement of Saddam for over a year. The hawkish pirouettes in between were diversions. What this editorial is really about is the first shot in the coming domestic war – to undermine this military campaign once it begins, to bring down this administration, and to advocate the long-term delegation of American power to an internationalist contraption whose record has been to facilitate inaction and tyranny. The Times, in campaigning against war, has actually fired the opening shot in the coming domestic war. Hostilities have begun.

What can account for Hans Blix’s burial of the serious news of a Saddamite drone aircraft capable of deploying chemical weapons on neighboring countries? At this point, I think we have to conclude that Blix is trying simply to stay relevant, to keep his job and extend his role – regardless of his stated mission to verify Iraq’s disarmament. Otherwise this would have been the headline item in his report to the United Nations. (One aside: why is this news not in the New York Times?) The drone could also presumably be used against American and British and Australian troops. Then we have the news that troops may also have to contend with loosely allied terrorist groups within Iraq. Now think about those two things. They prove that a) Saddam has no intention of disarming himself of chemical weapons and b) his regime is a harbor for terrorists. Both pieces of evidence further bolster the reason for war as soon as possible. In fact, I fear that France and Germany’s shenanigans – in allowing Sadam and our enemies to plan for months for war – may directly put Anglosphere troops at risk. This from people whom the New York Times still calls “allies.” If any of this transpires, if France or Germany can be seen to have been complicit in selling weapons that are ulitmately used against American troops, we will shortly not be feeling mere disappointment with our “allies.” We will be feeling rage. Maybe that’s why they want to avoid war so much. They fear what it will reveal. And the American anger it will unleash.

About that caption on a recent BBC piece – “the educated are mainly anti-war” – several readers have pointed out that the poll they relied on had no data on educational level at all. They just made that up to comport with their anti-American condescension. But the polls that do measure such things show nothing of the kind. Here’s how one reader put it:

Take a look at the actual Pew poll results, available as a PDF download here (click on the link “U.S. Needs More International Backing poll” — note the bias inherent in that title as well): If you scroll down to page six in the Acrobat document, you will see a breakdown of war support by various demographic classifications, including by education. The following numbers represent the percent who support military action: college degree, 58 percent; some college, 71 percent; high school degree or less, 71 percent. Only 33% of people with a college education oppose military action (opposition drops to 25% of less at lower levels of education). While the numbers do show that support for the war drops somewhat at higher education levels, they remain predominantly pro-war, and certainly do not support a contention that “the educated are mainly anti-war.” Indeed, even if you accept the presumption that only those with a college degree are “educated,” a very solid majority (58 percent) of this enlightened group support war with Iraq!

The BBC lefties don’t only spin, they lie!

Priceless as usual. Here’s one ideal Bush response to Terry Moran:

And while I agree that ordinary citizens have protested our government in foreign capitals, I’d ask you why American security should be determined by 26 year old Belgian college students, and I’d also note that these rallies have been organized by people who’d dance in the street if someone set off a tactical nuclear device in the lobby of the Monsanto corporate office. But more to the point, Terry, I’d ask: What went wrong in your education that you believe that the disapproval of China constitutes failure?

YOU ON THE PRESS CONFERENCE: Many of you don’t seem to think he looked exhausted:

He just seemed very, very sad that it must come to this. Very sad to have to admit that France and Germany are likely never going to be ‘allies’ of ours again. Forcing the vote will force their hands…they will reveal whether they are with us or the terrorists…then there will be a break. Bush seems full of regret that this break will happen. I think he’s disappointed in Putin, too, whom he trusted. But he didn’t seem defeated to me. Howard Fineman said it best. He was grim, somber, inexorable…he was Shane, the reluctant cowboy, strapping on a gun to protect his family. I didn’t think he looked tired…just terribly regretful and thoughtful.

Sure. But tired as well.

NO MORE SADDAMS: Far from being celebrated as a resister to American power, Saddam is getting less popular in that part of the world:

The latest issue of the Saudi-owned weekly magazine Al-Majalla reports that 500 Egyptians whose parents had named them Saddam have sought legal name changes in recent months. “I was among hundreds of thousands of Egyptians who went to work in Iraq before the (1990) invasion of Kuwait. We saw Saddam then as a leader who loves Arab nationalism and then I had my son and named him Saddam,” the magazine quoted the father of a 15-year-old as saying. “But we were surprised by his invasion of Kuwait and the destruction of Arab solidarity, and he is the one behind our division now and the war that threatens the Iraqi people.”

Imagine how they’ll feel about him once he’s found hanging from a lamp-post in Tikrit.

Man, he looked and sounded exhausted. The spin is that he was trying to look calm and reassuring. I just thought he looked wiped. There were moments when he almost seemed catatonic with fatigue. I gleaned a couple of things: he actually believes that intelligence evidence of Saddam’s deliberate and continued defiance of the U.N. could sway the Security Council. You have to admire his faith in the sincerity of his opponents. Alas, it’s pretty clear by now that the French, Germans and Russians simply don’t care if Saddam is flouting the U.N. They just don’t want American military power exercized in the region – ever again. I doubt if they had videotape of Saddam making anthrax in his bathrobe that they’d agree to enforce their own resolution. I still think forcing a vote is the right thing to do, even if we lose badly. After these past few weeks, watching the extraordinary duplicity and blindness of several Security Council members, I’ve reluctantly come to the verge of hoping that this crisis helps destroy the United Nations as a credible international body. And I don’t think it would harm Bush badly on the home front. His position that it is his duty to protect Americans is a good and solid one. No one will dismiss that argument – especially if we find horrors inside Iraq. I also noticed Bush’s emphasis on a “just” post-Saddam regime, which is not the same as instant democracy. We’ll have to keep the pressure up on that one. All in all, though, this press conference struck me as a mistake. He looked drained, wan, exhausted from this interminable diplomatic process. He seemed defeated to me – and the U.N. has effectively defeated him and protected Saddam. But not for too much longer.

It’s long. It’s brilliant. It’s Camille! At several thousand words.

THE END OF ARAB TOTALITARIANISM? Must read piece fron Amir Taheri in the Jersualem Post: learned, contextual, inspiring. (Alas, registration required.)

BAGHDAD BROADCASTING CORPORATION: I loved this BBC caption about American opinion on the war against Saddam: “The educated are mainly anti-war.” You can’t make this stuff up.

“By invoking regime change as the goal of American policy in early 2002 and repeated public and private statements that the US would eliminate Saddam, the US led with its chin. While I support the goal, the Administration made its belatedly accepted errand of UN backing of the war much more difficult. Most of the world saw, correctly, that the US intended to act regardless of the UN membership’s opinion. This reinforced the already popular view that the Bush Admin was “unilateralist” and fed a sense disingenousness over the invocation of disarmament. If the Administration really did decide in the summer of 2002 to go the UN, that was a mistake. If the Administration knew from the outset that it would go to the UN, its public diplomacy was fatally flawed. In that sense, I think it can be argued that the Administration has clumsily pursued a goal that is in the security interests of the US and the whole world. Wouldn’t it have been better to make publicly the cheesy argument that the UN is a crucial arbiter of international conflict and that the US valued the views and contributions from other nations as it did in 1991? What’s the harm in realpolitik. Yes, it would piss off the ideologues, but this is to damn important to let ideological rigidity get in the way.” – more neoliberal criticism of the president on Iraq on the Letters Page.