Posted on 09/27/2001 9:09:59 AM PDT by ex-snook
Whose War Is This? By Patrick J. Buchanan
In his resolve to hunt down and kill the Osama bin Laden terrorists he says committed the Sept. 11 massacres, President Bush has behind him a nation more unified than it has been since Pearl Harbor. But now Bush has been put on notice that this war cannot end with the head of bin Laden and the overthrow of the Taliban.
The shot across Bush's bow came in an "Open Letter" co-signed by 41 foreign-policy scholars, including William Bennett, Jeane Kirkpatrick, the publisher of The Weekly Standard and the editor in chief of The New Republic — essentially, the entire neoconservative establishment.
What must Bush do to retain their support? Target Hezbollah for destruction and retaliate against Syria and Iran if they refuse to cut all ties to Hezbollah and move militarily to overthrow Iraq's Saddam Hussein. Failure to attack Iraq, the neocons warn Bush, "will consti tute an early and perhaps decisive surrender in the war on international terrorism."
"Our purpose in writing is to assure you of our support as you do what must be done to lead the nation to victory in this fight," the letter ends.
Implied is a threat to end support if Bush does not widen the war to include all of Israel's enemies, or if he pursues the U.S.-Arab-Muslim coalition of Secretary of State Colin Powell. Among the signers is Richard Perle, chairman of Bush's own Defense Policy Board, a key advisory group.
This letter represents one side of a brutal policy battle that has erupted in the capital: Is it to be Powell's war or Perle's war?
A critical decision
The final decision Bush makes will be as historically crucial as Truman's decision to let MacArthur advance to the Yalu, and FDR's decision to hold up Eisenhower's armies and let Stalin take Berlin.
How the president will come down is unknown.
In his address to Congress a week ago, Bush declared: "From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime." The president seemed to be offering amnesty, or conditional absolution, to rogue states if they enlist in America's war, now, and expel all terrorist cells.
Even Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is signaling that what matters is not where nations stood, but where they stand. On Sunday, he said on CBS: "What we are looking at today is how are these states going to behave going forward."
And Powell's coalition is coming together. Whether out of fear or opportunism, Libya, Syria, Iran and the Palestinian Authority have all denounced the atrocities of Sept. 11. Pakistan has joined the coalition. Sudan is cooperating.
But calls for a wider war dominate the neoconservative media. The Weekly Standard's opinion editor, David Tell, wants war not only on past sponsors of terror, but also on "any group or government inclined to support or sustain others like them in the future."
Bennett wants Congress to declare war on "militant Islam" and "overwhelming force" used on state sponsors of terror such as Lebanon, Libya, Syria, Iraq, Iran and even China. The Wall Street Journal wants strikes "aimed at terrorist camps in Syria, Sudan, Libya and Algeria, and perhaps even in parts of Egypt."
On their lists
Terrorism expert Steve Emerson puts Lebanon's Bekaa Valley at the top of his list. Benjamin Netanyahu includes in the "Empire of Terror" to be obliterated: Hamas, Hezbollah, "the Palestinian enclave," as well as Iran, Iraq and Taliban Afghanistan. Tom Donnelly and Gary Schmitt of the Project for the New American Century want Iraq invaded now: "Nor need the attack await the deployment of half a million troops. ... The larger challenge will be occupying Iraq after the fighting is over."
As of now, Bush is laser-focused on bin Laden and the Taliban. But when that war is over, the great policy battle will be decided: Do we then dynamite Powell's U.S.-Arab-Muslim coalition by using U.S. power to invade Iraq? Do we then reverse alliances and make Israel's war America's war?
Allies would be at risk
If the United States invades Iraq, bombs Hezbollah and conducts strikes on Syria and Iran, this war will metastasize into a two-continent war from Algeria to Afghanistan, with the United States and Israel alone against a half-dozen Arab and Muslim states. The first casualties would be the moderate Arabs — Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states — who were our Cold War and Gulf War allies.
The war Netanyahu and the neo cons want, with the United States and Israel fighting all of the radical Islamic states, is the war bin Laden wants, the war his murderers hoped to ignite when they sent those airliners into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
If America wishes truly to be isolated, it will follow the neoconservative line. Conservatives should stand squarely with President Bush — and Gen. Powell.
The problem with your (and Pat's) assessment is that taking out bin Laden and the Taliban is a band-aid.
Pat's bottom line is for the U.S. to withdraw support for Israel, which is not going to happen.
While I don't favor a Western War with Islam, something is going to have to be done about Saddam Hussein before he develops a nuclear weapon.
It isn't our responsibility to perform invasive surgery on the world.
We need to erase those people (and ONLY those people) who dared to murder Americans on American soil and then extricate ourselves from the whole business as quickly as possible.
Iraq's Hussein is developing the weapons of mass destruction and the delivery systems to kill millions. Hussein must be crushed and his WMD destroyed.
The fact is we cannot trust the Arabs. The "coalition" is a foolish mirage and is a recipe for betrayal of America's interests.
Indeed. I used to despise the iconic status Powell enjoyed in this country for doing little other than be an articulate black man -- now I thank God for it. Bush, Powell, and Condi Rice may very well succeed in steering us away from the World War III against Islam that the neocons (and Usama Bin-Laden) so desperately want.
In short, I see merits to both sides -- the "neo-cons", for the most part, have identified the key targets and Buchanan is correct to call for at least discretion in how those targets are dealt with. I would be surprised if this isn't part of the overall mission plan, anyway. The Bush Administration seems to be fighting this from a "total war" standpoint, using covert and overt military action, diplomacy, and shutting down the terrorists' funding. Hopefully, by choosing the correct method for each sub-mission, both the "neo-cons" and Buchanan can be happy with the results.
Glad to have Pat's support, although it means nothing in the long run.
Bin Laden is phase one. You haven't heard Bush or Powell rule out an attack on Iraq at some point, have you?
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