CHANGING THE GAME

New York Young Republican Record ^ | MAY | by Richard Brownell

[paltz]

Now that military operations in Iraq have come to an end, assessments will be rolling in from every direction of the political compass. We'll be seeing a fair amount of Monday-morning quarterbacking, particularly from the gloom-and-doom armchair generals. (They're so popular, that phrase is now part of the lexicon) There will be the occasional shocked and awed apology from a pundit or two. As far as the anti-Bush movement is concerned, where you'll find the bitterest of anti-war demagogues, mutterings about how things will get worse and could have been better will pollute the airwaves.

But this Second Gulf War is more than just a case of America once again proving her detractors wrong. The view from the foreign policy landscape could prove it to be nothing less than a reckoning for our opponents in the War on Terror. This nation demonstrated the sincerest commitment in seeing that Saddam Hussein was removed as a liability to the freedom and safety of his people. And we are working to establish a fair government in Iraq, a government that will be by and for the Iraqi people.

There was no bloody protracted duel in the streets of Baghdad. The desert was not set on fire and there were no thousands of American soldiers killed. Weapons of mass destruction were not used and the massive terrorist reprisals have yet to materialize (Knock on wood at the end of this sentence). There has been looting and there has been civil disorder, but food is rolling into the country, and the infrastructure of the country is coming back online.

So, now that the arguments about the war are over, we have moved right into the arguments about the peace, with nary a "Good job, guys," to be heard except among fellow coalition forces. And establishing a new government in Iraq will not be easy. There is an ages-old blood feud between hard-core Sunnis and Shiites that you'd have to hit the history books to understand. There are still Saddam sympathizers taking shots at American soldiers. There are mothers complaining about no water, and Iranian clerics and Saudi Wahhabis are pouring over the borders to stir up the already bubbling pot. France, Germany and Russia still want to play hardball about the whole thing; threatening to maintain the UN sanctions they protested to have lifted years ago. And everyone seems to want us out. We want to be out even more, but naturally not many believe that. But we cannot just leave the country to the wolves; it would defeat the purpose of everything that we have gained to this point. And we may have gained more than just toppling Saddam.

The end of the Iraqi dictator's regime was a glass of cold water in the face of the other countries of the region like Syria, which was pugnacious enough about their own WMD program to get them bumped up a few spots on our nonexistent hit list. A nation known to cater to the dark forces of international intrigue, Syria has been a fair-weather friend to the United States in the War on Terror. Like many other Middle Eastern countries that loathe us, and some other nations in South Asia, they throw us a few bones - a weapons cache here, a patsy there - in the hopes that we will leave them alone and forget their own complicity with the terrorists. Hezbollah has been a longtime guest in Syria, but when the country's young and impressionable leader, Bashar Assad, also let wanted Iraqi war criminals into his country, there developed a problem. There have been talks between Secretary of State Colin Powell and Assad, and the outcome is uncertain. But our diplomatic efforts in the region are now significantly weighted by our success in Iraq.

The Middle East "Road Map", which garnered skepticism since its announcement, also got a boost out of our victory in Iraq. Mahmoud Abbas became Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority, forcing Yasser Arafat to share power. Arafat, who is at the nadir of his political usefulness, has been the major bulwark in any kind of settlement between the Palestinians and Israel. President Bush outright refuses to deal with him, but helped convince him to accept Abbas as his PM. Arafat stalled on the creation of a cabinet that was sure to contain his political opponents, and held things up needlessly. Around about the time coalition forces seized Baghdad, Arafat caved. Abbas has his cabinet, and the Palestinians have a real opportunity for self-determination. It is less than what is necessary, but it is more than some would have ever hoped for.

Things are also taking an interesting turn in North Korea. Initially the North Korean government wanted bilateral talks with the United States over ending its nuclear program. We said we wanted multilateral talks that would include the major players in the region - China, Japan, Russia and South Korea. This point of contention, which would have given the North a legitimacy that it does not possess, deadlocked negotiations. But, again, with the war wrapping up in Iraq, tri-lateral talks with the U.S. and China are what Kim Jung Il's government settled for. This is not a clear sign that North Korea will readily give up its nuclear capability, but their movement from a previously intractable position to the bargaining table demonstrates that they recognize America's resolve in matters pertaining to national and international security.

Admittedly, each of these scenarios are open-ended, and could just as likely to go bad, maybe more likely, than go well. But there has been an undeniable ripple effect across the regions of the world where we are engaged in a war against terrorism. The United States will have to exploit these fresh diplomatic opportunities to their maximum potential before too much time passes. It is at moments like this that great progress can be made.

 

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