Posted on 03/15/2003 9:25:31 PM PST by Destro
George's big mistake was to listen to Tony
By Anne Applebaum
(Filed: 16/03/2003)
Practically nobody is willing to say it, so let us be as frank as possible: the decision to conduct the invasion of Iraq in consultation with the United Nations - a decision taken by President George W Bush partly to mollify his friend Tony Blair - has been utterly disastrous. Even if it proves possible to bribe Guinea and Angola and Chile into voting for a second UN resolution - even if the French, miraculously, change their minds about the whole thing tomorrow - the diplomatic events of the past week will go down in history as the most embarassing for the United States and Britain in a long time.
Despite cajoling and bribery and flattery, Colin Powell and Jack Straw have found it nearly impossible to persuade the UN Security Council of the necessity of deposing Saddam Hussein by military force. Even Mexico, a country dependent on American trade, has refused to go along easily. Even Mr Bush's new best friend, Vladimir Putin, doesn't seem interested in co-operating.
There are three explanations for the disaster, each propounded, to various degrees, by different factions here in Washington, and each with some merit. One of them, the "I-told-you-so" faction, argues that all of this was inevitable, and that the real mistake was to go through the UN at all.
Even last autumn, when the Security Council seemed prepared to accept the American request for a "last chance" round of weapons inspections in Iraq, some feared a trap. If the inspectors found weapons, that would prove that Saddam was co-operating. If the inspectors did not find weapons, that would prove he didn't have weapons. In the event, the opponents of an invasion have managed to cite both the paucity of weapons and Saddam's belated, reluctant destruction of a handful of rockets as reasons not to invade. The result: the inspections process itself became an excuse to oppose war, as many predicted it would.
Alternatively, blame can be (and is, rather loudly) laid upon Mr Bush. He is at fault, to begin with, for failing to consult America's allies until last autumn, when preparations for war were already under way. He is also to blame for hitching the UN process to the American military's timetable, which dictates a war in the spring and not in the summer. If it were not for that, the inspections could just continue for a few more months, until all of the members of the Security Council had been shamed into admitting that the process had degenerated into farce. There would then be no need for a second resolution, no reason for Mr Bush and Mr Blair to humiliate themselves begging the Security Council members for their support.
Finally, there is a good, and not entirely sarcastic, case for blaming the French president, Jacques Chirac. His vehement refusal to countenance any kind of war in Iraq seems to have taken even Colin Powell by surprise. Without France's loud opposition, and without President Chirac's claim that this is all about "American power", not about Iraq, it is hard to see how Guinea and Mexico would have had the nerve to stand up against the United States, and hard to see how this would have evolved into the diplomatic disaster that it has become.
But that is the past. In the present, the flawed UN process, Mr Bush's lackadaisical attitude to alliances and French obstructionism have brought us to an extremely odd moment in diplomatic history. Weirdly, the fate of Mr Bush, of Mr Blair, and possibly of the international system itself, at least the one we have known since 1945, are now dependent on the results of a war in an obscure patch of Middle Eastern desert.
If the war is a great victory, if it lasts just a few days, and if it results in a democratic Iraq, Mr Bush will get a chance of being re-elected, Mr Blair will be vindicated, France will be cowed. A new Nato will probably rise from the ashes, centred on the "new" Europe: America, Britain, Spain, eastern Europe. The UN Security Council could lose its role as a body which blesses American interventions. The ability of European states such as Britain and Spain to make their own foreign policy, outside the European Union, will be strengthened.
But the war does not have to be lost to produce quite a different result. If it lasts much longer than it is supposed to do, if it degenerates into civil war, if the fighting in Baghdad is bloody and chaotic and expensive, then the aftermath may look quite different. President Bush may be finished, along with Mr Blair and Nato. France and Germany will once again be the most important countries in the EU. The next US president will think twice before doing anything without UN approval, and the next British prime minister will think twice before involving himself in foreign adventures without the explicit permission of his European colleagues.
There is an analogy with Suez here, although it is not precise. If the lesson of Suez was that Britain can't do anything without America, the lesson of a botched war in Iraq will be that a British prime minister can no longer make foreign policy outside the confines of the EU or act in defiance of Germany and France. The stakes are high here, much higher than the mere political futures of Mr Bush and Mr Blair. It is disturbing to think how much damage Saddam's Iraq, even in defeat, might still be able to wreak.
Anne Applebaum is on the editorial board of the Washington Post
Powell furious at Rumsfeld's Europe insults
March 16 2003
By Aaron Patrick
New York
As America struggles to win United Nations support for deposing Saddam Hussein, new evidence of tension between US Secretary of State Colin Powell and the pro-war "hawks" in the Bush Administration has emerged publicly.
Mr Powell has let it be known that he is furious at Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld for negative comments about France and Germany that appear to have stiffened their opposition to a UN resolution authorising war on Iraq.
The head of the US military during the 1991 Gulf War, Mr Powell is also unhappy with Mr Rumsfeld's offhand revelation this week that British forces in the Gulf may not join an invasion. The remark encouraged opponents of beleaguered British Prime Minister Tony Blair, one of America's strongest allies.
"Diplomacy is slipping away and Rumsfeld needs some duct tape put over his mouth," The New York Times quoted an anonymous friend of Mr Powell's as saying.
Mr Powell has been seen as the leading moderate figure in the Bush Administration, a position that has given him leverage with other countries at the UN, and helped the US win a 15-0 vote for the November resolution that launched new weapons inspections in Iraq.
But the friend said Mr Powell felt his efforts since then to find a diplomatic resolution have been constantly undercut by the Administration's hard-line "hawks".
In February, Mr Rumsfeld described France and Germany as "old Europe", a perceived insult that continues to reverberate through diplomatic circles.
Mr Rumsfeld, his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, and Vice-President Dick Cheney are seen as pushing hardest for a invasion and of being less interested in securing UN support.
In the book Bush at War, author Bob Woodward said Mr Rumsfeld had proposed an attack on Iraq at one of the first meetings of the National Security Council after the September 11 attacks. The meeting was chaired by President Bush.
Mr Powell argued that al-Qaeda should be dealt with first, and said switching the attack from Afghanistan to Iraq would fracture the international alliance against terrorism. President Bush agreed with this at the time.
The attack on Afghanistan did not provoke significant international opposition, but the US is even struggling to win the support of allies like Mexico and Turkey for launching a war on Iraq.
Mr Powell now appears to be repositioning himself in preparation for a failure of US diplomacy at the UN. Aides say he has moved from opposing an invasion to supporting action without UN support, if necessary, because of Iraq's refusal to give up its weapons and taking France's obstruction into account.
http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/03/13/column.novak.opinion.army/
The Army's Civil War
Nationally syndicated columnist Robert Novak participates in three of CNN's political public affairs programs- Novak, Hunt & Shields, Crossfire and The Capital Gang
Thursday, March 13, 2003 Posted: 6:27 PM EST (2327 GMT)
WASHINGTON (Creators Syndicate) -- As the Pentagon prepared to go to war, it was considered a 100 percent certainty there in the middle of last week that Thomas White would be sacked forthwith as secretary of the Army.
Maybe I am missing something here.
So what is the point of this charade?
The point of the charade would be to have voices that have credibility with different groups ultimately giving the same message. Powell has credibility with the diplomats and doves. Rumsfeld has credibility with the hawks.
LOL...Interesting scenario, but for some reason, I don't think that was the plan......The good cop bad cop thing. IMHO, I tend to think they were fragmenting and the focus was blurred.
The simultaneous diplomatic and militant fronts are just business as usual with the increased attention and scrutiny that is only applied to Republicans and overlooked for Democrats.
Huh?
So what should we do to UN ????
As they disappear into our rearview mirror, wave, wish them luck.....
Whatever. But I know how the media works.
BTW, I didn't realize earlier that you are in Scotland. I can therefore understand your hostility to Blair. I would probably feel much the same were I living under his socialist rule. But being an American, my primary concern is his foreign policy, which from our point of view has been exemplary. Fair enough?
The simultaneous diplomatic and militant fronts are just business as usual with the increased attention and scrutiny that is only applied to Republicans and overlooked for Democrats.
We should of never went that direction, IMHO.
I find dealing with the United Nations very offensive, as most all those anti American SOBs hate our guts....That's inordinately clear.....
We need to start treating that organization like any other common enemy.
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