THE WAR THAT WILL CHANGE THE WORLD

New York Post ^ | March 20, 2003 | RALPH PETERS

[conservativecorner]

THIS present war will not last long, but its effects will echo for decades. And they will be positive effects - for Iraq, for the Middle East, for the world beyond the theater of conflict and for the United States of America.

[Galtoid]

Excellent! The Bush Doctrine defined.
Daschle and Byrd would do well to read this article, just to get up to speed, as it were.
The liberals in Congress are already spitting out the dust blown into their mouths by the Bush Train.

[JasonC]

Beautiful. Simply beautiful. The pax Americana begins to find the confidence to speak with its own voice.

[Aric2000]

Excellent find!!

[delacoert]

Quotable quote:

"Elitists who speak artfully, while failing to listen honestly"

[Centurion2000]

We have finally accepted that it is no longer enough to wait for enemies to attack first.

Brilliant piece ... thanks.

[dfwgator]

"But Europe is the continent of words; our world is one of action."

Amen to that.

[Doctor Stochastic]

THIS present war will not last long, but its effects will echo for decades. And they will be positive effects...

Seems a bit like WWI era optimism. Of course this war will really be the War to End All Wars.

[Teacher317]

Our instincts are good, our motives are sound and our standards of behavior are the highest in the history of nations. Who shall lead the way, if we do not?

And when Clintonians are in power... ?

[snooker]

Good catch. Lays it all out.

snooker

[spodefly]

And when Clintonians are in power... ?

This article articulates the strategy and convictions that have brought us to this point. To be successful in this pursuit, we will need to have administrations that understand the power of those convictions, and that can pursue the strategy associated with those convictions.

There can never again be a 'Clintonian' administration. We can never again allow such amoral, opportunistic, immature, social democrats to have power in this country.

[Billthedrill]

And when Clintonians are in power... ?

Aye, there's the rub. The problem with this has always been quis custodiat ipsos custodes? - who, in this case, will keep a lid on tinpot despots trying to leverage their way to world dominance by grabbing the levers of power here? OTOH, Europe seems already convinced that the "guardian" here is already insane and out of control, where events simply do not support that point of view.

Lord Acton said "power tends to corrupt, absolute power corrupts absolutely." If he is correct, then the only ones to guard us from the guardians...are us.

[wretchard]

Ralph Peters argues that this war has driven a stake through the heart of the international state sytem. Membership in the United Nations is no longer enough to provide legitimacy. That was underscored by yesterday's decapitation strike on Saddam. America reserves the right to change any regime, kill any president.

It has become the greatest enemy of the status quo on the planet. It is revolutionary, but also fundamantally very destabilizing. There are two dangers, it seems to me, that Colonel Peters doesn't emphasize enough. Firstly, many nations still have an innate attraction to tribalism, perhaps expressed best in the Filipino phrase, "better a country run like hell by the natives rather than a country run like heaven by foreigners". There will be resistance to the removal of Saddam based simply on this shameful, but natural sympathy. Secondly, the failure and impotence of the UN, and indeed all "international" institutions means that the final arbiter is now principally, if not soley, Washington. This means that the world is entirely dependent on the internal democratic processes of the United States for guidance. While that's an improvement on how things presently stand, there is still no replacement "forum" to which the US will voluntarily submit and there is no force which can currently compel it to submit. Someday, when President Bush's term ends, the Oval Office may be occupied by someone we don't quite like, and the world will be too small to escape him.