"Let me tell you what else I am worried about: I'm worried about
an opponent who uses nation building and the military in the same sentence.
See, our view of the military is for our military to be properly prepared
to fight and win war and, therefore, prevent war from happening in the
first place." George W. Bush said that on November 7, 2000, the
day before he got a majority of the votes in the Electoral College.
He implied that Mr. Gore, if elected President, might entangle the U.S.
in more conflicts abroad, as in the recent interventions in Haiti, Somalia,
and the Balkans. Repeatedly, Mr. Bush told his audiences: "I'm
not so sure the role of the United States is to go around the world
and say, 'This is the way it's got to be.'"
Yet, we now know that even before he moved into the White House in January
2001, the Bush team was secretly planning an invasion of Iraq for the
purpose of "regime change." Already in September 2000, the
neo-conservative think tank "Project for the New American Century"
prepared a document entitled "Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategies,
Forces and Resources for a New Century." Early promoters of this
grand strategy for a "global Pax Americana" were former assistant
secretary of defense Richard Perle, now chairman of the neo-conservative
Defense Policy Board, and former UN Ambassador Jeanne Kirkpatrick. Major
participants in the planning were Vice President Dick Cheney and his
chief of staff, Lewis Libby, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his
assistants Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith, as well as Elliott Abrams,
a former assistant secretary of state (He had been convicted for lying
about his Iran-Contra involvement but was pardoned by the elder Bush.)
To help implement the new strategy, the President hired Condoleeza Rice
as his National Security Adviser. She had studied Russian but had no
experience in diplomacy or on the Middle East.
The forcible takeover of Iraq was to be achieved preemptively without
United Nations involvement and was to be justified with the argument
that Saddam Hussein had failed to destroy his nuclear, chemical, and
biological weapons. What the planners had not anticipated was the determined
worldwide opposition to a preemptive American invasion of Iraq and the
threat of vetoes by France, Russia, and China in the U.N. Security Council.
As foreign governments learned that the Bush administration was bent
on changing the world in its own image, the resistance to this strategy
stiffened. Those who demurred soon found themselves shunned by the White
House. Saudis and Kuwaitis now appear to be resigned to the permanent
stationing of American troops on their soil. Iranians and Syrians fear
that, after the elimination of Saddam Hussein, they might be next in
line for forcible regime change. No matter what liberalizing changes
the governments in Tehran and Damascus might undertake, the Bush administration
seems determined to denounce them as threats.
For the world's 1,200 million Muslims, the unwavering support Congress
and the White House are giving the intransigent policies of Israel's
Likud regime remains the crucial reason for their hatred of the U.S.
government. Few of them hate America and Americans, but all of them
are outraged by the steady stream of pro-Likud pronouncements at both
ends of Pennsylvania Avenue. Elliott Abrams, now the President's adviser
on Middle East affairs, recently rejected both the Oslo peace process
and the "land-for-peace" formula.
Conquering Iraq may be relatively easy for America's vastly superior
forces. The destruction of Iraqi lives, however, is very likely to incite
another burst of terrorist activity against Americans. Instead of pacifying
the Middle East, the Bush administration seems to be hell-bent on stirring
up more trouble in the region. If the President were seriously concerned
about freeing oppressed people, he would liberate not only the Iraqis
but also the Palestinians.
What America needs most urgently in the fight against terrorism are
not more incendiary rhetoric and more bombing of innocents but a foreign
policy of "compassionate conservatism."