# Posted 9:42 PM by David Adesnik  

TIME FOR A SHOUT-OUT to Tom Friedman, who summed up a basic truth about international politics in his column today:

"What gives America its unprecedented power and influence today is the fact that, more than at any time in history, the world has come to accept the Western values of peace, democracy and free markets — around which American society is organized. That is the truly significant trend in the world today — not terrorism or anti-Americanism."

It doesn't hurt that we're rich or that our military has come close to perfecting the fine art of ass-kicking. Even so, wealth and power are not enough. Imperial Germany, Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan and Soviet Russia all possessed incredible economic and military might. In each case, however, this power became a liability rather than an advantage, since each of the four used their power to antagonize others, eventually provoking a massive response from their adversaries. In all of history, only the United States has combined wealth and power with the admiration of other nations, thus consolidating its dominance in an unprecedented manner. What makes us different is our commitment to peace, democracy, and open markets.

So then, does the Bush administration recognize the importance of acting in accordance with our ideals? In his speech to the United Nations last Thursday, Bush declared that "the people of Iraq can shake off their captivity. They can one day join a democratic Afghanistan and a democratic Palestine, inspiring reforms throughout the Muslim world. These nations can show by their example that honest government, and respect for women, and the great Islamic tradition of learning can triumph in the Middle East and beyond."

Bush's actions have not been as impressive as his words, however. According to the editors of the WashPost, "despite the president's clarion call for Palestinian democracy, the administration has quietly joined Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in opposing the holding of Palestinian national elections anytime in the near future." As far as Afghanistan is concerned, the administration has not done much better. For an argument to that effect, see James Dobbins' op-ed in the NY Times, entitled "Afghanistan's Faltering Reconstruction".

The war on terror will only end when democracy reigns in the Middle East. If the Bush administration recognizes that, the war may not have to last as long.

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# Posted 9:23 PM by David Adesnik  

READY FOR ROUND TWO? The name of the game is "Name That Hawk." I give you a quote, you tell me who said it. Here goes:

1) "If I found in any way, shape or form that [Saddam Hussein] was developing weapons of mass destruction, I'd take 'em out."

The answer is George Bush. The quote is from a campaign speech given on December 2, 1999. The source of the quote is WashPost columnist George Will.
Will cites Bush's Dec. '99 speech to show that the President's focus on Iraq is nothing new. Will's article provides an interesting contrast to that of Stephen Hayes , which I talked about in my last post. Hayes sought to undermine Bush's Democratic critics by showing that they were hawkish on Iraq when Clinton was president. Neither Hayes nor Will recognizes that the United States' record of talking tough about Iraq but doing nothing about it has undermined American credibility on the Iraq issue. Bush's tough talk from Dec. '99 -- followed by a lack of action in the first eight months of his presidency -- shows that he is no better than Clinton on this issue.

But who is better? Glad you asked. The answer is, of course, Tony Blair. The British prime minister is the only hawk who recognizes that the real reason that the United States and its allies cannot tolerate the continuing existence of Saddam's regime is that ever since September 11th we have become aware of the need to preempt terror. As Blair said:

"Suppose I had come last year on the same day as this year -- Sept. 10. Suppose I had said to you: There is a terrorist network called al Qaeda. It operates out of Afghanistan. It has carried out several attacks and we believe it is planning more. It has been condemned by the U.N. in the strongest terms. Unless it is stopped, the threat will grow. And so I want to take action to prevent that. Your response and probably that of most people would have been very similar to the response of some of you yesterday on Iraq. There would have been few takers for dealing with it and probably none for taking military action of any description."

Thanks to George Will for that quote as well. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:26 PM by David Adesnik  

LET'S PLAY NAME THAT HAWK! I'll give you the quote and you tell me who said it.

1) "We have to defend our future from these predators of the 21st century...They will be all the more lethal if we allow them to build arsenals of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons and the missiles to deliver them. We simply cannot allow that to happen. There is no more clear example of this threat than Saddam Hussein."

2) "If we fail to respond today, Saddam and all those who would follow in his footsteps will be emboldened tomorrow...Some day, some way, I guarantee you, he'll use the arsenal."

3) "Look, we have exhausted virtually our diplomatic effort to get the Iraqis to comply with their own agreements and with international law. Given that, what other option is there but to force them to do so?"

4) "Saddam Hussein has already used these weapons and has made it clear that he has the intent to continue to try, by virtue of his duplicity and secrecy, to continue to do so. That is a threat to the stability of the Middle East."

Answers: Bill Clinton, Bill Clinton, Tom Daschle and John Kerry. Not in 2002, of course, but in 1998.

The source for these quotes is Stephen Hayes' insightful article in the current issue of The Weekly Standard. Hayes makes the valid point that certain Democrats' hesitation to endorse President Bush's aggressive stance toward Iraq comes off as rather hypocritical. However, Hayes misses a more subtle point that can be taken from the words of Clinton, Daschle and Kerry: Bush's stance on Iraq lacks credibility precisely because Clinton took an equally strong stance and then did nothing about it. This inaction suggested that Clinton never believed his own words in the first place. If one were a European critic of Bush, why would one assume that current talk of an Iraqi threat is any more serious than it was four years ago?

The answer, in short, is September 11th. From that day on, Americans became aware of the need to preempt terrorism. Americans began to recognize that the profligate rhetoric and subsequent inaction of the Clinton administration was a major strategic failure. Now the time has come to take care of business that wasn't taken care of before.

President Bush, however, has failed to present the case against Saddam in such terms. Instead, he has focused on documenting the threat which Iraq would pose if it added a nuclear element to its already extensive arsenal of weapons of mass destruction. As such, he has failed to distinguish his own stance from that of Clinton. Until he does, the critics will continue to ask: Why now? (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:52 PM by David Adesnik  

AS I WRITE THIS POST it is still September 11th. I'm glad, however, that it won't go up until September 12th since I don't think I have anything to offer that will provide consolation or meaning.

While the day is only half over now, I don't expect to find much more consolation than I already have. The only thing that has made me feel better is just looking at the flag and knowing that others are doing the same.

While it wouldn't be fair to expect the nation's editors and columnists to repair with words what done with force, I was nonetheless disappointed by what the NY Times and WashPost had to offer.

The one silver lining for the day was Tom Friedman's column. While the bulk of it was taken up with an excessively cute (dare I say Dowd-esque?) anecdote about Friedman and his rabbi, the column ended with a clear and powerful message about how to win the war on terrorism:

"Our only hope is that people will be restrained by internal walls — norms and values. Visibly imposing them on ourselves, and loudly demanding them from others, is the only viable survival strategy for our shrinking planet."

No matter how many military victories we score, terrorism will not end until there is a generation in the Muslim world which rejects the call for jihad. Mind you, this assertion does not reduce the necessity of demonstrating our resolve on the battlefield. Until there is a new generation, we will have no choice but to defend ourselves with force.

However, the long-term objective of changing how the Islamic world thinks cannot be achieved with force alone. Nor can it be achieved through economic development. While force and development may enhance our prospects, what we must ultimately demonstrate is our moral superiority. And that entails bringing democracy and human rights to the Middle East.

As such, President Bush's column in the NYT is nothing less than disturbing.

After numerous vague references to "great-power rivals", "international order" and the "balance of world power" that call to mind the amoral realpolitik of Henry Kissinger, Bush finally addresses the issue of democracy and human rights. Strangely, he first insists that he is dedicated to promoting democracy in Russia and China. Later on, he adds that "America will also take the side of brave men and women who advocate human rights and democratic values, from Africa to Latin America, Asia and the Islamic world."

What could such a vague statment possibly mean except that the United States is much less concerned about promoting democracy in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia than in Russia and China? While one could not expect Bush to name those regimes as targets for the euphemistic process of "regime change", he at least could have said that the absence of democracy is the cause of terrorism and the spread of democracy the only cure.

Maureen Dowd took her usual swipes at Bush and Martha Stewart.

The WashPost led off with a column by Francis Fukuyama from which I expected great things.

After all, it is Fukuyama who has reminded us time and again that the Cold War was a war of ideas which the United States won because the ideas of democracy and capitalism proved superior to the ideas of totalitarianism and communism. Instead, Fukuyama resorted to the sort of Kissingerian realism that pervaded Bush's article in the Times. According to Fukuyama, it is the sheer might which the United States possesses that scares other nations. In fact, "Americans are largely innocent of the fact that much of the rest of the world believes that it is American power, and not terrorists with weapons of mass destruction, that is destabilizing the world. And nowhere are these views more firmly held than among America's European allies."

Such a materialistic approach fundamentally fails to explain, however, why Europe supported the war in Afghanistan but is against war with Iraq. Perhaps that is why Fukuyama hedges his bets (and contradicts himself) by then asserting that Europeans, in contrast to Americans, "tend to believe that democratic legitimacy flows from the will of an international community much larger than any individual nation-state."

The rest of the columns in the Post, as well as its editorial are not noteworthy. However, if one has an axe to grind with moral relativists, one should take a look at George Will's column. That said, all the best on this sad day.
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# Posted 1:29 PM by David Adesnik  

FOR A DELIGHTFUL DECONSTRUCTION of Susan
Sontag's latest missive see Andrew Sullivan's latest work at Salon.com

If you still think Sontag deserves more after a shellacking like that, take a look at Jonah Goldberg's comments in the National Review's 'Corner'

As Goldberg points out, it is extremely ironic that Sontag has chosen to criticize American involvement in an endless war without even mentioning that Al-Qaeda's jihad - a war that will only end with the establishment of a universal Islamic dominion - is responsible for provoking the current "war on terrorism".

The one point I take issue with in Goldberg's response to Sontag is his implicit acceptance of Sontag's point that a decision to embrace endless war - such as Al-Qaeda does its jihad - is necessarily a bad one. Goldberg's decision to list the Romans, the Mongols, and the Vikings as other societies that have embraced jihad-like endless wars suggests that such wars reflect an endless appetite for conquest and destruction.

Now here comes my unique contribution to the Sontag bash-fest:

THERE ARE SUCH THINGS AS GOOD ENDLESS WARS.

The United States waged an endless war for four decades in order to contain Soviet aggression. Now, "Wait just a second," you might say. Didn't the Cold War come to a conclusive end in 1991? (As if to reinforce that point, the internet café I´m sitting in has just begun to play "Winds of Change" on its sound system.)

Yes, the Cold War came to a conclusive end. But in 1947, when George Kennan designed, and the Truman administration implemented the strategy of containment, the United States had no idea whether the war would ever end. Kennan suggested that if the United States held fast for 10 or 15 years, the Soviet Union might call off its relentless effort to expand. Yet this hope contrasted strongly with Kennan's own recognition that expansion was an ineradicable element of Communist ideology. (Goldberg might have listed the Soviet Union as another historical example of a society committed to endless war).

Regardless, the United States committed itself to the endless war against Soviet imperialism, a war that could not end for as long as the Soviet Union continued to exist. Well into the 1980s, few saw any hope of the Soviet empire crumbling. Yet that did not mean that the American decision to contain it was wrong. Rather, it was a moral imperative. It was an unavoidable prerequisite of defending our way of life.

Without question, the United States made terrible mistakes in its war against Soviet aggression. McCarthyism. CIA coups in Guatemala, Iran and Chile. Vietnam. Yet the US also learned from its mistakes and corrected them.

Today's war on terrorism has much in common with the war on Soviet expansion. It will only end when our enemies cease to be who they are. While negotiations on specific points may be possible with certain of our enemies (Iran comes to mind), we can not negotiate an end to the war on terror. By the same token, we were able to negotiate specific arms-control pacts with the Soviet Union but never an end to the Cold War.

As such, it may be best to think of the war on terrorism as war in which our enemy is an ideas as much as it is a state or a terrorist network. We are fighting against the idea that violence against civilians is legimitate. In light of the intimate connection between this idea and the ideas which form the corps of fundamentalist Islam, we may find that we are fighting it as well.

Will the war ever end? I don't know. If it does, it may end as suddenly and as surprisingly as the Berlin wall fell. One day, in Cairo and Baghdad and Teheran, the masses may flood the streets with peaceful demonstrations that force their governments to let them listen to the music, watch the films and think the thoughts that they want.

In light of the incredible hatred which the Islamic "street" often indicates that it has for the United States and the West, such an outcome may beyond the realm of the possible. Yet in the first decades of the Cold War it also seemed as if the masses supported the perverse agendas of their governments. In time, they became disillusioned. All we can do is fight and wait.


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# Posted 12:28 PM by David Adesnik  

GREETINGS AND SALUTATIONS. My name is David Adesnik and I am the newest contributor to OxBlog. I think that's enough of an introduction for now. Josh , Dan, thanks for having me on board. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion