OxBlog

Wednesday, April 09, 2003

# Posted 3:31 PM by Patrick Belton  

BOB KAGAN'S COLUMN in today's WaPo is worth a read. Briefly, he argues that the U.S. should avoid three temptations with respect to New Iraq: first, overly seeking to punish Europe, Russia, or China for their opposition to the war (which would complicate Blair's attempt to reknit Britain's ties to Europe, and drive an isolated Germany into the welcoming arms of neo-Gaullist France); second, overly promoting Ahmed Chalabi as a democratic leader of New Iraq (a good man who nevertheless has questionable credibility and support back in Iraq, where he hasn't lived in decades), instead of allowing democratic leaders to come to the fore under their own power; and third, abandoning public diplomacy, instead of publicizing Saddam's depravities as more are discovered, and working to convince Europe and the Arab world that our war was just.
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