A War Policy in Collapse

[Chris Alger]

I still think war in the next month is likely, but no longer inevitable. At the beginning of the campaign last summer, it seemed like the traditional foreign policy establishment, the power articulated by spokespersons like Baker, Kissinger, Scowcroft and Brzezinski -- indicated its willingness to go along with the Cheney/Rumsfeld/Wolfowitz plan to sack Saddam, provided they obtain a modicum of international support. Until last week, Powell confident that China and Russia would abstain and France could be threatened with isolation, and that enough other votes could be purchased.

The U.S. is now looking at 3 vetos, the Brits retreating, Turkey in outright mutiny and Ariel Sharon, his madman's political acumen unabated, commencing Operation Manslaughter in the Gaza Strip, as if to prove how little Bush cares for democracy, human rights, or UN resolutions when they interefere with US power. Bush's popularity rating is now lower than at any time since before 9/11. While most people swallow the line about Saddam being a threat, they don't trust Bush to lead us into war alone. And now Blix has announced that Iraq has met the only deadline its been given and that the inspections progress -- unwelcome and hated by the White House -- continues in fits and starts. Even centrist wimps like Daschle are condemning unilateralism.

Two other signs from the war camp: (1) the hardcores that remain lashed to the mast are becoming more shrill and strident -- witness John Warner on Lehrer tonight and Bush's constant references to 9/11 in his press conference, even though the smart conservatives have been telling him to stop embarrassing himself -- as if they knew they were cornered and running out of ammo; and (2) the more reserved, quasi-objective types that would be falling over themselves praising Bush if everything were going well are now highlighting the risks of unilateral war, still mostly blaming the Europeans, but with an unsubtle subtext that Bush's people have failed to rise to the occasion. This is what you see when they see the need for daylight between themselves and what might prove to be bad policy.

To make predictions harder, there's a good no-war exit strategy that Bush could adopt of he weren't so dependent on advisors that he knows are smarter than he is: indefinitely postpone the invasion, leave some units in place, claim that his threat of force has resulted in disarmament, but blame Europe, the democrats and the peaceniks for all the terrorism and unrest emanating from the Middle East during the next few years. After all, boogey-man propaganda strategies tend to work pretty well for a few years and fade into oblivion (Castro, Khomeini, Qaddafi). It's a lot cheaper than conquoring and administering Iraq for 5 years, especially since the last military man with solid experience at operating a U.S. colony was McArthur.

The problem is that about a third of the US public and virtually all of the conservative faithful are chomping at the bit to invade, and will throw themselves crying on their trenches if they think they've been stabbed in the back again.

So I have no idea what's going to happen. Bush might have painted himself into the smallest corner that any President has seen since 1974. If so, it will be particularly embittering to conservatives that sputtered as Clinton slipped out of impeachment even though everyone in the country knew he was a liar. They've lionized his replacement as a monument of moral character, but who's one Big Policy will have failed because everyone in the world knows he's a liar.

James Carroll gave a better voice to some of these thoughts three days ago in the Boston Globe:

A War Policy in Collapse
James Carroll, Boston Globe, 3/4/3
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/06...lapse%2B.shtml

WHAT A DIFFERENCE a month makes. On Feb. 5, Secretary of State Colin Powell made the Bush administration's case against Iraq with a show of authority that moved many officials and pundits out of ambivalence and into acceptance. The war came to seem inevitable, which then prompted millions of people to express their opposition in streets around the globe. Over subsequent weeks, the debate between hawks and doves took on the strident character of ideologues beating each other with fixed positions. The sputtering rage of war opponents and the grandiose abstractions of war advocates both seemed disconnected from the relentless marshaling of troops. War was coming. Further argument was fruitless. The time seemed to have arrived, finally, for a columnist to change the subject.

And then the events of last week. Within a period of a few days, the war policy of the Bush administration suddenly showed signs of incipient collapse. No one of these developments by itself marks the ultimate reversal of fortune for Bush, but taken together, they indicate that the law of ''unintended consequences,'' which famously unravels the best-laid plans of warriors, may apply this time before the war formally begins. Unraveling is underway. Consider what happened as February rolled into March:

<ul type="square"> The presidenTony Blair forcefully criticized George W. Bush for his obstinacy on global environmental issues, a truly odd piece of timing for such criticism from a key ally yet a clear effort to get some distance from Washington. Why now?[/list] <ul type="square"> The President's father chose to give a speech affirming the importance both of multinational cooperation and of realism in dealing with the likes of Saddam Hussein. To say, as the elder Bush did, that getting rid of Hussein in 1991 was not the most important thing is to raise the question of why it has become the absolute now.[/list] <ul type="square"> For the first time since the crisis began, Iraq actually began to disarm, destroying Al Samoud 2 missiles and apparently preparing to bring weapons inspectors into the secret world of anthrax and nerve agents. The Bush administration could have claimed this as a victory on which to mount further pressure toward disarmament.[/list] <ul type="square"> Instead, the confirmed destruction of Iraqi arms prompted Washington to couple its call for disarmament with the old, diplomatically discredited demand for regime change. Even an Iraq purged of weapons of mass destruction would not be enough to avoid war. Predictably, Iraq then asked, in effect, why Hussein should take steps to disarm if his government is doomed in any case? Bush's inconsistency on this point -- disarmament or regime change? -- undermined the early case for war. That it reappears now, obliterating Powell's argument of a month ago, is fatal to the moral integrity of the prowar position.[/list] <ul type="square"> The Russian foreign minister declared his nation's readiness to use its veto in the Security Council to thwart American hopes for a UN ratification of an invasion.[/list] <ul type="square"> Despite Washington's offer of many billions in aid, the Turkish Parliament refused to approve US requests to mount offensive operations from bases in Turkey -- the single largest blow against US war plans yet. This failure of Bush diplomacy, eliminating a second front, might be paid for in American lives.[/list] <ul type="square"> The capture in Pakistan of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, a senior Al Qaeda operative, should have been only good news to the Bush administration, but it highlighted the difference between the pursuit of Sept. 11 culprits and the unrelated war against Iraq. Osama bin Laden, yes. Saddam Hussein, no.[/list] <ul type="square"> Administration officials, contradicting military projections and then refusing in testimony before Congress to estimate costs and postwar troop levels, put on display either the administration's inadequate preparation or its determination, through secrecy, to thwart democratic procedures -- choose one.[/list] <ul type="square"> In other developments, all highlighting Washington's panicky ineptness, the Philippines rejected the help of arriving US combat forces, North Korea apparently prepared to start up plutonium production, and Rumsfeld ordered the actual deployment of missile defense units in California and Alaska, making the absurd (and as of now illegal) claim that further tests are unnecessary.[/list]
All of this points to an administration whose policies are confused and whose implementations are incompetent. The efficiency with which the US military is moving into position for attack is impressive; thousands of uniformed Americans are preparing to carry out the orders of their civilian superiors with diligence and courage. But the hollowness of that civilian leadership, laid bare in the disarray of last week's news, is breathtaking.

That the United States of America should be on the brink of such an ill-conceived, unnecessary war is itself a crime. The hope now is that -- even before the war has officially begun -- its true character is already manifesting itself, which could be enough, at last, to stop it.