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Wednesday, June 30, 2004

Better be careful what you wish for President Chirac, you just might get it by Fred A. Quintana
30/06/2004




At the NATO summit in Istanbul, French President Jacques Chirac, in response to President Bush’s effort to encourage the acceptance of Turkey into the EU, declared that "It is not his purpose and his goal to give any advice to the EU, and in this area it was a bit as if I were to tell Americans how they should handle their relationship with Mexico.” further declaring that Bush, and by extension, the United States, “ went into territory that isn't his".

This statement demonstrates that President Chirac, despite his grand eulogies at the D-Day/ Normandy 60th anniversary commemoration, has forgotten or has chose to ignore America’s earned privilege to declare its issues and interests in Europe. Europe’s creation of the two most devastating wars the world has ever witnessed forced the United States out of its isolationism and forced it to become interconnected with Europe, a situation America’s founders had feared and warned against. In doing so, the United States lost almost a million men in restoring sanity to Europe and in its commitment to prevent it from doing so again.

After the insanity of World War II, a reluctant United States invested in the reconstruction and restoration of Western Europe. Afterwards, the US put its cities and its citizens at risk of nuclear annihilation for the defense of Europe. To demonstrate its commitment to the defense of Europe, it based almost half a million men in Europe as part of its commitment to defend the region against a Soviet invasion. The United States has earned the right and the privilege to declare its positions and interests in the European region with its historic sacrifices and commitments to the region. The US was dragged out of its isolationism by Europe on several occasions throughout its history by force. In exchange, it has provided the stability and security that has enabled Europe to return to prosperity and contemplate the idea of a united Europe.

Chirac’s attempt to exclude the United States from the process of the EU has demonstrated that France’s attempt to establish a European identity with its own policies and interests as the foundation of the EU will be based defining it as non-American as possible. It does this knowing that American resentment is the only common aspect can unite disparate European states such as Romania and Belgium with French ambitions to be the major influence within the European Union.

Yet President Chirac and much of Europe fails to recognize that US presence in Europe, whether political, diplomatic or military, ensures stability and actually has fostered the conditions for the creation of the EU. If the US were to delink itself from the Transatlantic framework, Europe, with no dominant state or organization that could impose a structural framework or order, would return an environment similar to the pre 1914 era, where each state within the region would be competing for its own interests and in doing so foment the constantly shifting alliances that laid the foundations of the First World War.

President Chirac must be careful what he asks for, as the old saying goes, he just might get it.


Calling Bush a LiarBy NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

So is President Bush a liar?

Plenty of Americans think so. Bookshops are filled with titles about Mr. Bush like "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them," "Big Lies," "Thieves in High Places" and "The Lies of George W. Bush."

A consensus is emerging on the left that Mr. Bush is fundamentally dishonest, perhaps even evil — a nut, yes, but mostly a liar and a schemer. That view is at the heart of Michael Moore's scathing new documentary, "Farenheit 9/11."

In the 1990's, nothing made conservatives look more petty and simple-minded than their demonization of Bill and Hillary Clinton, who were even accused of spending their spare time killing Vince Foster and others. Mr. Clinton, in other words, left the right wing addled. Now Mr. Bush is doing the same to the left. For example, Mr. Moore hints that the real reason Mr. Bush invaded Afghanistan was to give his cronies a chance to profit by building an oil pipeline there.

"I'm just raising what I think is a legitimate question," Mr. Moore told me, a touch defensively, adding, "I'm just posing a question."

Right. And right-wing nuts were "just posing a question" about whether Mr. Clinton was a serial killer.

I'm against the "liar" label for two reasons. First, it further polarizes the political cesspool, and this polarization is making America increasingly difficult to govern. Second, insults and rage impede understanding.

Lefties have been asking me whether Mr. Bush has already captured Osama bin Laden, and whether Mr. Bush will plant W.M.D. in Iraq. Those are the questions of a conspiracy theorist, for even if officials wanted to pull such stunts, they would be daunted by the fear of leaks.

Bob Woodward's latest book underscores that Mr. Bush actually believed that Saddam did have W.M.D. After one briefing, Mr. Bush turned to George Tenet and protested, "I've been told all this intelligence about having W.M.D., and this is the best we've got?" The same book also reports that Mr. Bush told Mr. Tenet several times, "Make sure no one stretches to make our case."

In fact, of course, Mr. Bush did stretch the truth. The run-up to Iraq was all about exaggerations, but not flat-out lies. Indeed, there's some evidence that Mr. Bush carefully avoids the most blatant lies — witness his meticulous descriptions of the periods in which he did not use illegal drugs.

True, Mr. Bush boasted that he doesn't normally read newspaper articles, when his wife said he does. And Mr. Bush wrongly claimed that he was watching on television on the morning of 9/11 as the first airplane hit the World Trade Center. But considering the odd things the president often says ("I know how hard it is for you to put food on your family"), Mr. Bush always has available a prima facie defense of confusion.

Mr. Bush's central problem is not that he was lying about Iraq, but that he was overzealous and self-deluded. He surrounded himself with like-minded ideologues, and they all told one another that Saddam was a mortal threat to us. They deceived themselves along with the public — a more common problem in government than flat-out lying.

Some Democrats, like Mr. Clinton and Senator Joseph Lieberman, have pushed back against the impulse to demonize Mr. Bush. I salute them, for there are so many legitimate criticisms we can (and should) make about this president that we don't need to get into kindergarten epithets.

But the rush to sling mud is gaining momentum, and "Farenheit 9/11" marks the polarization of yet another form of media. One medium after another has found it profitable to turn from information to entertainment, from nuance to table-thumping.

Talk radio pioneered this strategy, then cable television. Political books have lately become as subtle as professional wrestling, and the Internet is adding to the polarization. Now, with the economic success of "Farenheit 9/11," look for more documentaries that shriek rather than explain.

It wasn't surprising when the right foamed at the mouth during the Clinton years, for conservatives have always been quick to detect evil empires. But liberals love subtlety and describe the world in a palette of grays — yet many have now dropped all nuance about this president.

Mr. Bush got us into a mess by overdosing on moral clarity and self-righteousness, and embracing conspiracy theories of like-minded zealots. How sad that many liberals now seem intent on making the same mistakes.


Tuesday, June 29, 2004

IRAQ THE MODEL

Tuesday, June 29, 2004

Small party and great hopes.
I was on duty-call in the hospital all yesterday and I was in the ward when I heard the news that Mr. Bremer had already transferred the power to the new government two days ahead of the expected date. I was so happy about this news and I couldn’t wait until I finish my tour to celebrate the occasion.

My friends all seemed thrilled and optimistic, yet they seemed to have no interset in celebrating the event. I decided to do something so I asked one of my colleagues to cover for me for an hour; I told him that I have to get something from outside.I directly headed to the nearest bakery and ordered a nice cake and returned to the hospital as fast as I could. On the way, I didn’t see any large calibrations but I noticed that the streets were busier than usual and people looked lively and relaxed.

I invited some of my friends, one of us volunteered to get some beverages and we gathered around the cake to celebrate the happy event. I took some pictures but sadly not all the doctors (female mainly) agreed on me posting their pictures and I’ll respect their will.

Some of us were celebrating regaining sovereignty, some were celebrating the end of occupation, others were happy because they think the new government will bring safety and order. I was celebrating a new and a great step towards democracy, but we were all joined by true hope for a better future and by the love we have for Iraq.

After wards we sat for a while discussing different matters. The hall was busy and everyone was chatting and laughing loud. They had Al-Jazeera on (something I never managed to convince them to stop doing). Then suddenly Mr. Bremer appeared on TV reading his last speech before he left Iraq. I approached the TV to listen carefully to the speech, as I expected it to be difficult in the midst of all that noise. To my surprise everyone stopped what they were doing and started watching as attentively as I was.

The speech was impressive and you could hear the sound of a needle if one had dropped it at that time. The most sensational moment was the end of the speech when Mr. Bremer used a famous Arab emotional poem. The poem was for a famous Arab poet who said it while leaving Baghdad. Al-Jazeera had put an interpreter who tried to translate even the Arabic poem which Mr. Bremer was telling in a fair Arabic! “Let this damned interpreter shut up. We want to hear what the man is saying” One of my colloquies shouted. The scene was very touching that the guy sitting next to me (who used to sympathize with Muqtada) said “He’s going to make me cry!”

Then he finished his speech by saying in Arabic,”A’ash Al-Iraq, A’ash Al-Iraq, A’ash Al-Iraq”! (Long live Iraq, Long live Iraq, long live Iraq).

I was deeply moved by this great man’s words but I couldn’t prevent myself from watching the effect of his words on my friends who some of them were anti-Americans and some were skeptic, although some of them have always shared my optimism. I found that they were touched even more deeply than I was. I turned to one friend who was a committed She’at and who distrusted America all the way. He looked as if he was bewitched, and I asked him, “So, what do you think of this man? Do you still consider him an invader?” My friend smiled, still touched and said, “Absolutely not! He brought tears to my eyes. God bless him.”

Another friend approached me. This one was not religious but he was one of the conspiracy theory believers. He put his hands on my shoulders and said smiling, “I must admit that I’m beginning to believe in what you’ve been telling us for months and I’m beginning to have faith in America. I never thought that they will hand us sovereignty in time. These people have shown that they keep their promises.”

-By Ali.

Bush Defies Chirac, Says Turkey Merits EU Place
Tue Jun 29, 2004 06:50 AM ET


ISTANBUL (Reuters) - President Bush said on Tuesday that Turkey belongs in the European Union and that Europe is "not the exclusive club of a single religion" in what amounted to a rejection of French President Jacques Chirac.
In remarks prepared for delivery at a Istanbul university, Bush refused to back down in the face of Chirac's criticism on Monday that Bush had no business urging the EU to set a date for Turkey to start entry talks into the union.

"America believes that as a European power, Turkey belongs in the European Union," Bush said.

Bush is to use the speech to try to mend relations between Muslims and Americans left tattered relations by the Iraq war.

"We must strengthen the ties and trust and good will between ourselves and the peoples of the Middle East," he said.

Bush held up Turkey as an example of a Muslim democracy and said its entry to the EU would be "a crucial advance in relations between the Muslim world and the West, because you are part of both."

"Including Turkey in the EU would prove that Europe is not the exclusive club of a single religion, and it would expose the 'clash of civilizations' as a passing myth of history," Bush said.

Chirac said on Monday that Bush should not comment on Turkey's EU entry hopes as EU affairs were none of his business.

"If President Bush really said that the way I read it, well, not only did he go too far but he went into a domain which is not his own," Chirac told reporters at the summit.

"It is like me trying to tell the United States how it should manage its relations with Mexico," he added.

Turkey is keen to use the NATO to showcase its credentials as a westward-looking democracy before December, when EU leaders decide if it has met the political criteria to be put on the formal road to EU membership.

Countries such as Germany, Italy and Britain strongly back Ankara's bid, but Chirac's government has expressed wariness about kicking off a formal process to admit the relatively poor country of 70 million people.

More help from our friends!

Bush Defies Chirac, Says Turkey Merits EU Place
Tue Jun 29, 2004 06:50 AM ET


ISTANBUL (Reuters) - President Bush said on Tuesday that Turkey belongs in the European Union and that Europe is "not the exclusive club of a single religion" in what amounted to a rejection of French President Jacques Chirac.
In remarks prepared for delivery at a Istanbul university, Bush refused to back down in the face of Chirac's criticism on Monday that Bush had no business urging the EU to set a date for Turkey to start entry talks into the union.

"America believes that as a European power, Turkey belongs in the European Union," Bush said.

Bush is to use the speech to try to mend relations between Muslims and Americans left tattered relations by the Iraq war.

"We must strengthen the ties and trust and good will between ourselves and the peoples of the Middle East," he said.

Bush held up Turkey as an example of a Muslim democracy and said its entry to the EU would be "a crucial advance in relations between the Muslim world and the West, because you are part of both."

"Including Turkey in the EU would prove that Europe is not the exclusive club of a single religion, and it would expose the 'clash of civilizations' as a passing myth of history," Bush said.

Chirac said on Monday that Bush should not comment on Turkey's EU entry hopes as EU affairs were none of his business.

"If President Bush really said that the way I read it, well, not only did he go too far but he went into a domain which is not his own," Chirac told reporters at the summit.

"It is like me trying to tell the United States how it should manage its relations with Mexico," he added.

Turkey is keen to use the NATO to showcase its credentials as a westward-looking democracy before December, when EU leaders decide if it has met the political criteria to be put on the formal road to EU membership.

Countries such as Germany, Italy and Britain strongly back Ankara's bid, but Chirac's government has expressed wariness about kicking off a formal process to admit the relatively poor country of 70 million people.

Age of Political Segregation
By DAVID BROOKS

Published: June 29, 2004


I've been writing about polarization a fair bit recently, and the more I look into it, the more I think I'll just move to Tahiti. That's because the causes of polarization — at least among elites — have little to do with passing arguments about the war, the Bush leadership style or the Clinton scandals. The causes are deeper and structural.

To a large degree, polarization in America is a cultural consequence of the information age. This sort of economy demands and encourages education, and an educated electorate is a polarized electorate.

In theory, of course, education is supposed to help us think independently, to weigh evidence and make up our own minds. But that's not how it works in the real world. Highly educated people may call themselves independents, but when it comes to voting they tend to pick a partisan side and stick with it. College-educated voters are more likely than high-school-educated voters to vote for candidates from the same party again and again.

That's because college-educated voters are more ideological. As the Emory political scientist Alan Abramowitz has shown, a college-educated Democrat is likely to be more liberal than a high-school-educated Democrat, and a college-educated Republican is likely to be more conservative than a high-school-educated Republican. The more you crack the books, the more likely it is you'll shoot off to the right or the left.

Once you've joined a side, the information age makes it easier for you to surround yourself with people like yourself. And if there is one thing we have learned over the past generation, it's that we are really into self-validation.

We don't only want radio programs and Web sites from members of our side — we want to live near people like ourselves. Information age workers aren't tied down to a mine, a port or a factory. They have more opportunities to shop for a place to live, and they tend to cluster in places where people share their cultural aesthetic and, as it turns out, political values. So every place becomes more like itself, and the cultural divides between places become stark. The information age was supposed to make distance dead, but because of clustering, geography becomes more important.

The political result is that Republican places become more Republican and Democratic places become more Democratic.

Between 1948 and 1976, most counties in the U.S. became more closely divided between Republicans and Democrats. In 1976, Gerald Ford, a Republican, could win most of New England and the entire Pacific coast, and he almost won New York.

But since then we've been segregating politically. As Bill Bishop of The Austin American-Statesman has found, the number of counties where one party or another has a landslide majority has doubled over the past quarter-century. Whole regions are now solidly Democratic or Republican. Nearly three-quarters of us, according to Bishop, live in counties that are becoming less competitive, and many of us find ourselves living in places that are overwhelmingly liberal or overwhelmingly conservative.

When we find ourselves in such communities, our views shift even further in the dominant direction. You get this self-reinforcement cycle going, which social scientists call "group polarization."

People lose touch with others in opposing, now distant, camps. And millions of kids are raised in what amount to political ghettoes.

It's pretty clear that nobody in this election campaign is going to talk much about any of this. This election will apparently be decided on the question of whether it was worth it to go to war in Iraq. That's sucking the air out of every other issue, and inducing the candidates to run orthodox, unimaginative campaigns.

Still, it's worth thinking radically. An ambitious national service program would ameliorate the situation. If you had a big but voluntary service program of the sort that Evan Bayh, a Democrat, and John McCain, a Republican, proposed a couple of years ago, millions of young people would find themselves living with different sorts of Americans and spending time in parts of the country they might otherwise know nothing about.

It might even be worth monkeying with our primary system. The current primaries reward orthodox, polarization-reinforcing candidates. Open, nonpartisan primaries might reward the unorthodox and weaken the party bases. To do nothing is to surrender to a lifetime of ugliness.

Monday, June 28, 2004

A great day. A very great day.

What Alliance?
Our friends in NATO are failing the Iraq test.

Monday, June 28, 2004 12:01 a.m.

Webster's defines alliance as an "association to further the common interests of the members." The camaraderie on display at today's opening of the NATO summit in Istanbul notwithstanding, the past two years have seen little evidence that the organization still fits this definition.
The summiteers can be expected to make much of NATO's deployment of five more "provincial reconstruction teams" to Afghanistan--teams that were promised months ago but never delivered. Similarly, NATO's European leaders will congratulate each other for agreeing to train Iraqi security services, a job France and Germany somehow intend to accomplish without sending any troops to Iraq. If that's all the help the U.S. can get from our partners, it may be time to rethink the underlying premise of this "alliance."





The excuse offered by the Germans and French is that they disagree with the U.S. on what constitute "common interests." But it is not plausible that Europe has a lesser stake in pacifying terrorists and terrorist regimes than does the U.S. A more honest explanation is that America's security umbrella has allowed Europeans to underfund their military services to the point that even if there were a trans-Atlantic consensus, they would have little to offer.
Even in Afghanistan, which Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer calls NATO's "number one priority," the allies' record is abysmal. The actual fighting is still being done by some 20,000 American-led troops outside the NATO structure. All Washington asked the alliance to do last August was to help pacify and rebuild the country. NATO was able to muster a mere 6,500 troops, most of which are stationed in the relative safety of Kabul.

Thousands more are needed to bring stability to a country the size of Texas. Instead, the member states are stalling, forcing the Secretary-General to go begging for a chopper here and an airplane there. And as NATO fails to expand from Kabul, the security situation is deteriorating. Elections originally planned for June have been postponed until September.

One of the Bush Administration's minimum goals for the Istanbul summit is for NATO to commit a larger force to Afghanistan for 90 days around the time of the elections. The hope is to secure the registration of voters and provide security from terrorists who will surely try their worst to prevent Afghanistan's transition to a full democracy. But even such a temporary commitment is unlikely.

Germany insists that it is not a lack of political will that prevents it from doing more in Afghanistan, where it has 2,000 troops. It says that with missions also in Kosovo and Bosnia, its forces are stretched thin. But if the world's third biggest economy is already exhausted by deploying 7,500 non-fighting troops abroad out of a total force of 270,000, what other than a lack of political will can account for this sorry state of its military affairs?

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, last year the U.S. spent $417.4 billion on defense or $1,419 per capita. France's total spending was $35 billion or $583 per capita, while Germany spent $27.2 billion or $329 per capita and is planning to freeze defense spending at current levels over the next few years. The French have some 15,000 of their 350,000 troops deployed abroad, though with only 700 serving in Afghanistan. The biggest French foreign mission, 4,000 troops, is in the Cote d'Ivoire--which speaks volumes about the difference between U.S. and French interests.





This sorry NATO record should also bring a dose of reality to American politicians who invoke "multilateralism" like a mantra. Both John Kerry and Joe Biden, ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, are demanding that Mr. Bush give NATO a larger role in Iraq, but the President would surely do so if the Europeans were willing. The two Democrats are either out of touch with current European opinion, or they are using NATO as a political club to beat up Mr. Bush, or both. At least Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Richard Lugar is alert to the problem, warning the Europeans last week that "NATO's reputation will stand or fall" depending on its assistance in Iraq.
Earlier this month, the U.S. and Europe commemorated the sacrifices of American soldiers on the Normandy beaches to liberate Europe from the Nazis in 1944. For the next 60 years, American taxpayers footed most of the bill to protect Europe, most recently deploying forces to stop the Balkan wars. Somehow Europeans appear to believe Americans will continue doing this indefinitely, regardless of European behavior and attitudes. They are badly mistaken.



Year Three
Where do we stand in this disorienting war?


As we neared three years of fighting in World War II, Patton was stalled near Germany for want of gas, V-2 rockets began raining down on England, and we were fighting to take the Marianas in preparation for future B-29 bases. In comparison, what exactly is our current status in this, our confusing third year of war against Islamic fascists and their autocratic sponsors?


THE STRATEGIC PICTURE
Despite all the near paralysis over the 9/11 Commission, Abu Ghraib, denials about the obvious prior "ties" between Saddam's Iraq and al Qaeda, various "letters of conscience" posted by hypercritical legal grandees, former diplomats, generals, and D.C. apparatchiks, things in the strategic sense are ever so slowly looking up for the United States.

Unlike the Cold War, when our tactical options were circumscribed by nuclear enemies, today the world's true powers are decidedly unfriendly to radical Islam — and growing more so daily.

Two-thirds of al Qaeda's leadership are either dead or in jail. Their sanctuaries, sponsors, and kindred spirits in Afghanistan and Iraq are long gone. Detention is increasingly common for Islamicists in Europe and America. The Hamas intifada has failed. Its implosion serves as a warning for al Qaeda that Western democracies can still fight back. There is also a lesson for America that even in our postmodern world most people still admire principled success: No one is lamenting the recent targeted killings of Hamas bullies or the preemptive assassination of suicide bombers.

Russia looks at al Qaeda through the prism of Chechnya. For all its triangulation it wants America to succeed — as President Putin's amazing but mostly unheralded (buried on page 8 of the New York Times) revelation about Saddam's terrorist plans suggests.

The problem with China's stance toward radical Islam within its borders arises not from appeasement but rather a desire for outright liquidation. India ensures the world that the old chauvinism about Pakistan's heralded "Islamic bomb" has grown mute.

Europe, led by France and Germany, saw a chance for both profit and psychological satisfaction by opposing the United States. But recently it has realized the short-sightedness of such a policy, and belatedly grasped that al Qaeda terrorists despise Euros as much if not more than they do Americans. European ingratitude has just about ensured an end to American subsidized defense of the continent. All this does not mean the world's other powers will aid us — far from it — only that they will continue opportunistically and in public to chide us while privately praying for our success.

So, the world of the radical Islamist shrinks. Moderate Arabs understand that they increasingly suffer from guilt-by-association by about everyone around the world — thanks to bin Laden and his epigones. The parlor game of anti-Americanism has turned deadly. Terrorists kill hundreds in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey, ignoring calls from once-appeasing imams to stop dismembering Muslims. Being anti-American in the Middle East does not necessarily win you exemption from al Qaeda. The fascists do not want to put a fashionable Islamic-nationalist veneer on upscale Arabs, but rather to transport them lock, stock, and barrel back to the Dark Ages.

Even countries like South Korea, Indonesia, and Japan are beginning to realize that the United States alone protects their sea-lanes to the Middle East, and that opportunistic posturing serves no purpose in a global war against beheaders and their world of barbarism other than to throw away 60 years of American military commitment. It is fashionable to say that the United States is isolated; few other than a socialist prime minister in Spain or a Howard Dean really believe that.

The key now is to be found with past neutrals like Pakistan, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia, whose former coddling and subsidies to killers are bringing them only mayhem. If they wake up to look at the world lining up against them, close down madrassas, "charities," and borderland sanctuaries, and expel the terrorists, then the tide will turn. These nations will never overtly join the hostile Syria-Iran-Lebanon block, but they can stay neutral and therein facilitate our enemies even as they profess allegiance to our cause. Time will tell — but we cannot win this war until bin Laden's cohorts feel they are in danger in Pakistan, or until those who would behead Americans know it is suicidal to do so in Saudi Arabia.

America must ensure that there is no place where terrorists can eat, sleep, or organize. But that goal is presently impossible, given the hostility of Iran, Syria, Lebanon, and the infiltration of Islamic sympathizers into the governments of Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan.


HEARTS AND MINDS
For the first two years of this war, critics whined that we were "not getting the message out." But after Afghanistan and Iraq, the beheadings, and the bombings, most on the planet know that the choice is between civilization and barbarism. The key is not preferring the good cause in the abstract, but risking pain for the right choice in the here-and-now.

A radical strain of Islam is trying to capitalize on the failure of Arab autocracies in order to galvanize the Muslim Street under the reactionary promise of a return to a mythical caliphate. We know that; they know that; and all that remains is for those in the gallery in the Middle East to choose sides — that is, to determine who in the end is going to win and thus end up either as that winner's powerful friends or as its weak enemies.

The Arab League hates us not because we are going to lose or install strongmen if we prevail, but because they are terrified we will win and sponsor consensual governments of the type that would put such ossified functionaries with blood on their hands out to pasture. Despite Abu Ghraib and whining over the West Bank, most Arabs know privately that the United States gives billions to Egypt and Jordan, does nothing while the Gulf autocracies cut production to jack up oil prices, saves Muslims in Afghanistan, Kosovo, Bosnia, Kuwait, and Somalia, and is providing billions to Iraq at a level not seen since the Marshall Plan.

What they are not yet convinced of, however, is whether the United States intends to stay and fight to the finish, or — as was true after the murdering in Lebanon, after the expulsion of the Soviets in Afghanistan, after the 1991 failure to take Baghdad, after Mogadishu, after mostly silence in the face of 25 years of terrorist attacks from Teheran to Yemen, and after the pull-back from Fallujah and Najaf — it will tire, find an exit strategy, and head home. That "honorable departure," of course, would leave friends and supporters to deal with local fascists, as was true in the past in the case of the Taliban, the irregulars in Sudan, the mullahs in Iran, the Hezbollah killers in the Bekka Valley, and Mr. Sadr's Mahdists.




TACTICS
On the ground, we are in a seesaw race with the terrorists — a back-and-forth of challenge and response as we refine tactics to counter and anticipate everything from Improvised Explosive Devices, suicide bombing, televised head chopping, and the next ghoulish twist still on the horizon. Yet each time the Americans engage in a real firefight, we win — and almost always without a groundswell of popular resistance. As we harp about the fighting, a battle-hardened cadre of American veterans has emerged that is liquidating its opponents every day and thus gradually changing politics on the ground. The media has completely missed the story of just how good our combat battalions have become.

So the problem is not armed insurrection per se, but local apathy; not thousands shooting us in the street, but millions more quiet about the hundreds in their midst who are. We must continue to get Iraqi faces on television, put them to work on the reconstruction, back their forces with precision air strikes — all the while rarely showing Americans even as they kill terrorists.

Iraqis may cry crocodile tears when Bechtel workers are blown up trying to finish a new sewer system for them, but they will surely wince when their own are vaporized trying to ensure that their raw sewage is no longer in the streets. Again, our tactical lapses throughout the past year center on our inability to grasp the human desire for honor, prestige, and public attention — nowhere so evident as in the male-dominated and tribal Middle East.


HOME FRONT
But if the pulse of the strategic, tactical, and ideological theaters suggests we can win this war, the home front is not so bright. The few hundred American lunatics who tried to explain away 9/11 (or apologize for it) turned into thousands a few weeks later who swore we either would or should lose in Afghanistan. Now they are millions who see our ongoing struggle in Iraq as either immoral or inept. George Bush did not create this cascading antiwar movement. It was rather fueled by the blood and treasure spent to eliminate the Taliban and Saddam Hussein, together with a has-been '60s generation that felt there was still one more creaky return to the barricades left in them.

Right after 9/11, some of us thought it was impossible for leftist critics to undermine a war against fascists who were sexist, fundamentalist, homophobic, racist, ethnocentric, intolerant of diversity, mass murderers of Kurds and Arabs, and who had the blood of 3,000 Americans on their hands. We were dead wrong. In fact, they did just that. Abu Ghraib is on the front pages daily. Stories of thousands of American soldiers in combat against terrorist killers from the Hindu Kush to Fallujah do not merit the D section. Senator Kennedy's two years of insane outbursts should have earned him formal censure rather than a commemoration from the Democratic establishment.

What a litany of distractions! Words — preemption," "unilateralism," "hegemony," — whiz by and lose all meaning. Names — "Halliburton," "Chalabi," "INC" — become little more than red meat. Vocabulary is turned upside down: "Contractors," who at great risk restore power and water to the poor, are now little more than "profiteers" and "opportunists"; killers are not even "terrorists" but mere "militants." "Neo-cons" are wild-eyed extremists; "realists" are no longer cynics — inclined to let thousands die abroad unless the chaos interrupts transit of oil or food — but rather "sober" and "circumspect," and more likely Kerry supporters.

A depressing array of transitory personalities parades before our screen, entering stage left to grab 15 minutes of notoriety for their scripted invective, only to exit on the right into oblivion. Who can remember all these one-tell-all-book, one-weekend-on-the-Sunday-news-programs personalities — a Hans Blix, Scott Ritter, Howard Dean, Paul O'Neil, Joe Wilson, Richard Clark, or Richard ben Veniste? In between their appearances on Sunday morning television or 60 Minutes, a few D.C. functionaries are carted out for periodic shouting — an unhinged Al Gore, a puffed-up Ted Kennedy, a faux-serious Bob Kerry, and occasionally a Senator Byrd or Hollings. And since the very day after 9/11 we've gotten the Vietnam-era retreads — a Peter Arnett, Noam Chomsky, Michael Moore, Robert Scheer, John Dean, or Seymour Hersh — tottering out with the latest conspiracies about the old bogeymen and "higher-ups."

We are winning the military war in Iraq and Afghanistan. The terrorists are on the run. And slowly, even ineptly, we are achieving our political goals of democratic reform in once-awful places. Thirty years of genocide, vast forced transfers of whole peoples, the desecration of entire landscapes, a ruined infrastructure, and a brutalized and demoralized civilian psyche are being remedied, often under fire. All this and more has been achieved at the price of political turmoil, deep divisions in the West — here and abroad — and the emergence of a strong minority, led by mostly elites, who simply wish it all to fail.

Whether this influential, snarling minority — so prominent in the media, on campuses, in government, and in the arts — succeeds in turning victory into defeat is open to question. Right now the matter rests on the nerve of a half-dozen in Washington who are daily slandered (Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Rice, Wolfowitz), and with brilliant and courageous soldiers in the field. They are fighting desperately against the always-ticking clock of American impatience, and are forced to confront an Orwellian world in which their battle sacrifice is ignored or deprecated while killing a vicious enemy is tantamount to murder.

No, we — along with those brave Iraqis who have opted for freedom — could very easily still lose this war that our brave troops are somehow now winning.



The Hollow Alliance
By WILLIAM SAFIRE

ONDON — At this week's NATO summit conference in Istanbul, it will be in the political interest of America's European adversaries — France's Jacques Chirac and Germany's Gerhard Schröder — to appear to cooperate with the coalition helping Iraq complete its liberation.

At the same time, it is in the political interest of George W. Bush and Britain's Tony Blair to appear to be delighted with whatever safe and cheap aid that the Chirac-Schröder bloc allows NATO to offer instead of supplying alliance troops.

In this way, the French and German leaders can tell their nations that no diplomatic cost was attached to their opposition to removing Saddam Hussein. And Bush and Blair can face elections this year and next, able to make two claims: that the prewar split in the Western alliance has happily healed, and that the war was justified by the belated blessing of the leaders who fled from the fight.

Behind this facade, however, exists a hollowed-out alliance. Its previous common purpose — to block the westward march of Soviet imperialism — has not been replaced by a new purpose: to defeat imperial terrorism. Unless the democracies of France and Germany elect leaders capable of grasping that current challenge, NATO will continue to atrophy, supplanted by ad hoc coalitions of the willing to meet emergencies.

Such a withering of the West's grand alliance is not inevitable. Although savants in the U.S. seem certain that Bush and Blair will be punished by voters for their sin of strangling the worst regime in the cradle of terror, the view I get from London is different.

Britain's Labor Party is unlikely to thrust aside its eloquent leader and proven vote-getter. Blair has recently flummoxed internal dissenters as well as opposing Tories by proposing referendums not just on giving up economic sovereignty to Continental bankers but also on turning over political sovereignty to the bureaucrats of Brussels in the proposed European constitution. Like a strong majority of Euroskeptical Britons, Blair is now lukewarm on both issues, which snatches the clothes of the Tories.

Bush should accede to his stalwart ally's request for the release of four British subjects now held in Guantánamo, underscoring the special relationship. And as the interim government in Baghdad puts a nationalistic Iraqi face on its internal battle, Bush and Blair will be bolstered politically by (a) the reality of a shift in the war's fortunes as well as (b) the papering-over of the cracks in the wall of NATO solidarity.

Presume that Bush wins re-election this year and Blair the next. Further presume (and I know all this is hard to do) that necessary belt-tightening in France and Germany, at a time when unemployment is stuck near double digits, takes its toll at the polls.

Germany's Schröder is a political zombie, with a Thatcheresque successor in the wings. The sclerotic government of Chirac is desperately trying to block the rise of the charismatic finance minister, Nicolas Sarkozy. This savvy dynamo of Hungarian descent, 49, is tough on immigration, France's sleeper issue. Though he would surely irritate London and Washington in the grand French tradition, Sarkozy would probably not align himself with a German politician to treat the rest of Europe, as does Chirac, as children not well brought up.

Dare to think the unthinkable: What would the Western alliance look like if Bush and Blair receive fresh mandates, and Chirac and Schröder give way to leaders who see the modern collective defense in sponsorship of freedom outside their area? What if NATO is given new life by the urgent need to confront the new threat of terror networks?

Then we would see the emergence of NATO II, no longer North Atlantic but tied by need for citizen safety. It would not compete with the United Nations as a universal forum for debate and funneler of humanitarian aid, but be led by democracies willing to make proportionate sacrifices to provide for the common defense.

Of course, today's hollowed-out NATO could continue down the path of pretended mutuality that we will see in Turkey this week. And the voters of its member nations may follow Spain in choosing leaders averse to the cost of collective security. But as the old NATO showed, nations find safety in numbers.



Sunday, June 27, 2004

A New Beginning


By Ayad Allawi

Sunday, June 27, 2004;WP Page B07


BAGHDAD -- On Wednesday the sovereignty of Iraq will be restored, and the Iraqi people will take their first major steps toward a free and prosperous future, after more than three decades of tyrannical rule, repression, wars and sanctions. This will be an important milestone for Iraq, the region and indeed the whole world, endorsed by the unanimous approval of the U.N. Security Council in Resolution 1546 earlier this month. As Iraqis, we thank the coalition for the sacrifices made by its soldiers and its people for the liberation and rebuilding of Iraq, and for the contributions by all the countries, international organizations and nongovernmental organizations that have braved the risks to help Iraq in its time of need. We hope for the continued support of the global community, as we Iraqis take the crucial steps in assuming responsibility for our own future.

The members of my recently named interim government are among the brightest and most capable of Iraqi men and women, representing our unique mix of ethnic, religious, geographical and political perspectives, all united in a common patriotic purpose. Our government's policies will be based on four interrelated objectives.

First and foremost, our priority is to establish security, without which little other progress can be made in the long-overdue reconstruction of the country. This requires the rapid rebuilding of Iraq's key institutions for law enforcement, including the army, police, border control and intelligence services. The process is already underway, with a multifaceted, integrated plan that encompasses establishment of five divisions in the new Iraqi Army, unifying the command-and-control structure of the various security forces, building counterterrorism intelligence capabilities, establishing a ministerial national security council, and assembling a framework for the disbanding of militias and their reintegration into the nation's security forces.

Throughout this process the government will make a clear distinction between those Iraqis who have acted against the occupation out of a sense of desperation and those foreign terrorist fundamentalists and criminals whose sole objective is to kill and maim innocent people and to see Iraq fail. Our objective will be to reach out to the former group in a national reconciliation effort and invite them to join us in a fresh start to build our country's future together, while at the same time isolating and defeating the latter group. In this regard we are drawing up plans to provide amnesty to Iraqis who supported the so-called resistance without committing crimes, while isolating the hard-core elements of terrorists and criminals and undercutting their base of support. The honor of decent Iraqi ex-officials including military and police should be restored, excluding of course those who committed heinous crimes against the nation.

The second key element of our policy will address the dire economic situation. The immediate priorities must be reduction of the high rate of unemployment and restoration of essential basic services throughout the country. Promises must be translated into tangible results in order to address the crisis of credibility and win back the trust and loyalty of the Iraqi people. This will require absorbing a high number of skilled and unskilled workers in reconstruction projects and activities that will follow the restoration of sovereignty. The main focus of these works will be rehabilitating the infrastructure, including transportation, electricity and water networks, health services and education. In addition, we must restore and build up the nation's oil production and revenue.

Third, the sovereign Iraqi government will secure the development of and support for a strong and independent judicial system, well trained and well funded, in order to ensure the rule of law, protection of property rights and respect for human rights. One important area will be anti-corruption laws and regulations. These steps are not only a vital prerequisite for security and economic progress but also a cornerstone for the future free and democratic Iraq that we aim to build.

The fourth objective of our government's policy will be to continue and accelerate the nation's political process and march toward democracy. Our aim is to cement national unity and promote a spirit of reconciliation by ensuring that all voices and groups are heard, and to prepare the country for free and fair elections through an agreed constitution. Ballots must replace bullets as the determinant of political authority in Iraq. Nation-building is the key. Alienation or revenge must be avoided.

It should be noted that with all these initiatives, Iraq, like all nations, has a unique cultural and historical national context, with its own customs and values. The democratic system developed in Iraq will not and should not be a replica of models imported from the United States, Britain or any other country. Rather, we Iraqis need to find and create the democratic political process that works best for us, while sharing in the universal values of all free nations, benefiting from the experience of other countries and drawing on the advice of international organizations such as the United Nations.

The challenges are great, and the stakes are high, both for Iraq and the world. We must not underestimate the magnitude of the task that lies ahead. Despite the hardships, we Iraqis are determined to work together and assume responsibility for the success of our country. But we will continue to need the support and commitment of the international community in order to realize our national aspirations. In particular, we are placing our trust in international commitments of reconstruction aid and debt forgiveness, as well as assistance with multinational military support until Iraq is ready and able to assume full responsibility for its own security. With these efforts, God willing, Iraq will take its rightful place among the free and prosperous nations of the world.

The writer is prime minister of Iraq's first postwar sovereign government.


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