| War, at Last |
24 March 2003
|
Congratulations, Messrs. Rumsfeld and Cheney
It has been a long time in coming, but Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney finally have their war against Saddam. Nothing could stop their determination, and their success is a tribute to their political skills. Twelve years is a long time to push a policy, but finally, they made it happen. One only wishes that their wisdom had matched their ambition.
This war was never a necessity. Diplomacy was never exhausted. Yet, now that the fighting has begun, there is only one decent outcome for civilized people to support, a quick coalition victory. The alternatives, a long drawn-out conflict or a negotiated settlement that results in the survival of the Saddam-ite regime, are too awful to contemplate. A slow win for the West is as bad as a defeat -- America will lose its will to take part in global affairs much as it did after its Vietnam defeat. The vacuum that will create will be filled by those with barbaric intent.
The protests across the world are pointless. By the time they can have any effect on the powers that be, the war and the reconstruction will be over. They are the actions of well-meaning, but unsophisticated, folk who think that somehow they actually possess some kind of power. The protesters appear to take to the streets to protect their comfortable lives and easy consciences when, in fact, they are entitled to neither.
So, congratulations to Messrs. Cheney and Rumsfeld. They have done an amazing thing. Serving an appointed, not elected, president, they have taken America into a war without congressional approval nor the backing of the UN. Moreover, they have reversed 150 years of American foreign policy which said that the world's greatest democracy would not strike first. Imagine what they might have accomplished if these energies had been pointed at something more benign.