[Peace-discuss] neocons

Mon Aug 4 15:29:16 CDT 2003

[A reasonably good editorial from the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, altho'
it's still far too indulgent towards the criminal neocons. But what the
anti-war movement was saying last summer is (finally) finding its way into
even the for-profit media. --CGE]

	startribune.com
	Editorial: Bait and switch / The neocon case for war in Iraq
	Published 07/31/2003

In an appearance Tuesday before a skeptical Senate Foreign Relations
Committee, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz declared that "the
peace in Iraq is now the central battle in the war on terror." That same
refrain has begun to pop up in statements by President Bush and Vice
President Dick Cheney -- as well as the neoconservative thinkers and
writers who provide the intellectual framework for this administration's
approach to foreign and defense policies. It begins to get down to the
bedrock rationale for going to war in Iraq.

Strands of that rationale have been around for years, but they weren't
given public emphasis -- not in the 2000 presidential campaign and not in
the prewar debate about whether to invade Iraq. If you piece together
those strands, the rationale, prewar, went like this:

Saddam Hussein is a brutal tyrant who routinely thumbs his nose at the
United States. His interest in weapons of mass destruction -- if not his
possession of them -- is well-established, meaning he may become a threat
to the United States and its friends at some point. Moreover, he is in
violation of numerous U.N. Security Council resolutions. The United States
can make a case for ousting him by military force -- a case that can't be
made for any other Middle East leader. So Saddam's the guy.

Removing Saddam will do a number of positive things. In his place the
United States and friends can build a peaceful, prosperous, democratic,
secular state in Iraq. That in turn will be a powerful catalyst for
promoting change and reform throughout the Islamic world. Oppressive,
corrupt regimes will become vulnerable because people across the region
will want what the Iraqi people now have. And Islamic reform is key to
removing the conditions that breed terrorism.

There's also what is called the "flypaper" or "magnet" effect, to which
Bush spoke with his famous "Bring 'em on" statement. The idea is that the
presence of tens of thousands of American military personnel on the ground
in Iraq will make them a magnet for terrorists from around the world. It
will pull terrorists away from Israel and the United States to Iraq, where
U.S. forces can safely engage them in full-fledged combat and defeat them.

Those American forces also are likely to embolden reformist elements next
door in Iran, threatening the rule of the oppressive, America-hating
mullahs. On the other side of Iraq, in Syria, terrorist groups such as
Hezbollah are likely also to get the message that they'd best behave, lest
they too get whacked by the Americans.

That's the neocon theory, and there is evidence that pieces of it are
indeed working. But pieces are not: Witness the warning that also came
Tuesday of a new airliner hijacking threat in the United States and
overseas. Note also that in his appearance before the Senate committee,
Wolfowitz and others declined repeated efforts by frustrated Democrats and
Republicans to estimate the cost of occupying Iraq, how long it might take
or even how many troops it might require.

"Oh, come on now," responded Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., the ranking
Democrat. "Does anyone here at the table think we're going to be down
below 100,000 forces in the next calendar year? When are you guys starting
to be honest with us?"

The larger question is why those guys weren't honest with Congress and the
American people before the war started. Why did they focus almost
exclusively on the supposedly imminent threat posed by Saddam Hussein's
weapons of mass destruction? Why not lay out their far more nuanced,
ambitious neocon theory about projecting American values into the Middle
East and thus beginning a regional transformation? Wolfowitz has said the
WMD rationale was chosen for "bureaucratic" reasons; it was the one factor
everyone could agree on.

But other neocon writers hint it was for a different reason: They knew
they couldn't sell their vision -- not to traditional conservatives, as
George Will has made clear; not to most liberals, and not to the
nonideological middle which would balk at the cost in dollars and human
life. So they gussied up the "imminent threat" posed by Iraq's WMD
programs and rode that argument into war.

The neocon theory is interesting and complex. It's like a new theory for
solving a scientific question. New theories need grueling examination by
peers who try to knock holes in them before they are accepted as the basis
for action. They also need to be explained, patiently and with precision,
so the public can know what it is being asked to purchase with the lives
of its kids and its money.

The neocon foreign policy agenda got neither a thorough vetting nor public
explication -- because its authors apparently thought the American people
wouldn't understand it or wouldn't buy it. Instead, the neocons pulled a
classic, and very arrogant, bait and switch. Sooner or later, they're
going to pay for it.