John, your point of view is respected, but it is imponderable. Is the cry for multilateralism based on the desire for a logical course of action, or are the multilateralists grasping at straws to stop the Bush administration from acting? Please read the following extract of Charles Krauthammer's article in the January 2003 Imprimis (the emphasis is mine)...jj
"Liberal Internationalism
"There are two schools of committed multilateralists, and it is important to distinguish between them. There are the liberal internationalists who act from
principle, and there are the realists who act from pragmatism. The first was seen in the run-up to the congressional debate on the war on Iraq. The main
argument from opposition Democrats was that we should wait and hear what the U.N. was saying. Senator Kennedy, in a speech before the vote in
Congress said, "I'm waiting for the final recommendation of the Security Council before I'm going to say how I'm going to vote." Senator Levin, who at
the time was the Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, actually suggested giving authority to the President to act in Iraq only upon the
approval of the U.N. Security Council.
"The liberal internationalist position is a principled position, but it makes no internal sense. It is based on a moral vision of the world, but it is impossible
to understand the moral logic by which the approval of the Security Council confers moral legitimacy on this or any other enterprise. How does the
blessing of the butchers of Tiananmen Square, who hold the Chinese seat on the Council, lend moral authority to anything, let alone the
invasion of another country? On what basis is moral legitimacy lent by the support of the Kremlin, whose central interest in Iraq, as all of us know, is
oil and the $8 billion that Iraq owes Russia in debt? Or of the French, who did everything that they could to weaken the resolution, then came on board
at the last minute because they saw that an Anglo-American train was possibly leaving for Baghdad, and they didn't want to be left at the station?
"My point is not to blame the French or the Russians or the Chinese for acting in their own national interest. That's what nations do. My point is to
express wonder at Americans who find it unseemly to act in the name of our own national interest, and who cannot see the logical
absurdity of granting moral legitimacy to American action only if it earns the prior approval of others which is granted or withheld on the
most cynical grounds of self-interest.
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"America's Special Role
"Of course, unilateralism does not mean seeking to act alone. One acts in concert with others when possible. It simply means that one will not allow
oneself to be held hostage to others. No one would reject Security Council support for war on Iraq or for any other action. No one would reject
Security Council support for war on Iraq or for any other action. The question is what to do if, at the end of the day, the Security Council or the
international community refuses to back us? Do we allow ourselves to be dictated to on issues of vital national interest? The answer has to be "no", not
just because we are being willful, but because we have a special role, a special place in the world today, and therefore a special responsibility.
"Let me give you an interesting example of specialness that attaches to another nation. During the 1997 negotiations in Oslo over the land mine treaty,
when just about the entire Western world was campaigning for a land mine ban, one of the holdouts was Finland. The Finnish prime minister found
himself scolded lby his Scandinavian neighbors for stubbornly refusing to sign on to the ban. Finally, having had enough, he noted tartly that being
foursquare in favor of banning land mines was a "very convenient" pose for those neighbors who "want Finland to be their land mine."
"In many parts of the world, a thin line of American GIs is the land mine. The main reason that the U.S. opposed the land mine treaty is that we need
them in places like the DMZ in Korea. Sweden and Canada and France do not have to worry about an invasion from North Korea killing thousands of
their soldiers. We do. Therefore, as the unipolar power and as the guarantor of peace in places where Swedes do not tread, we need weapons that
others do not. Being uniquely situated in the world, we cannot afford the empty platitudes of allies not quite candid enough to admit that they live under
the protection of American power. In the end, we have no alternative but to be unilateralist. Multilateralism becomes either an exercise in futility or a
cover for inaction.
"The futility of it is important to understand. The entire beginning of the unipolar age was a time when this country, led by the Clinton administration,
eschewed unilateralism and pursued multilateralism with a vengeance. Indeed, the principal diplomatic activity of the U.S. for eight years was the pursuit
of a dizzying array of universal treaties: the comprehensive test ban treaty, the chemical weapons convention, the biological weapons convention, Kyoto
and, of course, land mines.
"In 1997, the Senate passed a chemical weapons convention that even its proponents admitted was useless and unenforceable. The argument for it was
that everyone else had signed it and that failure to ratify would leave us isolated. To which we ought to say: So what? Isolation in the name of a principle
in the name of our own security, in the name of rationality is an honorable position.
"Multilateralism is at root a cover for inaction. Ask yourself why those who are so strenuously opposed to taking action against Iraq are also so
strenuously in favor of requiring U.N. support. The reason is that they see the U.N. as a way to stop America in its tracks. They know that for ten years
the Security Council did nothing about Iraq; indeed, it worked assiduously to weaken santions and inspections. It was only when President Bush
threatened unilateral action the the U.N. took any action and stirred itself to pass a resolution. the virtue of unilateralism is not just that it allows action. It forces action.
"I return to the point I made earlier: (not in this extract) The way to build a coalition is to be prepared to act alone. The reason that President Bush has
been able and will continue to be able to assemble a coalition on Iraq is that the Turks, the Kuwaitis and others in the region will understand that we are
prepared to act alone if necessary. In the end, the real division between unilateralists and multilateralists is not really about partnerships or about means
or about methods. It is about ends.
"We have never faced a greater threat than we do today, living in a world of weapons of mass destruction of unimaginable power. The
divide before us, between unilateralism and multilateralism, is at the end of the day a divide between action and inaction. Now is the time
for action, unilaterally if necessary."
Reprinted by permission from Imprimis, the national speech digest of Hillsdale College (www.hillsdale.edu) |
