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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group

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To: tekboy who wrote (113002)	8/28/2003 10:09:22 PM
From: carranza2	Read Replies (1) of 281500

Read James Rubin's articles in latest FA last night. Overall, very good. One picayune nit I'd like to pick is the factual basis for the claim that France told the US via back-channels--before they got all pissy--to go ahead with the invasion without obtaining the second resolution. I don't remember this tidbit of information ever becoming public knowledge--how does Rubin, a former Clintonista know?--but then again my memory is not what it used to be. Nonetheless, I didn't think Rubin noted sufficiently the pickle such a tactic would put Blair in nor the fact that Bush would never put Blair in such an untenable situation by failing to seek the second resolution in the weeks before the war started. Of course, we ultimately never sought it but only after being assured of a French veto after they got their Gallic dander up. The contradictions inherent in this minor point belie to some extent the factual basis for his argument, coloring Rubin's piece to some degree but not enough to damn it. I think he pretty much got it right. American diplomacy was so bull-headed the only conclusion I can draw is that the lack of finesse was conscious, not bumbling. Sending Rumsfeld to Europe instead of telling Powell to get off his derriere was like pouring gasoline over flames. Bush can't be so dense as to not know what would likely happen. The intentionality of what took place is also supported by the fact that the military development seems to have driven the diplomacy, not the other way around as is usually the case. This point is of course one of the article's mainstays. Bush probably felt the need to exercise his preemptive strike doctrine, which I deplore since there was absolutely no need to announce it. It's not a lesson the Bush Administration seems to have learned despite the fact that our power in relative terms has grown enormously since TR's sage cliche.

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