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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated
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To: Lane3 who wrote (15646)11/8/2003 9:27:37 PM
From: LindyBill  Read Replies (1) of 793623
 
A comment from Sullivan. do we want a president who will veer on the optimistic side when it comes to Islamist terror, or do we want a president that will veer on the side of caution and aggression? Do we want one who will hope for the best or one who will act, assuming the worst?

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The point about Saddam is that he was a sworn enemy of the U.S., had been known to develop an arsenal of WMDs, was in a position to arm terrorists in a devastating way, and any president had to weigh the risk of him staying in power in that new climate. The actual threat hangs over us all the time. It is unlike previous threats from foreign powers. It is accountable to no rules and no ethics. We know it will give us no formal warning. But we cannot know it is "imminent". If we had such proof - that the U.S. was under an imminent threat of attack - there would have been no debate at all. Of course a country has the right to defend itself when it is faced with an imminent threat. The debate is over how seriously to take the threat we now face. The strongest argument of the anti-war crowd is that we now know that the WMD threat from Saddam was much less than almost everyone (including most of them) believed. They're right - at least from the evidence so far. But that doesn't resolve the question of what we should have done before the war, when we had limited knowledge and information. Josh implies we should have risked it, and kept Saddam in power, with fingers crossed. But then Josh wasn't president. He wasn't responsible for guessing wrong. The question we have to answer is a relatively simple one: do we want a president who will veer on the optimistic side when it comes to Islamist terror, or do we want a president that will veer on the side of caution and aggression? Do we want one who will hope for the best or one who will act, assuming the worst? I thought 9/11 ended that debate. It clearly hasn't. But it's the central debate of the coming election.
andrewsullivan.com
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