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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Karen Lawrence who wrote (50379)	10/9/2002 1:27:14 AM
From: KLP	Respond to of 281500

CrackerJacks will do it everytime. IMO. Some that want to see will 'get it'.....

To: Karen Lawrence who wrote (50379)	10/9/2002 2:13:07 AM
From: Karen Lawrence	Respond to of 281500

Poking, prodding no path to peace By RobertRobb Republic columnist Oct. 9, 2002 arizonarepublic.com President Bush is a war president for a nation not sure that it is really at war. Sept. 11 awakened the American people to our vulnerability to terrorist attack here at home. There is overwhelming support for getting those who did the deed and preventing another attack. President Bush calls this a "war against terrorism," and that appellation has been accepted. But the country is still sorting out the extent to which that is a description or a metaphor. For Bush, it is a description and a mission. On Monday, he made the case for a new front: military action in Iraq to disarm Saddam Hussein and remove him from power. It's true, as critics assert, that Saddam is doing nothing different than he did prior to Sept. 11, and the Bush administration wasn't proclaiming the need for military action to oust him then. It's also irrelevant. Sept. 11 changed the way the Bush administration, and the nation, weighs risks. What was acceptable before is no longer acceptable. And post-Sept. 11, Bush views Saddam with weapons of mass destruction as an unacceptable threat to the United States. And weighs the risks of inaction as decidedly greater than the risks of action. Congress appears certain to agree. And so, irrespective of what the United Nations does, unless Saddam radically reverses course, the United States is going to war to disarm and depose him. The Bush administration views this as a pre-emptive strike, a new doctrine first enunciated by the president in a speech at West Point last summer, and fleshed out in a new "national security strategy" presented to Congress late last month. One of the president's most important supporters on the Iraq war, Democratic Sen. Joe Lieberman, disagrees. How can it be pre-emptive, he asks, when the other side is shooting at you daily, as Iraq does to American and British planes enforcing the no-fly zone? The nation is understandably and appropriately preoccupied with the war on terrorism and the impending war with Iraq. But the ultimate question is how does the United States move beyond war, real or metaphorical, and obtain a larger measure of peace and security? The Bush administration tried to answer that question with its "national security strategy." In many respects, it moves in the wrong direction. Post-Sept. 11, the war presidency of the Bush administration sees an American security interest in everything that happens everyplace in the world. This is, in part, the "war on terrorism" as commonly understood: Working with other countries to identify and incapacitate terrorist networks of global reach; preventing terrorist safe harbors such as Afghanistan became. It includes the new doctrine of pre-emption that is easier to justify in action than in principle. But it also commits to an American role in regional conflicts irrespective of any direct interests at stake. And it declares an actionable American security interest in the spread of democratic governments with market economies. The document even describes European market inefficiencies and Japanese deflation and banking problems as security threats to the United States. Now, the United States unquestionably benefits from having more democratic governments with market economies. But not all pre-modern societies or even autocracies are security threats. Wrong-headed economic policies hurt the global economy and the United States. But rarely are they true security threats. The path to domestic stability and economic growth is clear. But other nations should be free to find that path without being constantly poked and prodded by the United States. And while we should state clearly our intention to take whatever actions are necessary to protect American lives and liberty, we should stay out of conflicts in which neither are significantly at risk. Trying to manage the world's affairs risks more than it protects American security. Ultimately, that's a lesson we need to learn and apply. Reach