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

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (55086)	10/28/2002 1:06:18 AM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 281500

one pundit's assessment of the likely consequences: Makes you wonder how just how strong a "conduit" Safire is. Are the Governments mentioned reading his threats as "Back Door" from the White House? I hope so.

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (55086)	10/28/2002 1:07:44 AM
From: kumar	Respond to of 281500

<Safire is sounding pessimistic on the UN resolution, thinks Bush will tell them to get lost> I didnt need others to help me reach the same conclusion.

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (55086)	10/28/2002 9:51:18 AM
From: JohnM	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Safire, as almost always, writes an interesting column. I note that Bill suggests, a bit later in the thread, that Safire might be read as having high level contacts in the Bush administration such that the column could be read that way by other governments. My own impression of his sources is that they are among the Cheney, Rumsfeld side of affairs and not the Powell, et all folk. Safire's column might, thus, be read as a public attempt by that crew to push Bush in their own direction. But Safire puts his finger on one of the problems of the present stance of the Bush administration. What would be the consequences of a victory by Saddam over the U.S. in the Security Council? If President Bush were to meekly accept the rebuff of a further watering-down of the U.S.-British resolution, his administration would become a laughingstock. Worse, the world would have no way to restrain nuclear blackmail. 1. The Bush folk don't actually talk this way in public, that is that if the Security Council were to adopt the French and Russian position it would represent a victory for Saddam, but thanks to the way the Bush folk have handled the diplomacy, it can easily be read that way. It did not need to be the case. No one has seriously argued, at least publicly, that matters have to be done so quickly that a two stage process does not have time. My own take is that the Bush folk are in that big a hurry because the willingness of the American public to go to war, in the wake of 9-11, is a very time dependent asset. No one knows when it will get to be too light to sustain these kinds of actions. They want to go before it dissipates too far. Not a good reason to go to war. In fact, a very bad one. 2. The last argument of Safire that we have to go to war to save face for Bush is hardly worth discussing. It does say that some large number of folk will have to die because the Bush administration mishandled the diplomacy to leave themselves no option save war. I like this about Safire, that one can argue with him. He does not demonize.