Bush taps America's new fear
By Michael Tackett
Chicago Tribune Senior Correspondent
Published March 18, 2003
WASHINGTON -- President Bush has marshaled the argument for war with Iraq many ways and many times, but it can still be reduced to a single word: Fear.
Fear--economic, military or political--has always served as a powerful motivator for war. And fear is at the foundation of Bush's case for a military invasion. His argument goes this way: The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 forever changed the way the United States views national security. Terrorists could deliver even more deadly attacks if they had weapons of mass destruction. Saddam Hussein possesses such weapons and he supports the terrorists.
Therefore, Bush argues, Hussein must go--either by his own will, which seems unlikely--or by force, which now seems inevitable.
Monday night, in his third prime-time appearance from the White House this year to discuss Iraq, Bush was grim, firm and, to some, even fear-inspiring in his conviction. Whatever debate there might be about the validity of his position, there can be no debate about the certainty of his position.
Bush again painted a portrait of terrorism connected to Hussein and his regime's "deep hatred of America." And he warned that just as he prepares to send troops to battle if the Iraqi leader doesn't flee in 48 hours, the U.S. needs to be prepared for an attack at home. As he was speaking, the Homeland Security Department announced that it was raising the terrorism threat level to Code Orange, the second-highest.
"The danger is clear: Using chemical, biological or one day nuclear weapons, obtained with the help of Iraq, the terrorists could fulfill their stated ambitions and kill thousands or hundreds of thousands of innocent people in our country or any other," Bush said.
The threat was so real and imminent that Bush said the U.S. would act soon despite a majority view to the contrary in the Security Council of the United Nations, an organization the U.S. helped to found after World War II.
Fear undergirds Bush's support in the United States and helps explain why public opinion here is so at odds with that in the rest of the world. People do feel threatened and exposed, and they are vesting a lot of hope in Bush's plan protecting them. That plan is a robust, and in many ways, untested display of presidential power.
Scholar evaluates actions
"We are seeing a return to the imperial presidency," said Darrell West, a presidential scholar at Brown University. "Bush has moved the chief executive front and center not just in terms of U.S. policy but also in terms of world affairs."
Bush won a special kind of credibility after the attacks and holds it at home even as it slips further abroad. The president who as a political candidate said the U.S. cannot be the policeman to the world seems to have put on a badge and staked out the suspect.
"The terrorist threat to America and the world will be diminished the moment that Saddam Hussein is disarmed," Bush said.
Throughout his political career, Bush has not been shy when talking about his ability to lead. Few could doubt that he has led the effort to oust Hussein. The problem for him is in how few nations have chosen to follow.
And there are those who think proactive war in Iraq will actually undermine the war against terrorism.
Senator expresses concern
"Nations that were so cooperative in the war on terrorism have been so uncooperative in the war against Iraq," said Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.). "It is a dramatic turn, and it is a bad signal for the future of the war against terrorism."
Clearly, the strategy has inherent risk. It is often said that the presidency, especially at a time of war, is the loneliest office in the world. For Bush, it is more than that because to a large degree, he is also alone, braced to launch the first preventive war to implement his new doctrine.
"Responding to such enemies only after they have struck first is not self-defense. It is suicide," Bush said.
Bush's doctrine, first articulated in a speech last summer at the United States Military Academy and ratified in a National Security Strategy document issued in September, is rapidly moving from unprecedented theory to unprecedented action.
The cries against war are quite possibly loudest now before any first shot is fired. That is to be expected. But Bush has a majority of the country behind him, and he likely added to those numbers with his words Monday night.
"War has a way of kind of cleaning the slate," said Lee Hamilton, the former Indiana congressman who heads the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Studies. "All of the debate, the anxiety, the consternation that exists prior to the war will not forever be removed, but it will fade. The focus of the world will be on military action. And the American people will strongly support it. Congress will strongly support it, and we certainly hope military action will be decisive and quick, and we will have a victory."
Congress largely complied with Bush's request for a war resolution last fall. Durbin, who voted against it, said that "Congress is absent without leave on this debate . . . If you want to witness a debate on Iraq, you have to watch C-SPAN to watch the House of Commons."
While Bush did not meet the burden of persuasion in making the case for war in the UN, he has done so among a slight majority in his own country. Whether he wins over much of the world depends on a calculation of a relatively swift, relatively low casualty conflict coupled with a full-bodied commitment to rebuild Iraq.
"It shifts now, and he will have the burden of persuading the world that he is committed to the future of Iraq, the burden of leading and showing that the United States will stay the course, to protect Iraqi civilians . . . and act in such a way to bring order and stability to the region," Hamilton said.
And that will take more credibility with the world than Bush possesses on this day.
"We are on the verge of creating the New American Empire," West said. "What we have to be careful about is that everyone doesn't end up hating the emperor."
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