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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Win-Lose-Draw who wrote (392870)	4/15/2003 11:14:08 PM
From: American Spirit	Respond to of 769667

Saudis ARE as big terrorist coddlers as anyone left. Maybe even as much as Saddam. Southern Saudi Arabia is Osama country. Just like Utah was Wild Bunch country.

To: Win-Lose-Draw who wrote (392870)	4/15/2003 11:20:02 PM
From: George Coyne	Respond to of 769667

Those Dictator 'Dominoes' By Wall Street Journal Editorial Wall Street Journal \| April 15, 2003 Critics of liberating Iraq have long derided what they call the Bush Administration's "domino theory" -- that removing Saddam Hussein from power would lead to the toppling of dictators elsewhere. This was always a caricature of Bush policy, but then again it wouldn't hurt if the world's dictators came to believe it. The domino metaphor implies an automaticity that never happens in the real world. The better way to think about the Iraqi precedent is as a very large global demonstration of American power and will on behalf of its principles. This demonstration effect is now being felt in Pyongyang, Damascus, Tehran and other places contending for Iraq's former title as the world's craziest rogue state. One potential "domino" to take note is North Korea, which has suddenly announced it will consider "multilateral" talks about its nuclear weapons plans. For weeks it had bellicosely demanded face-to-face bilateral discussions with the U.S. alone. But the South Koreans now detect the power of Iraqi persuasion. "It seems that North Korea is becoming a bit more flexible, including in the ways it communicates," said South Korean National Security Adviser Ra Jong-yil yesterday. "It appears that the war in Iraq set an important precedent in determining the geopolitical landscape." The North's shift also vindicates the Bush Administration's strategy of resisting its nuclear blackmail and keeping cool as Kim Jong Il tried to saber-rattle his way to concessions during the prelude to war in Iraq. With Saddam now probably buried under restaurant rubble, Kim realizes the U.S. will soon be able to devote more military and diplomatic resources to Northeast Asia. President Bush's words also have a new credibility. The Baghdad precedent may also have helped North Korea's neighbors see the wisdom of putting more pressure on Pyongyang. South Korea started to abandon its infantile anti-Americanism as soon as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld discussed moving American troops out of the peninsula. China still won't accept sanctions from the United Nations, which Iraq showed were feckless in any case. But Beijing did quietly (albeit briefly) turn off the oil spigot to North Korea in recent weeks -- a message bound to get through even to crazy Kim. And Russia now says it may reconsider its opposition to economic sanctions against Pyongyang if Kim starts producing nukes. None of this suggests that the way out of the Korean impasse will be easy or fast. Kim may merely be shifting strategy in hopes of getting the world to put more pressure on the Bush Administration to return to the Clinton-era pattern of Korean threat followed by American concession. China in particular is conflicted between its desire to drive the U.S. out of Asia and its fear of a nuclear-armed nut in the neighborhood; it may not be much further help. The White House will also have to keep its head amid the usual State Department/media pleas for premature capitulation. Closer to Baghdad, of course, is the potential Syrian "domino." Damascus has long protected terrorists and controls Lebanon as an imperial power. Now the U.S. says Syria has chemical weapons and is harboring Saddam's fleeing henchmen. Mr. Bush himself is warning the country's junior achievement thug, Bashar Assad, to cease and desist. The Syrian ambassador to the U.S. was at pains to deny all of this, albeit in slippery fashion, on NBC's "Meet the Press" Sunday. But that panicky denial may itself be a sign of the persuasive power of Iraq's liberation. The test of Assad's cooperation in coming days will be whether he turns over those Iraqi Baathists on the American most-wanted list. If he refuses, the U.S. shouldn't rule out military action in hot pursuit of fleeing Iraqis, for starters. Supporters of the Mideast status quo are now raising alarms that with Saddam gone, "the Pentagon" wants to march on to Syria, and Iran and ... presumably Paris. But this is silly. One benefit of liberating Baghdad is that we may improve the behavior of those regimes without having to fight. The power of the Iraq example may cause them to rethink the costs and benefits of supporting terror and other mayhem. Already on the weekend former Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani announced that he now supports a referendum on improving ties with the U.S. Perhaps he and other hard-liners fear that the sight of free Iraqis tipping over statues of Saddam could excite those in Tehran who chafe at rule-by-mullah. The best kind of dictator dominoes are those that fall all by themselves.