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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: KLP who wrote (8513)	9/19/2003 1:29:08 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 793759

Sullivan goes after the stuff on Clark that is important. CLARK ON THE WAR: Reading this essay (http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2001/0209.clark.html) by Wesley Clark, I have to say I'm not reassured that he has what it takes to wage a war on terror. If he had been president, the war in Afghanistan would probably not have taken place, let alone the war against Saddam. His first instinct after the deadliest act of war against the American heartland in history was to help the United Nations set up an International Criminal Tribunal on International Terrorism. I'm not even making that up. Maybe Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia could head up the committee. If I were to imagine a parody of what a Rhodes Scholar would come up with in such a moment, I'd be hard pressed to come up with something more perfect. His insistence throughout the piece is on process, process, process. Everything is seen through the prism of NATO's Kosovo campaign, his one claim to military glory. Can you imagine having to get every special ops target in Afghanistan approved by 19 different countries, including those who opposed any action against the Taliban? Can you even begin to imagine constructing a case for any action in Iraq under similar auspices? It simply wouldn't have happened. Which is the point. It's important to remember that under the last administration, almost nothing happened to address the genocide in the Balkans until the genocide had taken place. Why? Because we needed a consensus from all the Europeans to even wipe our collective ass. And the Europeans couldn't agree on anything in the 1990s. Have you noticed greater unanimity since? There's also no sense in Clark's essay about other agendas from our allies. It's all very well to achieve maximum international consensus on every international action. But what if you cannot get it? What if you cannot get the U.N. even to live up to its own resolutions, let alone American priorities? What if a critical "ally", like France, has a firm policy of thwarting American power - wherever and whenever it is waged? The notion that Bush created such a French policy is a fantasy. Clark's foreign policy strikes me as an abdication of foreign policy. That was dangerous in the 1990s. It would be fatal now. andrewsullivan.com