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

To: Bilow who wrote (124576)	2/12/2004 9:10:36 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 281500

The Consequences of Iraq Could still Break Blair and Bush, and Change Forever the Way our World is Ordered commondreams.org <<...The Bush administration makes no secret that it sees the Iraq war as the prototype for future conflicts; indeed, it has enshrined the idea in its official national security strategy document. Pre-emption remains the Bush doctrine. Witness Donald Rumsfeld's revealing remarks in Munich last week. Asked whether America is bound by any international system, legal framework or code of conduct, the US defense secretary replied: "I honestly believe that every country ought to do what it wants to do ... It either is proud of itself afterwards, or it is less proud of itself." Translation: the US can do what it likes - including making war on countries that have made no attack on it. Such pre-emptive wars are only possible with intelligence. Without some knowledge of the perceived threat that is to be removed, no case for preventative action can be made. Which makes the reliability of intelligence a central issue of our time -and ensures that the use politicians make of such intelligence is not some fleeting, one-off issue that will die with the Iraq episode. Its legitimacy or otherwise will determine how wars are fought in future. If the lesson of the WMD debacle is that intelligence cannot be relied upon, for it will always risk what Blix calls "dramatization" in the hands of politicians, then Iraq might be the last pre-emptive war. If Blair and Bush succeed in leading public opinion towards the reverse conclusion, we will soon live in a different world. Such consequences can almost seem too large to grasp. But there are some concrete ones to contemplate, too. A majority of Britons now believes that Tony Blair lied over the Iraq war and that he should resign, according to an NOP poll last weekend. When the prime minister's trust ratings took a hit in the past, the working assumption was that things would soon right themselves. Sure enough, formula one and the Mandelson home loan affair brought embarrassments, but the Blair numbers soon recovered. This is of a wholly different order. The PM said Iraq had WMD when it did not, and the public trust has been irreparably broken. It is as harsh and as simple as that. Whether it is at the next election or later, one cannot help but believe that somehow the Iraq adventure will destroy the Blair premiership if not the Labour government. In the US, that process might already be under way. Few would dare bet against the president just yet, but Iraq could be the undoing of Bush. His presumptive opponent, John Kerry, is running hard on the issue, even lashing out at the bogus 45-minute claim at the weekend. Al Gore, recast as an elder statesman, is making fierce speeches comparing Bush with Richard Nixon, who won re-election only to be brought down two years later. The president himself is looking defensive and shaky, most visibly in a feeble TV performance on Sunday. Blair and Bush must suspect that Iraq could be the breaking of them, even if they do not know how it will happen. Governments toppled in London and Washington, and the world order reshaped. Boring? I don't think so...>>