Endless war

“War without end” is how Pat Buchanan describes the Pre-Emptive War Doctrine being pushed by the Bush Administration. Indeed, last month we learned that the Defense Policy Board had hosted an analyst who proclaimed that Iraq is only a “tactical pivot” while Saudi Arabia is the “strategic pivot.” And, cryptically, Egypt was described as “the prize.” Now Michael Ledeen urges that we expand the list of targets in the war on terror to include Iran and Syria as well. This proliferation of enemy nations is starting to look rather manic.
Posted by at September 05, 2002 12:04 PM | Send
    
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While Michael Ledeen has interesting things to say (in particular, he has a realistic understanding of Africa based on his experience there), on the matter of the war on terror he is the most manic of the manic. Last December 7th at National Review Online he wrote:

“We need to sustain our game face, we must keep our fangs bared, we must remind them daily that we Americans are in a rage, and we will not rest until we have avenged our dead, we will not be sated until we have had the blood of every miserable little tyrant in the Middle East, until every leader of every cell of the terror network is dead or locked securely away, and every last drooling anti-Semitic and anti-American mullah, imam, sheikh, and ayatollah is either singing the praises of the United States of America, or pumping gasoline, for a dime a gallon, on an American military base near the Arctic Circle.”

I wrote to him:

“We will not be sated until we have had the blood of every miserable little tyrant in the Middle East”??? That means killing every leader in the Mideast. This is crazy, Mr. Ledeen, and provides fodder for the critics of a strong U.S. policy.

Posted by: Lawrence Auster on September 5, 2002 1:30 PM

Part of what makes this tough is that there is some validity in even the manic points of view, though. It is possible that giving Iraq a thorough thrashing and turning it into a middle eastern safe-haven for American Idol and Survivor fans will make the terror masters hide in their shells for another decade or so. Or perhaps not. In order to actually achieve the stated goal of keeping WMD out of terrorist hands, a scorched earth policy might be the only remotely feasible approach (not to advocate it, mind you, but just to attempt objectivity in evaluating the circumstances). There are literally millions of Americans capable of financing 9-11 or its equivalent personally as individuals: 20-ish committed people and about $500K is all it took. The WMD problem may be an order of magnitude or two larger in terms of resources, but it is well within the reach of every miserable little tyrant in the middle east, as long as he is a patient and determined miserable little tyrant.

So there you have it: a genuine, bona fide damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don’t situation, and who cares of whose making. One thing is virtually certain: whatever middle-of-the-road response the Bush administration actually implements will fall far short of the objective of elimination of terrorist WMD capabilities. But it may be morally impossible, not to mention politically impossible, to do any more.

Posted by: Matt on September 5, 2002 6:52 PM

Matt: Never underestimate the power of commercialism. “Idol” is already invading the Middle East:

Auditions will be held in Lebanon, Egypt, Morocco, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Thousands of contestants will be whittled down to 60 — 10 from each territory — but only 12 will perform songs live in front of a studio audience. The 21-episode series will culminate in a live performance staged in Lebanon.
http://tv.yahoo.com/news/va/20020904/103113349800.html

Posted by: Jim Carver on September 5, 2002 7:57 PM

It certainly represents a greater danger to radical Islam than any number of bombs. Part of the point though is that if the objective is just to use WMD against the infidel then it doesn’t take a particularly big village. Nukes/chems/bios are the great equalizers of the 21st century, like the Colt ‘45 on a grand scale.

Posted by: Matt on September 5, 2002 8:24 PM
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