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Modern technology democratizes terror

The technology of miniaturizing, weaponizing, packaging and delivering devastating destruction is proceeding at an alarming and accelerating rate. The result is that weapons of mass destruction (WMD) are rapidly becoming within the reach not only of many nations but also of determined bands of evil-doers operating within or across national borders.

Not so long ago, the knowledge and technologies to make biological, chemical and nuclear weapons were arcane and scarce. The weapons themselves were unwieldy, sometimes unreliable, and hard to deliver. For decades after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, only a few major powers were able to muster the will and resources to produce nuclear weapons. Until the last years of the 20th century, the nuclear club was pretty exclusive: Only the U.S., Russia, the U.K., France, and China were acknowledged members. Israel and South Africa were de-facto if not official members, although the latter nation dropped out after the collapse of white rule there. The evil genies of biological and chemical weapons were also kept pretty well bottled up for most of the century just past.

Today the WMD club is no longer very exclusive. Any number of nations now have nuclear weapons or programs to produce them. India and Pakistan bristle with them as they snarl over Kashmir. Iraq, Iran, North Korea–George Bush’s "Axis of Evil" nations–seem hell-bent on having them. Brazil could have them almost anytime it wanted. So, probably, could at least a dozen other countries in Latin America, Asia, and even Africa. Biological and chemical weapons, international treaties and conventions not withstanding, are also well within the reach of many nations...some of which have already both produced and used them. Everybody now knows that Saddam Hussein’s Iraq used them both against the Iranians and rebellious Iraqi Kurds. The dreadful logic is this: If your neighbor has joined the WMD club, your own nation feels compelled to join too.

Tomorrow you won’t even have to be a nation to join the WMD club. Technology appears ready to give us nuclear weapons–dirty bombs–that can be delivered in an ocean-going container or truck. Tomorrow, it may be possible to stuff such things into a suitcase. As for delivery systems, a very old type–the suicidal zealot–is newly available in huge and apparently growing supply. If the Palestinian intafada weren’t enough to show us that, then al-Qaida demonstrated it all too convincingly on September 11th, 2001. And you may not even have to die to deliver death to others: We’ve recently seen how it’s possible to deliver anthrax spores anonymously through the U.S. mail and not get caught. Terrorist attempts to deliver chemical weapons in Japan and elsewhere have, so far, remained ham-handed and limited in their lethal impact. We would be naive to suppose that they will remain so.

The bottom line is this: Destruction is now democratized. Unless restrained, rogue nations and bandits will be able to acquire and deliver weapons of mass destruction anywhere in the world.

Seething Islam

Do we have enemies who are zealous enough to attack us with WMD? After 9/11 and all the previous and subsequent attacks on American interests abroad, that question is obviously and absurdly naïve. We have them in vast and growing numbers.

America has always had its enemies. Previously, however, these were nations (e.g., Imperial Japan, Hitler’s Germany, or the USSR). Oh, yes, I suppose there were individual America-haters out there, but they were too few, too scattered, too disorganized, and–most importantly–insufficiently motivated to do much or any damage. Nuts like Lee Harvey Oswald or Timothy J. McVeigh were fanatics, there’s no denying that, but they were one-man or few-man gangs and the tragedies they wrought were very real but also quite limited. On 9/11, Mohamed Atta and Osama bin Laden's other lads showed America that we now face a new kind of enemy, one capable of striking us here at home.

America’s new enemy emerges from seething, fanatical Islam. There are various reasons why the Muslim world is now producing such a huge supply of angry fanatics, zealots for martyrdom. I’ll mention only two:

• Bleeding Palestine. No matter how differently Americans may perceive it, most Muslims see the creation of the State of Israel as an epic injustice imposed on the non-Jewish people of Palestine. Israeli victories in three wars, the success of Israeli nation-building, as well as the ever-widening techno-economic gap between Israel and its Muslim neighbors is a constant and galling reminder of Arabic and–by extension–of Muslim failure. Expanding Israel settlements in the West Bank exacerbates Muslim anger and resentment. Finally, Al Jazeera sends TV images of Israel’s vigorous (and in Muslim eyes, the brutal) suppression of Palestinian resistance to Israeli rule into Muslim homes from Morocco to the Philippines. America’s unwavering and largely uncritical support for Israel in its struggle with the Palestinians transfers to us the full force–and then some–of Muslim anger. I’m convinced that, so long as Israeli-Palestinian conflict continues to fester, the supply of martyr-wannabies will continue to grow apace.
  
  
• Islam’s failure to modernize. A few centuries ago, the Islamic civilizations of Persia and Arabia led the world in culture, science and technology. The Ottoman Empire once was a–some might argue, the–dominant military force in Eurasia. The Turkish high-water mark came in the 16th century under Sulayman the Magnificent who owned parts of Europe up to Poland and Austria. As recently as the 19th century, the Islamic Ottoman Empire was a power to be reckoned with and it still occupied significant pieces of European real estate in the Balkans. But for reasons too numerous to recount (and which I don’t understand all that well), the Muslim world has failed miserably to modernize by embracing modern science (and the scientific method), democracy, honest government, the rule of law, secular education, the separation of religion and government, the market economy, and the equality of men and women. Despite unearned oil-wealth and the importation of western-originated technology (including military technology), the Muslim nations–excepting only modern Turkey–continue to lag the Western–and, increasingly, the Asian–nations in economic, political, educational, and social development. Moreover, most of those nations–again excepting Turkey–are ruled by autocratic, often corrupt, rulers who have struck a Faustian bargain with their Mullahs, "You permit us to enrich ourselves and dictate politically and we’ll permit you to dictate spiritually, socially, and educationally." Consequently, there is no educational system worthy the name in too many Muslim countries. Too many impoverished Muslim young men are "educated" in madrassas where they learn little more than to memorize the Koran and, under the tutelage of fanatical teachers, to hate Jews, Americans, and all things Western.

Bottom line: The supply of Islamic zealots, martyr-wannabies, is huge and its growth shows no sign of slackening.

The zone of disorder: Chaos, failed states, and the breeding grounds of terror.

The huge triangle of territory with vertices at Morocco, South Africa, and the Philippines is a zone of disorder. With few exceptions, the people living in this zone are poor and poorly educated. Economic development is feeble or non-existent. Ethnic rivalries engender endless civil strife. Rulers often are corrupt or incompetent or both. States fail. Chaos rules where rulers can’t. It’s a cauldron boiling with resentment against and envy of the rich nations of the West, especially the richest and most powerful of Western nations, the United States. Think Afghanistan before Operation Enduring Freedom. Think Somalia. Think Liberia and most of West Africa. Think even of parts of Pakistan. The rule of rulers in these failed states sometimes reaches but a few kilometers beyond their capital cities (if even there). Local war-lords or thugs may exercise some transient local control over areas with ill-defined and ever-shifting boundaries.

Bottom line: Al-Qaida terrorists and their imitators find safe harbors and ample recruits throughout the zone of disorder. They may even find havens to indoctrinate and train their martyrs-in-the-making.

Offense will be the best 21st century defense:

Palavering to contain WMD provided a good living for two generations of diplomats from scores of nations. In the last quarter of the 20th century, these diplomatic labors brought forth a myriad of non-proliferation agreements, treaties banning chemical and bacterial weapons, U.N resolutions, etc., etc. Most but not all nations have signed most of these. The U. N. resolutions aiming to contain WMD proliferation are numbered as the stars. The world is awash in good intentions. Still, proliferation continues...not only among states but among terrorist bands.

This much is obvious: Unless international programs of non-proliferation become much more effective in the future than they have been in the past or are at present, weapons of mass destruction and the means to deliver them will be widely available to our enemies whether they are nations or bands of murderous zealots.

Since 9/11, America has undertaken an elaborate, expensive and intrusive program of homeland defense. Recently we even have gained a new and eponymously named department of our federal government. With luck, vigilant homeland defense will keep most of the bad guys at bay. But as one terrorist reputedly put it, "We have to be lucky only once. You have to be lucky every time."

The bottom line is this: In the 21st century, where technology democratizes weapons of mass destruction and America-hating zealots abound, homeland defense won’t be good enough. This nation and all other nations who wish to protect themselves from predation by terrorists will need to take the battle to the enemy. Offense will be the best defense.

Washington, we have a free-rider problem.

If the world really is as I’ve described above, then a reasonable person might think that all the nations that have so much to lose from WMD-wielding rogue states or terrorists would find it easy to forge a common political will to act in combating such threats. In fact, in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, we did see a remarkable display of solidarity with the United States as we launched our "War on Terrorism." There were notable exceptions, of course: America haters in the Gaza Strip and elsewhere demonstrated openly in the Arab streets in support of Osama bin Laden's "martyrs." Elsewhere, in the West and even here at home, there were those who secretly savored Schadenfreud figuring that the U.S. had gotten a bit of its own medicine, something it richly deserved. But, for the most part, the world emotionally rallied to America in its hour of sorrow. Impressive, too, was the international consensus and–to a much lesser extent–the joint international action in what we call Operation Enduring Freedom to liberate Afghanistan from the Taliban and pursue Osama bin Laden.

The post-9/11 consensus and unanimity proved short-lived indeed. Today, the global demand for political will greatly exceeds its supply. The aforementioned reasonable person might well now ask, "Why does the ‘coalition of the willing’ to compel Saddam Hussein to disarm and/or disappear consist of only the U.S., the U.K. and a tiny collection of other nations?"

Again, the answers are several. Not least of all, however, is the very rational calculation by many nations that, since George Bush declares that U.S. is prepared to go after Saddam by itself, then they might as well let the U.S. do it. They reckon that they have little to gain and possibly something to lose by joining the "coalition of the willing." It’s like all those folks who enjoy watching PBS programs like the News Hour with Jim Lehrer but who decline to fork over their contributions no matter how desperate the pleas they hear during "pledge week." If you know that somebody else will pay for what you want but that you can still enjoy it, why pay for it? In game theory, that’s called the "free-rider" problem. If the world’s sole remaining superpower is prepared–nay, determined–to play marshal for the world, why join the posse? That way you can complain if things go badly and say, "I told you so." But, if things go well, you can still enjoy what the "coalition of the willing" makes possible.

Free-riders abound also in and around the most recent manifestation of North Korean lunacy. What we have here is an irresponsible, unpredictable, erratic goof in Pyongyang about to be armed with atom bombs and maybe so hard up for cash that he’d be willing to sell some of them to some even badder guys. Whose interests are potentially threatened by this situation? The correct answer is, of course, "Everybody in the region and maybe quite a few beyond it." Therefore, our reasonable person might reason that China, Russia, Japan, and South Korea would spring forth to join the United States in restraining the Dear Leader from building his nuclear arsenal. Nope. Let Uncle Sam do it. So say they all of them. Free riders, every one of them.

Here’s the bottom line: If you declare you’re willing to carry the entire burden alone, don’t be surprised if the rest of the folks let you carry it. That’s particularly true if folks fear the bad guys can smack them if they join the posse. A marshal’s life can be a lonely one.

It didn’t have to be this lonely, George.

Some wounds are self-inflicted. In this case, America’s isolation in the court of world opinion is much worse than it needed to be. Nor was it fated that the "coalition of the willing" would turn out to be Gulliver and a few dwarfs.

Let me say right away that Germany was probably a lost cause from the moment that Gerhard Schröder realized that he could leverage the German people’s war-leeriness to his political advantage in last year’s closely fought electoral scramble. It worked and Schröder retained Germany’s chancellorship at least until the next general election. But then he was hoist on that petard whether he wanted to be there or not. Banished by Bush beyond the pale for what Washington took, not unreasonably, to be his opportunistic and unfriendly political ploy, he has remained out there. That is partly because Washington managed to make it seem demeaning to try to return to its good graces. It’s partly because standing apart from what is viewed in Europe as Bush’s gun-slingin’ Wild West proclivities remains politically popular in Germany...indeed, it seems ever more popular there.

This brings me to my point. The image of itself that the second Bush administration has projected abroad is virtually the polar opposite of that projected by the administration of Bush the Elder. Bush-41 and his Secretary of State, Jim Baker, sought to sooth and stroke other nations and their leaders thereby to gain their participation–or at least, their acquiescence–in the First Gulf War. In sharp contrast, the utterances of Bush-43rd’s garrulous and all-too-candid Donald Rumsfeld have annoyed and alienated even those who might otherwise have gravitated to our side. And Rummy hasn’t been alone among this administration’s nose-thumbers at foreign opinion.

What seemed abroad to be a gratuitous disregard–bordering on disdain–for other nations’ sentiments and interests appeared in this administration’s earliest days. Some of this originated in the Republican revulsion of all things smacking of Clinton, his administration and his ilk. More of it stemmed from the muscularly unilateralist propensities of the smart and articulate neo-conservatives and other right-wingers who populate and influence this Bush administration. I have in mind hawkish types like Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, Chairman of the Defense Policy Board Richard Perle, and Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. who heads the Center for Security Policy. Influential also have been Bill Kristol, editor of the neo-con Weekly Standard and even William Safire, the New York Times’ token scribbler of hawkish op-eds.

It may or it may not be accidental and irrelevant that all of those just named are emotionally much attached to the State of Israel and several, if not all, sympathize with Prime Minister’s Ariel Sharon’s muscular approach to dealing with the Palestinians. Common among them, also, has been a long-standing perception that Saddam Hussein poses a clear and present danger to the State of Israel. Their efforts and those of similar persuasion have constituted a powerful force nudging President Bush and other senior members of his administration to our present position vis-à-vis Iraq and Saddam Hussein. Exactly how important their influence has been is debatable. Some say that 9/11 gave George W. Bush the focus he now has for his presidency. Standing at Ground Zero, shaking hands and hugging New York firemen and policemen produced, some say, produced a revelation for our President. From that moment on, he knew what he had to do. Nothing and nobody is going to stop him from doing it.

It is not only our go-it-alone defense policies that agitate and alienate folks abroad whom we used to count on as stout allies. It’s also the our-way-or-the-highway attitude that has attended our rejection of the Kyoto Protocol on global warming, our withdrawal from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, our refusal to support the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty or the creation of an international criminal court. Mind you, I think a good case could be made against every one of these international initiatives. But on several of the issues involved, we seemed to have no positive alternative to propose to the measures we opposed. And it was the seemingly arrogant, screw-you-if-you-don’t-like-it attitude that accompanied our positions that unnecessarily alienated people we used to call our friends.

For a while, just after 9/11, it appeared that George Bush underwent an epiphany, that he had realized the important value of having friends abroad and building strong international support for our preferred policies. That lasted through the buildup to and early days of Operation Enduring Freedom. By mid-2002, that particular epiphany proved ephemeral.

The bottom line is this: This administration’s rhetoric and attitude, even more than its unilateralist actions, have alarmed and alienated our erstwhile friends and allies. It was not fated to be this bad. Much of what we did was gratuitous and, alas, we are now paying a rising price for it. I fear that the conduct and the aftermath of the impending Second Iraq War will see that cost escalate much higher.

Alors, let’s bind Gulliver

One rising cost we appear to be incurring is the rupture of NATO and, more generally, of the Atlantic Alliance. Here we may have fallen unwittingly into a French trap. For years, French leaders have sought to contain and limit American power and influence in Europe and, indeed, worldwide. Today, that same desire combines with the goal of preserving French commercial interests in Iraq and restoring la glorie de France. Together, they motivate France’s leading opposition to what they picture as America’s unseemly rush to war.

Today, America is widely perceived to be acting recklessly and obsessively to attack Iraq at a time when international inspections are making progress. Abroad, especially in France, it is President George Bush rather than Dictator Saddam Hussein who is widely seen to be the main threat to world peace. French President Jacques Chirac has seized this opportunity to lead an international effort to tie down George Bush’s American Gulliver. He and others who think like him see this as a last opportunity to restrain a headstrong, willful, and unilateral superpower from bestriding the world like a Texas cowboy breaking a horse.

The bottom line is this: Lesser powers have always combined their strength to restrain and oppose a dominant or potentially dominant power. We should expect it. Today it’s France, a nation whose days of power and glory are in the past. Tomorrow, it is could be China where military power will one day follow its rising economic power. I’m less concerned with mismanaging our relationship with France than with possibly mismanaging that with China.

Domestic political realities

Barring some kind of miracle, the die for an early war with Iraq is cast. That’s because next year is an election year. To be re-elected, this president cannot allow Saddam Hussein to remain in power much longer. Neither can he risk a war that starts after a few more months of inspections and drags on into 2004. Ergo, as with Macbeth so with George W. Bush, "If 'twere done when ‘tis done, 'twere best done quickly."

Beyond presidential aspirations for re-election, the power and prestige of the United State is committed to this venture in Iraq beyond recall. If we now were to blink, back down, or otherwise "go wobbly," then our credibility would be irretrievably lost. All hope of restraining rogue rulers and/or jihad fanatics would be lost.

The bottom line is this: The die is cast. There will be war with Iraq with or without the blessings of the Security Council or the "international community." That war will come soon. Only if Saddam were to decamp to exile with disarmament and regime change to follow could war now be averted. In other words, it would take a miracle.

Unleashed dogs of war: How will they run?

Suppose it happens. Suppose the dogs of war are unleashed sometime in next few weeks. How will they run? History teaches that the first casualties of war include nations’ plans for war. In this one too, we should expect the unexpected. Several scenarios seem possible:

• War scenario 1: The Pentagon’s plans prevail. America’s massive initial strikes are overwhelming. Overawed and overcome by our fearsome firepower, the Iraqi Army’s will to fight collapses almost immediately. Iraqi Shiite civilians welcome the Yanks and Brits and whoever else is in the "coalition of the willing" as liberators. Baghdad, although defended by units of the Republican Guards ostensibly loyal to Saddam, falls after a few brief skirmishes. American and "collateral" casualties are minimal.
• Sub-scenario 1.1: American and allied troops encounter chemical and biological weapons in their rush to Baghdad but sustain few if any casualties because they are properly prepared. His use of these weapons validates American and British prewar contentions that Saddam was hiding WMD in defiance of the United Nations. Main result: The US-UK rationale for the war is completely vindicated. France, Germany, Russia & China now resemble Neville Chamberlain post 1940 and are greatly weakened diplomatically. American power and influence is correspondingly enhanced. Future prospects for collective action to stem WMD proliferation are immeasurably enhanced. Despots, terrorists and would-be proliferators are discouraged and intimidated. The world, potentially, is a safer place. The domestic political positions of Bush and Blair (as well as their allies elsewhere in the "coalition of the willing") are vastly strengthened; their power to push through other planks in their political platforms becomes nearly irresistible.
• Sub-scenario 1.2: Ditto except allied and innocent Iraqi casualties are numerous. The main result is the much the same.
• Sub-scenario 1.3: Same as 1.1 except that no WMD are encountered in battle. Nevertheless, assiduous searchs by U.S. & British troops/experts discover irrefutable evidence of concealed Iraqi WMD and/or programs to produce such weapons. Such discoveries demonstrate that Saddam was in clear defiance not only of U.N. Resolution 1441 but also of its countless predecessors dating back to 1991 that called for Iraq to completely and totally disarm itself of WMD and dismantle all programs to create them. The main result is the same as the previous two sub-scenarios.
• Sub-scenario 1.4: The American & British invaders prevail but encounter no WMD in battle nor, despite assiduous searches, do they discover any credible hidden supplies thereof or any active programs to produce them. Main result: Disaster. Bush & Blair (and their nations) stand before the world as fabricators of evidence and trigger-happy imperialists. The domestic position of both men and their political allies is gravely weakened. Both have occasion to recall the old adage, "Success has a thousand fathers; failure is an orphan." Beyond domestic politics, U.S. and British status and influence in the world beyond the merely military realm are greatly diminished. What remains of Western unity is sundered almost beyond repair. Stronger and more convincing arguments are heard from France, Russia and China that the U.S. has lost its way and now is a threat to world peace that must be contained. With the U.S. on the defense in the face of worldwide condemnation, recruits swarm to Al-Qaida.
  
  
• War Scenario 2: The war goes very badly from the U.S.-U.K. perspective. Any number of things go wrong. Heat and sand storms do to the allied invasion force what cold and snow did to the German invaders of Russia some sixty years ago. Despite a ferocious air war against Iraqi forces they are emboldened by evidence of a slowed and weakened allied invasion. Resistance mounts by both Iraq’s military and civilians. Guerilla warfare ensues. The number of full body bags arriving back to the U.S. and U.K. grows. Iraqi "collateral" and other civilian casualties mount and are well reported by Al Jazeera the worldwide media. The invasion bogs down short of Baghdad for excruciating months. Volunteer brigades from Muslim and non-Muslim countries rally to defend Iraq. The dictator Saddam assumes a cult status similar to that assumed by dictator Stalin. Erstwhile allies among the Arab Gulf states and elsewhere waver and fall away from the "coalition of the willing.". Despite all this, superior U.S. military power ultimately prevails, albeit at vastly greater cost in lives and treasure than had been anticipated back in March, 2003. Main result: Dreadful in case although somewhat mitigated if credible evidence of Iraqi WMD emerges. Absent such evidence, an even greater disaster than that of Sub-scenario 1.4.

Making Iraq safe for democracy.

Suppose, for the sake of argument–not to mention our sanity–that the real future turns out to look something like War Scenario 1 with sub-scenarios 1.1 or 1.2 or 1.3. What then?

One of the rationalizations advanced by the hawkish neo-cons and other enthusiasts for war with Iraq is that it will lead to a fundamental transformation of the entire Middle Eastern political landscape.

The argument goes like this: Disarming Iraq and deposing Saddam (a process known euphemistically as "regime change") not only removes an evil dictator, it also opens the door to democracy in this strategic spot. Then, like so many falling dominoes (this is a theory we haven’t heard much of since the 1960’s), the autocratic regimes of Arabia and elsewhere across the Zone of Disorder will tumble to Democracy. Israel, at long last, will be able to live peaceably with its neighbors. The breeding swamp for Islamic fanaticism will be drained. Muslim kids will go to real schools, not mullah-managed madrassas. Muslim women will doff the hajib and join the worldwide march for female rights. The flow of oil to fuel the world’s SUVs will be secured. The world will be a better place for the likes of you and me.

OK, I confess. I do somewhat exaggerate this argument. But you get the idea. It’s pretty idealistic. Some would say it’s pretty utopian. Nevertheless, some serious people take it seriously. Even Tom Friedman of the New York Times, a man I greatly respect, admits to being greatly attracted by it. And I admit that yours truly, in his (rare) dreamily optimistic reveries, finds it entrancing. But, even in a more modest rendition, is it realistic? Well, let’s explore some of what it would take to make this dream a reality.

For starters, we’d need to acknowledge that Iraq is unlikely to don democratic duds all by itself. That woebegone country has known only dictatorship and other species of authoritarianism since they first started farming the ground between the Tigris and Euphrates. If our last half century’s experience of trying to export democracy to various "underdeveloped" nations teaches us anything, it is that this is a very difficult thing to do. In Iraq, we can expect feudin’ and fightin’ between Sunnis and Shiites, and between both and the Kurds from the very get-go. Then there will be the exiles and expatriates fixing to even the score with the folks who supported Saddam. It’ll take a lot to keep the lot of them from killing each other.

Iraq’s economy is in a shambles after decades of Saddam and his wars, not to mention the international blockade that has ineffectually attempted for more than a decade to bring down his wicked regime. Nobody should underestimate the magnitude of the task of rebuilding this shattered economic mess.

The point I’m trying to make is that the rebuilding effort, just to restore Iraq to a minimal level of political and economic functionality, will be a huge one. To transform this shattered and bewildered country into a paragon of democracy will take a lot more. Optimists will say, "Well, look what we did with Germany and Japan after World War II." Hmmm. Is it really necessary to point out the huge differences here, differences so great as to rob this comparison of any save rhetorical purpose? I mention only two: Prewar Germany and Japan already possessed highly developed industrial economies. And then there were the Marshall Plan and the MacArthur Proconsul. This segues into my next bottom line.

The bottom line is this: Following victory, the job of rebuilding Iraq will be huge. It will make the analogous job in Afghanistan look like child’s play. It will require lots of money (some of which can come from the sale of Iraq oil). Even more importantly, it will require the presence, on the ground, of a sizable American-British force to supervise and defend Iraq’s transition to democracy or whatever better regime proves feasible there. Finally, and most important of all, it will require great patience, skill, and finesse to work with a new Iraqi leadership to maneuver this fractious nation to a better tomorrow. We should be so lucky as to find an Iraqi version of Afghanistan’s Hamid Karzai. Don’t count on such luck.

Can an ADD nation become a nation of nationbuilders?

Americans are impatient. We think problems should have solutions. We want results and we don’t like to wait around long to get them. In foreign affairs, we tend to suffer from Attention Deficit Disorder. The Father of our Nation, in his Farewell Address, advised in 1796, "The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations, is... to have with them as little political connection as possible." More than two centuries later after two world wars, a Cold War, and foreign ventures beyond my ability to list them, we still remember George Washington’s parting admonition.

The bottom line is this: Rebuilding Iraq after military victory will require great wealth, wisdom and perseverance over a protracted period. Transforming Iraq into a Middle Eastern Beacon of Democracy will require an order of magnitude more of all three. Do we have the will and tenacity for this? I don’t know. Do you?

The Bottom Bottom Line: Bush bets the store.

From everything I’ve written it should be apparent that I think our impending venture into Iraq is a huge gamble. The stakes are immense. Taken all in all, it is a strategic gamble as great or greater than any I can think of in my lifetime. It may turn out to be greater, even, than the Churchill-Truman-Marshall-Acheson strategy to contain Stalin and the Soviet Union.

If the Bush Strategy succeeds both militarily and after the victory, then we may well all look forward to a Pax Americana with the potential to provide a safer and better world for all.

If the Bush Strategy succeeds militarily but without a successful post-war follow-through, then the world probably will be a modestly safer place for the likes of you and me, at least for a while. But it will be a mixed picture probably not too different than what it is now.

If the Bush Strategy fails (a la Scenario 2 or Sub-scenario 1.4), then expect the world to go to hell in a hand basket.

So what are the odds? I don’t know. Somebody go ask Jimmy the Greek.

One thing is for sure: We won’t have to wait long to find out. Six months from now, we’ll know a lot more than we do today.

Fasten your seat belts, folks. We’re in for one helluva ride. 

RWJ

March 8, 2003

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