[A-List] The U.S.-Europe Divide

[Sabri Oncu <soncu@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

The other day I sent a link to an article by Kristol and Kagan at
the Weekly Standard. Below is a response to that article by the
Independent columnist Bruce Anderson. We never know what exactly
will happen in the future and when but like Anderson I have no
doubt that Mr Rumsfeld is still a hawk on Iraq.

Sabri

+++++++++++++++++++

Is Washington going wobbly over its plans to unseat Saddam
Hussein?

No one has any doubt that Mr Rumsfeld is still a hawk on Iraq, as
is the President
Bruce Anderson
27 May 2002

Today is Memorial Day: the public holiday on which America
commemorates its war dead. Not that a mood of national solemnity
prevails. Except in New York, where 11 September still sears,
people are enjoying the long weekend. With good weather forecast
over much of the country, a lot of Americans are off to the beach
or the barbecue.

But one important group of persons will not be relaxing: those
with a close interest in national security. On Friday, a long
article appeared in The Washington Post claiming that senior
generals reluctant to take military action against Iraq were in
the ascendant. They believed that they had secured at least a
postponement until next year ? and possibly an indefinite delay.

This caused alarm and despondency among those who are urging
early action to remove Saddam. Bill Kristol, who edits The Weekly
Standard, Washington's most important conservative magazine,
ended his lunch early on Friday to write a stinging leader for
the next issue. Its headline is "Going Wobbly".

Mr Kristol's anxieties are not always justified. Apart from being
a genial fellow, he is the stern and unbending conscience of the
Republican right and inclined to be over-harsh about the Bush
administration's inability to deliver an instant conservative
utopia. Keynesian economists are often justly accused of
predicting six of the last three recessions; Bill Kristol has
predicted six of the last three Bush backslidings.

Which is not to say that no problem exists. In December, when I
was last in Washington, the mood was resolute. A momentum had
built behind action against Saddam. The question was not whether,
but when; the answer appeared to be "soon". All this was helping
the Bush administration to pull together. Fewer stories ran about
splits between Colin Powell and his colleagues: many more of a
strong team operating in harmony under George Bush's leadership.

That was before Christmas. Since then, some momentum has been
lost. As a result, the strains between the Secretary of State and
the other close advisors have re-emerged, partly because of
disagreements over Israel. A new coalition has been formed with
Colin Powell as its leader. It has brought together two groups
who are opposed to an American invasion of Iraq: the risk-averse
and the fantasists.

It must always be remembered that back in 1990, when he was
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Powell argued
against the invasion of Kuwait. His reluctance had to be
over-ridden by the Defense Secretary, Dick Cheney. The general
had served gallantly in Vietnam and had been wounded in combat.
Since then, he has always taken the side of those who are
reluctant to project American power because they fear American
casualties.

Other still-serving generals agree with him even though the
current Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, does not. But
problems have surfaced with the Rumsfeld leadership style. In
December, his prestige was at its height, partly because he had
rushed from his office in shirt sleeves to help pull the wounded
out of the rubble of the Pentagon. But great man though he is,
Don Rumsfeld does not rule by example only. He rules by fear.

He obviously does not think much of a number of the senior
officers whom he inherited ? and Friday's article has not
improved his opinion, or his temper. But instead of sacking the
two or three worst offenders while trying to encourage the rest,
he has merely bullied everybody. This is not good for morale. It
also explains why some generals are briefing the press against
their own boss. For no one has any doubt that Mr Rumsfeld is
still a hawk on Iraq, as is the President.

George Bush is a formidable man who combines a strong personality
with considerable intelligence. But he faces two insuperable
obstacles in conveying that message, especially to Europeans. The
first is his linguistic infelicity. He may eventually complete
George Bush Snr's unfinished war against Saddam. He will never
succeed in avenging his father's defeat at the hands of the
English language.

President Bush's second problem is his directness. Animated by a
strong Christian faith and a simple sense of duty, he believes in
telling the truth. In that respect, the fractured, homespun
language helps him, in America if not in Europe. It not only
sounds sincere; it is sincere. Among senior politicians, George
Bush is unique in his lack of guile.

This does not help him to win over sophisticated audiences. But
it should help any of his audiences to get the message. When he
tells us that he intends to wrap up Afghanistan and then deal
with Saddam, that is precisely what he plans to do. At least as
regards the President's intentions, Bill Kristol and other
critics are playing for a spin which is not there.

The critics still have a point. The strike against Saddam does
not have to wait upon the completion of the Afghan mission,
whatever that means. An undoubted threat is still posed by al-
Qa'ida. That organisation has neither lost its malice nor all of
its capabilities. Only the vigilance of American and European
intelligence services has prevented further atrocities. On
Friday, Mr Cheney addressed naval cadets at Annapolis, Maryland,
in sombre terms, warning them that further outrages were
inevitable. We have, alas, no reason to believe that he is
exaggerating.

That said, America has the resources to impose peace in
Afghanistan and pursue al-Qa'ida without compromising its ability
to invade Iraq. Any general who argues to the contrary is trying
to pervert strategy to confound policy.

Unfortunately, however, these reluctant generals have allies.
Some right-wingers delude themselves that America need not invade
Iraq in order to overthrow Saddam; that the US could use local
surrogates such as the Kurds in the north and the Shia in the
south. This is the fantasy which is compounding the error that
the Allies made in 1991, when they ended the Gulf War at the
Iraqi border (Colin Powell and Norman Schwarzkopf were so keen to
do this that some observers wondered whether they were competing
to use "The Hundred Hours War" as the title of their memoirs).
All those miscalculations stem from a single source: they
underrate Saddam Hussein.

America can get Saddam, but in order to do so, it will have to go
in and get him. The dissident generals are trying to alarm
everyone with talk of an invasion force of 200,000. But there is
no need for alarm. America has the men, though 250,000 would be
safer.

Despite Mr Kristol's doubts, the President seems determined to
order those men into action some time over the next few months.
In that case, new names will need to be added to the war
memorials before next Memorial Day; new heroes to join the long
muster-roll of American greatness. But if those who fear
backsliding are proved right, and no action ensues, it will be
increasingly likely that Saddam Hussein will outlast a second
Bush.

Full article:
http://argument.independent.co.uk/regular_columnists/bruce_anders
on/story.jsp?story=299227