Editorial: IRAQ: Following Through

National Review, Oct 13, 2003

President Bush's speech to the U.N. was a determined holding action in an unsettled strategic situation. He stuck to his guns without considering whether some of them should be moved.

He justified the U.N. address he gave last year on Iraq's defiance of U.N. mandates, and the war that followed: ". . . a coalition of nations acted to defend the peace, and the credibility of the United Nations." A coalition had to because the U.N. wouldn't. It was a dig wrapped in praise.

He explained once again why Saddam deserved to fall. He had and "used" weapons of mass destruction (the poison gas he dropped on Iranian soldiers and Kurds), and his regime was marked by "torture chambers . . . rape rooms and . . . prison cells for innocent children."

He hoped that Iraq could now become a beacon of "freedom, equality, and material progress" and linked that very hope to the violence now occurring there. Terrorists and Baathists, fearing just that result, "have made Iraq the central front in the war on terror and they will be defeated."

Finally he invited the U.N. to help out, "developing a constitution, training civil servants, and conducting free and fair elections," though his expectations seemed moderate. In a Fox interview aired the day before, he remarked that he was "not so sure we have to" give the U.N. a bigger role. In his speech, he made it plain that installing a new Iraqi government would be done at a pace that would serve Iraq's needs, "neither hurried nor delayed by the wishes of other parties."

This was a pre-emptive shot at France, which has suddenly proposed a rapid turnover to an Iraqi government. This is the same France that continues to help police Bosnia and Kosovo, seven and four years respectively after the U.N. and NATO took power in those statelets. France's cynicism in asking for a new leaf in a country that is several times as large is transparent.

France looks as if it will abstain on Washington's latest Security Council resolution, which asks for the fig leaf of U.N. approval. If the resolution passes, we cannot expect much assistance in the way of troops since a passel of countries, including France, Turkey, and Pakistan, have already said that no troops would be coming from them. The Bush administration once again feels the pinch of fighting wars in peacetime mode. If we need to take on these responsibilities, and we do, then we must summon the wherewithal.

What did Bush's speech leave out? He made no mention of Iran or North Korea, speaking of the danger of nuclear proliferation in general terms. Is that because he is trying diplomacy on these rogue states, or because the Axis of Evil is felt to be a faded template?

His praise of freedom and equality was bracing, but of course the U.N., stuffed with despots, is not interested in it. Neither is the America- hating international media, from al-Jazeera to the BBC. We have a message worth getting across, but it will take a sustained worldwide information campaign, not just one-shot presidential speeches, however solid.

Bush's power to do good rests, finally, on his political base at home, which has been chipping under the steady blows of actual bad news -- such as the deaths of American servicemen and the attempted assassination of Akila Hashimi, one of three women on the Iraqi Governing Council -- and negative atmospherics. The results are visible in Bush's slipping poll numbers and in the boomlet for a loose-lipped egomaniac like Wesley Clark. The tide of gloom can be beaten back by news of the real progress that we are making in Iraq. (Ike Skelton, a Missouri Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, said after a visit that "the media stresses the wounds, the injuries, and the deaths, as they should, but . . . good stuff . . . isn't being reported.") It also must be counteracted by a stronger sense that American sacrifices have a purpose. The Bush administration did a good job of explaining the reasons for the Iraq war. It did not expect the post-war war, and its efforts to explain that have been episodic. It can, and must, do better.