Debate sorely lacking in Bush's Iraq policy

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Sept 16, 2002 | by Jamie Dettmer

According to the New York Times, the newly painted Gray Lady of American journalism, "Leading Republicans from Congress, the State Department and past administrations have begun to break ranks with President [George W.] Bush over his administration's high-profile planning for war with Iraq, saying the administration has neither adequately prepared for military action nor made the case that it is needed."

But despite the claims of the Times, there is no rift or even a major debate in the Grand Old Party about the Bush administration's Iraq policy. The doubters and skeptics--Henry Kissinger, Brent Scowcroft, Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and Rep. Dick Armey of Texas--represent little more than a hairline crack. The Republican Party certainly hasn't become a hotbed of disputing factions--an American equivalent, say, of fractious Iraqi opposition groups that, despite the Berlin siege, some claim can be fashioned into an effective and unified pro-democratic force.

Will the handful of Republican doubters and skeptics be able to coax a real internal party debate? That's unlikely. The old-timer Kissinger lacks clout ill the party, being distrusted by most conservatives, partly because of his paid lobbying on behalf of Beijing. When the former secretary of state growls, conservatives tend to retort, "Who signed his check?"

Gen. Scowcroft suffers from his business association with Kissinger. Armey is retiring from Congress at the end of the year, so his influence is waning. And Hagel is unlikely to remain in the skeptics' camp for long. Some Pentagon sources insinuate that he may have volunteered himself as an administration stalking horse, who in the stretch will shift position and announce his doubts have been satisfied.

"Hagel has had a lot of access to the defense secretary," says a senior Pentagon source. "His opposition doesn't entirely ring true to me."

So much for the Gang of Four and their behind-the-scenes choreographer in the administration, Secretary of State Colin Powell! A Trojan horse, a couple of politicians-turned-lobbyists and a retiring congressman hardly are going to make the determined conservative hawks in the Pentagon think twice before shouting, "Bombs away!"

In his twice-monthly classified sessions with senators in Senate Room 407, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has faced stiff opposition only from Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California. The others ask "tough questions" apparently, but seem averse to sticking out their necks.

And so, in its eagerness to prompt discussion, the New York Times in fact missed the real story, which is the absence of debate among Republicans.

One could add to that the absence of debate within the American political establishment and most especially on Capitol Hill. Most Democrats skeptical of an invasion understand that to run up the flag of opposition in the current wartime atmosphere would be tantamount to asking voters to sling them out come the November elections.

Does that mean the administration is right to want to mount a major military adventure in Iraq? Although in a minority at INSIGHT, this columnist would argue no comfort should be drawn from the lack of vigorous domestic opposition to a looming major U.S. intervention in the Persian Gulf. An invasion of Iraq is fraught with potentially huge costs--economic, political and diplomatic--that well could dog the United States for decades to come, souring relations with its closest allies. Surely, at least more serious debate is called for than was displayed in the recent gung-ho hearings of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee!

Understandably, the United States is keen to right the wrongs done to it on Sept. 11 and to ensure that worse can't happen in the future--engineered or not by the likes of Saddam Hussein or any terrorists who might secure a nice nuclear or biochemical present from the Iraqi leaden But an unprovoked attack by the United States on Iraq, which the CIA says does not possess nuclear warheads, would undermine the very international order the Western powers have struggled to establish for centuries. Might is not right, and brains before brawn is always sound advice for dealing with great as well as minor problems.

That certainly is the view among America's European allies, who fear that an assault on Iraq further will destabilize the Middle East and finish the war on terrorism, the stated aim of the Bush administration. As Europeans point out, no evidence has been presented of Iraqi involvement in the outrages of Sept. 11--and that despite the best efforts of former CIA director James Woolsey to find some. In fact, the finger points elsewhere, to elements in the ruling class of America's ostensible ally, Saudi Arabia.

A so-called pre-emptive strike against Iraq provides a hostage to fortune--nuclear-armed India could claim that same "right" against Pakistan. It also would encourage America's enemies by handing them a propaganda victory. They will say, "See, we told you so. Americans obey international norms only when it suits them. They are bully boys."