- The war in Iraq was conceived by 25 neoconservative intellectuals,
most of them Jewish, who are pushing President Bush to change the course
of history. Two of them, journalists William Kristol and Charles Krauthammer,
say it's possible. But another journalist, Thomas Friedman (not part of
the group), is skeptical
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- 1. The doctrine
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- WASHINGTON - At the conclusion of its second week, the
war to liberate Iraq wasn't looking good. Not even in Washington. The assumption
of a swift collapse of the Saddam Hussein regime had itself collapsed.
The presupposition that the Iraqi dictatorship would crumble as soon as
mighty America entered the country proved unfounded. The Shi'ites didn't
rise up, the Sunnis fought fiercely. Iraqi guerrilla warfare found the
American generals unprepared and endangered their overextended supply lines.
Nevertheless, 70 percent of the American people continued to support the
war; 60 percent thought victory was certain; 74 percent expressed confidence
in President George W. Bush.
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- Washington is a small city. It's a place of human dimensions.
A kind of small town that happens to run an empire. A small town of government
officials and members of Congress and personnel of research institutes
and journalists who pretty well all know one another. Everyone is busy
intriguing against everyone else; and everyone gossips about everyone else.
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- In the course of the past year, a new belief has emerged
in the town: the belief in war against Iraq. That ardent faith was disseminated
by a small group of 25 or 30 neoconservatives, almost all of them Jewish,
almost all of them intellectuals (a partial list: Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz,
Douglas Feith, William Kristol, Eliot Abrams, Charles Krauthammer), people
who are mutual friends and cultivate one another and are convinced that
political ideas are a major driving force of history. They believe that
the right political idea entails a fusion of morality and force, human
rights and grit. The philosophical underpinnings of the Washington neoconservatives
are the writings of Machiavelli, Hobbes and Edmund Burke. They also admire
Winston Churchill and the policy pursued by Ronald Reagan. They tend to
read reality in terms of the failure of the 1930s (Munich) versus the success
of the 1980s (the fall of the Berlin Wall).
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- Are they wrong? Have they committed an act of folly in
leading Washington to Baghdad? They don't think so. They continue to cling
to their belief. They are still pretending that everything is more or less
fine. That things will work out. Occasionally, though, they seem to break
out in a cold sweat. This is no longer an academic exercise, one of them
says, we are responsible for what is happening. The ideas we put forward
are now affecting the lives of millions of people. So there are moments
when you're scared. You say, Hell, we came to help, but maybe we made a
mistake.
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- 2. William Kristol
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- Has America bitten off more than it can chew? Bill Kristol
says no. True, the press is very negative, but when you examine the facts
in the field you see that there is no terrorism, no mass destruction, no
attacks on Israel. The oil fields in the south have been saved, air control
has been achieved, American forces are deployed 50 miles from Baghdad.
So, even if mistakes were made here and there, they are not serious. America
is big enough to handle that. Kristol hasn't the slightest doubt that in
the end, General Tommy Franks will achieve his goals. The 4th Cavalry Division
will soon enter the fray, and another division is on its way from Texas.
So it's possible that instead of an elegant war with 60 killed in two weeks
it will be a less elegant affair with a thousand killed in two months,
but nevertheless Bill Kristol has no doubt at all that the Iraq Liberation
War is a just war, an obligatory war.
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- Kristol is pleasant-looking, of average height, in his
late forties. In the past 18 months he has used his position as editor
of the right-wing Weekly Standard and his status as one of the leaders
of the neoconservative circle in Washington to induce the White House to
do battle against Saddam Hussein. Because Kristol is believed to exercise
considerable influence on the president, Vice President Richard Cheney
and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, he is also perceived as having been
instrumental in getting Washington to launch this all-out campaign against
Baghdad. Sitting behind the stacks of books that cover his desk at the
offices of the Weekly Standard in Northwest Washington, he tries to convince
me that he is not worried. It is simply inconceivable to him that America
will not win. In that event, the consequences would be catastrophic. No
one wants to think seriously about that possibility.
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- What is the war about? I ask. Kristol replies that at
one level it is the war that George Bush is talking about: a war against
a brutal regime that has in its possession weapons of mass destruction.
But at a deeper level it is a greater war, for the shaping of a new Middle
East. It is a war that is intended to change the political culture of the
entire region. Because what happened on September 11, 2001, Kristol says,
is that the Americans looked around and saw that the world is not what
they thought it was. The world is a dangerous place. Therefore the Americans
looked for a doctrine that would enable them to cope with this dangerous
world. And the only doctrine they found was the neoconservative one.
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- That doctrine maintains that the problem with the Middle
East is the absence of democracy and of freedom. It follows that the only
way to block people like Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden is to disseminate
democracy and freedom. To change radically the cultural and political dynamics
that creates such people. And the way to fight the chaos is to create a
new world order that will be based on freedom and human rights - and to
be ready to use force in order to consolidate this new world. So that,
really, is what the war is about. It is being fought to consolidate a new
world order, to create a new Middle East.
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- Does that mean that the war in Iraq is effectively a
neoconservative war? That's what people are saying, Kristol replies, laughing.
But the truth is that it's an American war. The neoconservatives succeeded
because they touched the bedrock of America. The thing is that America
has a profound sense of mission. America has a need to offer something
that transcends a life of comfort, that goes beyond material success. Therefore,
because of their ideals, the Americans accepted what the neoconservatives
proposed. They didn't want to fight a war over interests, but over values.
They wanted a war driven by a moral vision. They wanted to hitch their
wagon to something bigger than themselves.
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- Does this moral vision mean that after Iraq will come
the turns of Saudi Arabia and Egypt?
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- Kristol says that he is at odds with the administration
on the question of Saudi Arabia. But his opinion is that it is impossible
to let Saudi Arabia just continue what it is doing. It is impossible to
accept the anti-Americanism it is disseminating. The fanatic Wahhabism
that Saudi Arabia engenders is undermining the stability of the entire
region. It's the same with Egypt, he says: we mustn't accept the status
quo there. For Egypt, too, the horizon has to be liberal democracy.
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- It has to be understood that in the final analysis, the
stability that the corrupt Arab despots are offering is illusory. Just
as the stability that Yitzhak Rabin received from Yasser Arafat was illusory.
In the end, none of these decadent dictatorships will endure. The choice
is between extremist Islam, secular fascism or democracy. And because of
September 11, American understands that. America is in a position where
it has no choice. It is obliged to be far more aggressive in promoting
democracy. Hence this war. It's based on the new American understanding
that if the United States does not shape the world in its image, the world
will shape the United States in its own image.
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- 3. Charles Krauthammer
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- Is this going to turn into a second Vietnam? Charles
Krauthammer says no. There is no similarity to Vietnam. Unlike in the 1960s,
there is no anti-establishment subculture in the United States now. Unlike
in the 1960s, there is now an abiding love of the army in the United States.
Unlike in the 1960s, there is a determined president, one with character,
in the White House. And unlike in the 1960s, Americans are not deterred
from making sacrifices. That is the sea-change that took place here on
September 11, 2001. Since that morning, Americans have understood that
if they don't act now and if weapons of mass destruction reach extremist
terrorist organizations, millions of Americans will die. Therefore, because
they understand that those others want to kill them by the millions, the
Americans prefer to take to the field of battle and fight, rather than
sit idly by and die at home.
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- Charles Krauthammer is handsome, swarthy and articulate.
In his spacious office on 19th Street in Northwest Washington, he sits
upright in a black wheelchair. Although his writing tends to be gloomy,
his mood now is elevated. The well-known columnist (Washington Post, Time,
Weekly Standard) has no real doubts about the outcome of the war that he
promoted for 18 months. No, he does not accept the view that he helped
lead America into the new killing fields between the Tigris and the Euphrates.
But it is true that he is part of a conceptual stream that had something
to offer in the aftermath of September 11. Within a few weeks after the
attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, he had singled out Baghdad
in his columns as an essential target. And now, too, he is convinced that
America has the strength to pull it off. The thought that America will
not win has never even crossed his mind.
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- What is the war about? It's about three different issues.
First of all, this is a war for disarming Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction.
That's the basis, the self-evident cause, and it is also sufficient cause
in itself. But beyond that, the war in Iraq is being fought to replace
the demonic deal America cut with the Arab world decades ago. That deal
said: you will send us oil and we will not intervene in your internal affairs.
Send us oil and we will not demand from you what we are demanding of Chile,
the Philippines, Korea and South Africa.
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- That deal effectively expired on September 11, 2001,
Krauthammer says. Since that day, the Americans have understood that if
they allow the Arab world to proceed in its evil ways - suppression, economic
ruin, sowing despair - it will continue to produce more and more bin Ladens.
America thus reached the conclusion that it has no choice: it has to take
on itself the project of rebuilding the Arab world. Therefore, the Iraq
war is really the beginning of a gigantic historical experiment whose purpose
is to do in the Arab world what was done in Germany and Japan after World
War II.
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- It's an ambitious experiment, Krauthammer admits, maybe
even utopian, but not unrealistic. After all, it is inconceivable to accept
the racist assumption that the Arabs are different from all other human
beings, that the Arabs are incapable of conducting a democratic way of
life.
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- However, according to the Jewish-American columnist,
the present war has a further importance. If Iraq does become pro-Western
and if it becomes the focus of American influence, that will be of immense
geopolitical importance. An American presence in Iraq will project power
across the region. It will suffuse the rebels in Iran with courage and
strength, and it will deter and restrain Syria. It will accelerate the
processes of change that the Middle East must undergo.
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- Isn't the idea of preemptive war a dangerous one that
rattles the world order?
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- There is no choice, Krauthammer replies. In the 21st
century we face a new and singular challenge: the democratization of mass
destruction. There are three possible strategies in the face of that challenge:
appeasement, deterrence and preemption. Because appeasement and deterrence
will not work, preemption is the only strategy left. The United States
must implement an aggressive policy of preemption. Which is exactly what
it is now doing in Iraq. That is what Tommy Franks' soldiers are doing
as we speak.
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- And what if the experiment fails? What if America is
defeated?
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- This war will enhance the place of America in the world
for the coming generation, Krauthammer says. Its outcome will shape the
world for the next 25 years. There are three possibilities. If the United
States wins quickly and without a bloodbath, it will be a colossus that
will dictate the world order. If the victory is slow and contaminated,
it will be impossible to go on to other Arab states after Iraq. It will
stop there. But if America is beaten, the consequences will be catastrophic.
Its deterrent capability will be weakened, its friends will abandon it
and it will become insular. Extreme instability will be engendered in the
Middle East.
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- You don't really want to think about what will happen,
Krauthammer says looking me straight in the eye. But just because that's
so, I am positive we will not lose. Because the administration understands
the implications. The president understands that everything is riding on
this. So he will throw everything we've got into this. He will do everything
that has to be done. George W. Bush will not let America lose.
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- 4. Thomas Friedman
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- Is this an American Lebanon War? Tom Friedman says he
is afraid it is. He was there, in the Commodore Hotel in Beirut, in the
summer of 1982, and he remembers it well. So he sees the lines of resemblance
clearly. General Ahmed Chalabi (the Shi'ite leader that the neoconservatives
want to install as the leader of a free Iraq) in the role of Bashir Jemayel.
The Iraqi opposition in the role of the Phalange. Richard Perle and the
conservative circle around him as Ariel Sharon. And a war that is at bottom
a war of choice. A war that wants to utilize massive force in order to
establish a new order.
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- Tom Friedman, The New York Times columnist, did not oppose
the war. On the contrary. He too was severely shaken by September 11, he
too wants to understand where these desperate fanatics are coming from
who hate America more than they love their own lives. And he too reached
the conclusion that the status quo in the Middle East is no longer acceptable.
The status quo is terminal. And therefore it is urgent to foment a reform
in the Arab world.
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- Some things are true even if George Bush believes them,
Friedman says with a smile. And after September 11, it's impossible to
tell Bush to drop it, ignore it. There was a certain basic justice in the
overall American feeling that told the Arab world: we left you alone for
a long time, you played with matches and in the end we were burned. So
we're not going to leave you alone any longer.
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- He is sitting in a large rectangular room in the offices
of The New York Times in northwest Washington, on the corner of 17th Street.
One wall of the room is a huge map of the world. Hunched over his computer,
he reads me witty lines from the article that will be going to press in
two hours. He polishes, sharpens, plays word games. He ponders what's right
to say now, what should be left for a later date. Turning to me, he says
that democracies look soft until they're threatened. When threatened, they
become very hard. Actually, the Iraq war is a kind of Jenin on a huge scale.
Because in Jenin, too, what happened was that the Israelis told the Palestinians,
We left you here alone and you played with matches until suddenly you blew
up a Passover seder in Netanya. And therefore we are not going to leave
you along any longer. We will go from house to house in the Casbah. And
from America's point of view, Saddam's Iraq is Jenin. This war is a defensive
shield. It follows that the danger is the same: that like Israel, America
will make the mistake of using only force.
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- This is not an illegitimate war, Friedman says. But it
is a very presumptuous war. You need a great deal of presumption to believe
that you can rebuild a country half a world from home. But if such a presumptuous
war is to have a chance, it needs international support. That international
legitimacy is essential so you will have enough time and space to execute
your presumptuous project. But George Bush didn't have the patience to
glean international support. He gambled that the war would justify itself,
that we would go in fast and conquer fast and that the Iraqis would greet
us with rice and the war would thus be self-justifying. That did not happen.
Maybe it will happen next week, but in the meantime it did not happen.
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- When I think about what is going to happen, I break into
a sweat, Friedman says. I see us being forced to impose a siege on Baghdad.
And I know what kind of insanity a siege on Baghdad can unleash. The thought
of house-to-house combat in Baghdad without international legitimacy makes
me lose my appetite. I see American embassies burning. I see windows of
American businesses shattered. I see how the Iraqi resistance to America
connects to the general Arab resistance to America and the worldwide resistance
to America. The thought of what could happen is eating me up.
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- What George Bush did, Friedman says, is to show us a
splendid mahogany table: the new democratic Iraq. But when you turn the
table over, you see that it has only one leg. This war is resting on one
leg. But on the other hand, anyone who thinks he can defeat George Bush
had better think again. Bush will never give in. That's not what he's made
of. Believe me, you don't want to be next to this guy when he thinks he's
being backed into a corner. I don't suggest that anyone who holds his life
dear mess with Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and President Bush.
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- Is the Iraq war the great neoconservative war? It's the
war the neoconservatives wanted, Friedman says. It's the war the neoconservatives
marketed. Those people had an idea to sell when September 11 came, and
they sold it. Oh boy, did they sell it. So this is not a war that the masses
demanded. This is a war of an elite. Friedman laughs: I could give you
the names of 25 people (all of whom are at this moment within a five-block
radius of this office) who, if you had exiled them to a desert island a
year and a half ago, the Iraq war would not have happened.
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- Still, it's not all that simple, Friedman retracts. It's
not some fantasy the neoconservatives invented. It's not that 25 people
hijacked America. You don't take such a great nation into such a great
adventure with Bill Kristol and the Weekly Standard and another five or
six influential columnists. In the final analysis, what fomented the war
is America's over-reaction to September 11. The genuine sense of anxiety
that spread in America after September 11. It is not only the neoconservatives
who led us to the outskirts of Baghdad. What led us to the outskirts of
Baghdad is a very American combination of anxiety and hubris.
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