Give War a Chance

Might sometimes does make right, when right is on the side of might. Historically armies representing honorable nations have a better record of forging a lasting peace than vigils, candle lightings, die-ins or floating luminaries. And so it shall be now. Shortly, Iraqis will be celebrating their liberation from despotism. In a few years, Iraq will disprove the Left’s contention that democracy cannot flourish in the Arab world.
The Saddamites, ranging from US Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle to the poodles of Paris have insisted that war could have been avoided by protracting diplomacy indefinitely. Somehow an indefinite period of Keystone Cops scooting around Iraq playing three card monty with the Iraqi dictator does not strike this observer as a satisfactory status quo. And, as the legendary nineteenth century German diplomat Otto Von Bismarck declared shortly before kicking France’s fanny in the Franco-Prussian war, “War is diplomacy by other means.” The difference of opinions seems to revolve around whether diplomacy is an end or the means to an end.
Certainly poodle-style diplomacy accomplished less than nothing before the United States put a little muscle behind it. The only reason that the diplomacy favored by the French was able to make the ephemeral gains that it did these last few months was the positioning of more than a quarter of a million United States servicemen on Iraq’s borders. Saddam showed not the slightest inclination toward cooperating with the world’s will until war was threatened. To expect the United States and Great Britain to indefinitely maintain a threatening force on Saddam’s doorstep is unreasonable, particularly with North Korea issuing threats and building bombs.
The United States is not setting a precedent by excising an evil dictatorship. There have been numerous other instances of righteous might freeing oppressed people. Among the boils on the world’s butt that have been lanced without the United Nations’ permission was Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge, which was deposed by Vietnam. There was little international distress or condemnation. Pol Pot’s victims were measured in the millions. The brutal, murderous dictatorship of Uganda’s Idi Amin was overthrown by Tanzania. In neither case was the United Nations consulted. And nobody worried about French opinion before doing what needed to be done.
There will be deaths in this war, but unless Saddam kills them, fewer Iraqis will perish at American arms than die in an average year at the hands of Saddam’s Gestapo. In a very short time, the costs of this war will be repaid in saved lives.
We will not see a surge of terrorism. The incidence of terrorism is not limited by the supply of aspiring martyrs eager for the70 virgins who await them in paradise. There already exists an overabundance of such people in the Middle East, particularly since Saddam Hussein began offering $25,000 to the families of suicide bombers. In reality, the incidence of terrorism is limited by the logistical support they receive from regimes such as Saddam’s. Once terrorists are deprived of the land and wealth of Saddam’s Iraq, terrorists will have fewer resources to work with.
It’s quite remarkable that so many people here and around the world are so distressed at the prospect of the United States imposing its will through power. What the United States wishes to impose is democracy and governments that do not threaten the civilized world. There seems to be some disagreement over whether the United States possesses the moral fitness to make this decision for unwilling regimes.
The country and the history should be thankful that the last presidential election turned out as it did. We can gain a measure of the low opinion of the United States that the loser would have displayed had things turned out otherwise. Al Gore’s national security advisor, Leon Fuerth expressed doubt that we could establish a “democratic government in a place that has never known one.”
Former and perhaps future Democratic presidential candidate Gary Hart wrote of planting seeds of peace and democracy in the Middle East that, “the extravagance, not to say arrogance, of this epic undertaking is sufficiently breathtaking in its hubris to make Woodrow Wilson blush.”
Woodrow Wilson earns this slight for believing that democracy should be spread around the world.
Fortunately we are now governed by people who understand the difference between mighty, righteous nations and powerful evil nations.