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Jewish World Review Dec. 2, 2003/ 7 Kislev, 5763

Mark Steyn

Mark Steyn
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War on terror can't stop with Iraq

http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com |
One or two loyal readers may recall that a year and a half ago I was arguing that the invasion of Iraq needed to take place in the summer of 2002 — before the first anniversary of 9/11.

Unfortunately, President Bush listened to Tony Blair and not to me, and the prime minister wanted to go ''the extra mile'' with the UN, the French, the Guinean foreign minister and the rest of the circus. The extra mile took an extra six or eight months, and at the end of it America went to war with exactly the same allies as she would have done in June 2002.

The only difference was that the interminable diplomatic dance emboldened Jacques Chirac and the other obstructionists, and permitted a relatively small anti-war fringe to blossom into a worldwide mass ''peace'' movement. It certainly didn't do anything for the war's ''legitimacy'' in the eyes of the world: Indeed, insofar as every passing month severed the Iraqi action from the dynamic of 9/11, it diminished it.

Just as important, taking a year to amass overwhelming force on the borders of Iraq may have made the war shorter and simpler, but it's also made the post-war period messier and costlier.

With the world's biggest army twiddling its thumbs in Kuwait for months on end, the regime had time to move stuff around, hide it, ship it over the border to Syria, and allow interested parties to mull over tactics for a post-liberation insurgency.

So, as far as timing's concerned, I think I was right, and Tony and Colin Powell and the other ''voices of moderation'' were wrong.

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Now Blair seems to have secured an understanding from Bush that he won't rush off and invade anywhere else, lest it place further ''strain'' on the ''vital'' ''alliance'' with France and Germany. In that sense, another prediction — that ''Iraq is the last war'' — seems to be proving more accurate: Henceforth, I reckoned, ''engagements in the war of terror will be swift, sudden and as low-key as can be managed.'' Thus, the U.S. Combined Joint Task Force in Djibouti announced last week that they'd scuppered several planned attacks on Western targets in the Horn of Africa and killed or captured at least two dozen plotters. The American troops arrived without fanfare in June last year, set up shop in an old French Foreign Legion Post and operate in seven countries in a region that's fertile soil for terrorist recruiters. Nothing the Task Force does will require UN resolutions.

The difficulty with this approach will be ensuring it stays focused, is ambitious enough, and moves quicker than the terrorists can adjust to it. The trick is to keep your eye on the big guys rather than this or that itsy-bitsy plotter. In other words, don't let the war on terror shrivel into a Wesley Clark-sized police operation, reacting to each individual atrocity, such as the recent slaughter in Istanbul. We ought to be clear that, though this isn't a conventional war, a victory for America will require the defeat of certain other countries. Among them:

  • Syria. Boy Assad is in the unusual position, for a Middle Eastern dictator, of being surrounded by relatively civilized states: Turkey, the new Iraq, Jordan and Israel. He has, by common consent, an all-but-worthless military. His Saddamite oil pipeline has been cut off. And yet he continues to get away with destabilizing the region and beyond.

    There's a credibility issue here. If Washington cannot impress its will on Assad when it's got 140,000 troops on his border, more distant enemies will draw their own conclusion. The United States should not be negotiating with Damascus, and should nix the plans to build Syria a new pipeline from Iraq. Assad can have a terrorist state or he can have oil, but he can't have both. I was up on the Iraq/Syria frontier in May and, although it's certainly porous, porousness cuts both ways. It would concentrate Assad's mind wonderfully if American forces were to forget where exactly the line runs occasionally and answer Syria's provocations by accidentally bombing appropriate targets on Junior's side of the border.

    • Iran. CNN had a headline this week: ''Compromise Struck On Iran's Nukes.'' Not all of us are reassured to see the words ''Iran,'' ''nukes'' and ''compromise'' in the same sentence. A nuclear Iran will permanently alter the balance of power in the region. America needs to do what it takes to prevent that happening, including helping the somewhat leisurely Iranian resistance reach tipping point.

      • Saudi Arabia. The war on terror is, in one sense, a Saudi civil war that the Royal Family has successfully exported to the rest of the world. The rest of the world should see that it's repatriated.

        First, their longtime man in Washington, Prince Bandar, should be returned to sender, and replaced by a ''normal'' ambassador — i.e., one who's not a member of the royal family and who clears off after five years. Second, Washington should clamp down on the Saudis' bulk purchase of its diplomatic service: No U.S. diplomat should be allowed to take a position with any organization funded directly or indirectly by Riyadh. Third, Washington should also put the squeeze on the Saudis financially: There's no reason why my gas-guzzling SUV should fund toxic madrassahs around the globe when there's plenty of less politically destructive oil available in Alberta, Alaska, Latin America and Iraq.

      Profound changes in the above countries would not necessarily mean the end of the war on terror, but it would be pretty close. It would remove terrorism's most brazen patron (Syria), its ideological inspiration (the prototype Islamic Republic of Iran) and its principal paymaster (Saudi Arabia). Closing down regimes that are a critical source of manpower (such as Sudan) and potentially dangerous weapons suppliers (such as North Korea) will also be necessary. They're the fronts on which the battle has to be fought. It's not just terror groups, it's the state actors who provide them with infrastructure and extend their global reach.

      Right now, America — and Britain, Australia and Italy — are fighting defensively, reacting to this or that well-timed atrocity as it occurs. But the best way to judge whether we're winning and how serious we are about winning is how fast the above regimes are gone. Blair speed won't do.

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      JWR contributor Mark Steyn is North American Editor of The (London) Spectator and the author, most recently, of "The Face of the Tiger," a new book on the world post-Sept. 11. (Sales help fund JWR). Comment by clicking here.

      11/24/03: It's not Vietnam and Bush is no Kennedy
      11/12/03: There is a Cold War between the US and the EU
      10/28/03: Muslim paranoia: Enemies made us impotent!

      10/28/03:The CIA scandal is important not because it put an agent's life at risk — it didn't — but because it shows that US Intelligence is either obstructive or inept
      10/08/03: Palestinian death cult
      09/29/03: Bring on the capitalists
      09/22/03: Here comes General Clark, his policies will follow shortly
      09/17/03: Don't wait for government protection
      09/11/03: Predators aren't looking for peace
      09/02/03: This is Hillary's moment — You go, girl!
      08/29/03: There are now calls for greater UN involvement in Iraq. That’s the last thing the country needs
      08/26/03: There's only one hyperpower — so everything is our fault
      08/04/03: The White Man's Burden
      07/29/03: Bill Clinton got this right
      06/25/03: It's Mullah time!
      05/07/03: What counts is what a guy does when he's not talking
      04/30/03: It's named UNSCAM for a very good reason!
      04/14/03: Movers and shakers have moved on to the next 'disaster'
      03/25/03: Give Saddam credit
      03/18/03: 'Eurabia' will have to look after herself
      02/27/03: Death wish
      02/19/03: The curtain will come down on the peaceniks
      02/10/03: Let's quit the UN
      02/03/03: Columbia reality-check
      01/29/03: Go forth and multiply
      01/09/03: America's fake identity crisis
      12/31/02: GOP underperforms, but Dems are laughable
      11/26/02: A bombing pause --- for 12 months!?
      10/30/02: Stop making excuses for Muslim extremists
      09/27/02: The more inventively you try to ''explain'' the Islamist psychosis as a rational phenomenon to be accommodated, the more you risk sounding just as nutty as them
      08/23/02: Battered Westerner Syndrome inflicted by myopic Muslim defenders
      08/09/02: Friends in low places
      08/02/02: Armageddon out of here
      07/26/02: Enjoy the ''scandal'' while you can, lads
      07/16/02: Arafat is toast; Bush knows it --- so why doesn't the rest of the world?
      07/10/02: Hey, FBI: So, denial really is a river in Egypt!
      06/20/02: A fight to the finish
      06/11/02: Rock, royalty a good match
      05/31/02: Unless we change our ways ... the world faces a future where things look pretty darn good
      05/24/02: Sweet land of liberty: Britain and Europe have free governments, but only in the US are the people truly free
      05/14/02: Extreme hypocrisy in the pursuit of 'peace' is ...
      05/10/02: The home office of extremism
      05/01/02 Slipping down the Eurinal of history: France, the joke is on you
      04/23/02 It's time to snap out of Arab fantasy land
      04/16/02 Mideast war exposes 'ugly Europeans'
      04/09/02 Arafat has begun his countdown to oblivion. Now it's time to crush the Palestinian uprising
      03/27/02 The good, the bad and the Gallic shrug
      03/20/02 Grand convocation of the weird

      © 2002, Mark Steyn