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Jewish World Review April 16, 2002 / 5 Iyar, 5762
Michael Ledeen
In
one of those confusions typical of people our age, Powell has instead
noticed that other people are at war, and his real mission is to get them
to stop. He may think it's an admirable mission, but it isn't the one
he's supposed to be carrying out. Thus, the all-too-obvious confusion
throughout the administration. And from confusion, as any good strategist
will tell you, comes defeat.
Powell has fallen
prey to several masters of confusion, those in many Middle East capitals,
and those in his own building, to whom he has entrusted his policies and
thus his reputation. Both are determined to slow and perhaps even stop
America's war against terrorism, since neither has any idea how to wage
and win it. So the secretary of state has sloshed back into the endless
swamp of "peace process" and "shuttle diplomacy,"
and he is doomed to fail, as all his predecessors since Henry Kissinger
failed. They all failed and he will fail because they thought
they could "solve" the Israel/Arab "problem" by just
talking it out and finding some clever scheme that would split all differences
and find a way to make everyone happy.
It can't be done.
All the skilled diplomats and all the deep thinkers have, from the very
beginning, insisted on looking at the wrong problem. The Arab/Israeli
matter is a small piece say it again, a small piece of a
much broader conflict, in which we are directly involved.
That broader conflict
is the latest battle between freedom and tyranny, and we only have two
choices: We can win or lose. We cannot opt out, we cannot find clever
solutions, we cannot invent brilliant schemes. It is simply win it or
lose it. It's the war, stupid.
Arafat is but one
of many petty tyrants who wish to extinguish freedom in the Middle East.
He is but one element in the terror network against which we declared
war following their attack against us on September 11. That network, once
proclaimed to be so shadowy that it would require an entirely new kind
of war to thwart its evil designs, is now crystal clear. Its fighting
men and women are enlisted in the PLO, Fatah, Hizbollah, Hamas, Islamic
Jihad, al Qaeda and their lesser formations. Its commanders are the terror
masters in Baghdad, Damascus and Tehran. Their ideologues and financiers
range from Riyadh to the Gulf States. They all saw what happened in Afghanistan,
and trembled.
Unable to mount an effective counteroffensive, they stalled for time,
tempting us with a variety of "peace" plans and processes, lecturing
us that we could not possibly continue the war until we had dealt with
the Israelis and the Palestinians, hoping we would fall for it.
We did fall for it,
and in falling for it lost our focus. The question is whether the president
will reassert the mission and refocus his war cabinet.
It should not be
hard, if he has the will. There will be innumerable excuses to call off
the Powell exercise and bring home the secretary. It does not much matter,
frankly, if this is blamed on Arafat or Sharon, the important thing is
to get our bearings firmly fixed. To all those who demand that we get
involved in the Israel/Arab morass, the president should simply say, "we're
going to win the war first, and then look at it again." Deprived of weapons,
ammunition, intelligence, and guidance from the terror masters, the Palestinians
will suddenly find themselves able to choose their own destiny. And then
we can ask them a simple question: What do you really want? They cannot
answer it truthfully today, because they are likely to be killed if their
tyrannical masters were to hear them say, "I want to be a free person
in a normal state." They can only answer it truthfully if freedom
is a real option.
And freedom is what
America is supposed to be all about. Tell the secretary of state: We are
fighting a war for freedom. Stop playing into the hands of the tyrants.
It's unworthy of a great democratic
04/08/02: Gulled: In the Middle East, Arafat doesn't matter
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