' Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.
Clicking on banner ads enables JWR to constantly improve
Jewish World Review Aug. 27, 2002 / 19 Elul, 5762

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.

Gaffney
JWR's Pundits
World Editorial
Cartoon Showcase

Mallard Fillmore

Michael Barone
Mona Charen
Linda Chavez
Ann Coulter
Greg Crosby
Larry Elder
Don Feder
Suzanne Fields
Paul Greenberg
Bob Greene
Betsy Hart
Nat Hentoff
David Horowitz
Marianne Jennings
Michael Kelly
Mort Kondracke
Ch. Krauthammer
Lawrence Kudlow
Dr. Laura
John Leo
David Limbaugh
Michelle Malkin
Chris Matthews
Michael Medved
MUGGER
Kathleen Parker
Wes Pruden
Sam Schulman
Amity Shlaes
Tony Snow
Thomas Sowell
Cal Thomas
Jonathan S. Tobin
Ben Wattenberg
George Will
Bruce Williams
Walter Williams
Mort Zuckerman

Consumer Reports

Beware 'consensus leadership'


http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com | There has been a subtle change in the unsolicited advice George W. Bush is receiving from prominent figures concerned that he is determined to lead the Nation to war against Iraq. The current fashion is to agree that Saddam Hussein's misrule and his megalomaniacal pursuit of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) should be ended. But only, Mr. Bush is now being told, if he can secure the permission of the so-called "international community," or at least our key allies.

This argument was framed most recently by yet another of Bush 43's father's officials, former Secretary of State James Baker, on the op.ed. page of last Sunday's New York Times. Reduced to its essence, in that essay Mr. Baker recognizes that Saddam must go and that U.S. military action will be required to accomplish that goal. He insists, however, that the President first has to try to get a new UN Security Council resolution requiring Iraq to accept new inspections "anywhere, anytime" before he undertakes the liberation of the long-suffering Iraqi people.

This amounts to what Margaret Thatcher once famously derided (about the time she was warning Bush pére and his advisors against "going wobbly" over Iraq in 1990) as the impossibility of "leadership by consensus." She recognized that, on matters of surpassing importance, the United States has to lead by providing direction and initiative, around which a broader or narrower consensus will ultimately form -- not try to get everyone else to agree in advance to do what it believes must be done.

We know in advance that the Baker diplomatic gambit would be a fool's errand, adding obstacles not clearing them away. Ever since the end of the Gulf War, the UN Security Council has been ever-less-willing to support intrusive inspections in Iraq. This was hardly surprising since at least three of the permanent, veto-wielding Council members (France, Russia and China) were anxious to curry favor with Saddam Hussein -- especially if they could frustrate American policy in the process. Under present circumstances, an effort to secure from the UN what would amount to a casus belli with Iraq is more likely to produce further evidence of international opposition to U.S. action there, and intensify the multilateralists' contention that we lack the authority to undertake such action.

In truth, this is but the latest manifestation of a struggle that has been going on since the end of the Cold War. Foreign governments, particularly the unfriendly ones (which has in recent years included a number of our allies), have striven to establish via treaties, "international norms" and other devices, means of constraining the American "hyperpower." This sentiment enjoys considerable currency as well among the Vietnam generation of the U.S. security policy elite.

During the Bush 41 administration, when Mr. Baker, Brent Scowcroft and Lawrence Eagleburger were last in office, Washington frequently acceded to such pressure. Usually, it claimed that doing so was necessary to: fashion multinational coalitions (so as to prosecute Operation Desert Storm), maintain "stability" (for example, to preserve the "territorial integrity" of Yugoslavia) and advance fatuous arms control objectives (notably, "ridding the world of chemical weapons.") The American foreign policy establishment embraced the idea that diminishing U.S. sovereignty in these and other ways was an unavoidable, if not actually a desirable, component of forging a "New World Order."

During its eight years in office, the Clinton team greatly exacerbated this trend. It became practically axiomatic in the 1990s that the United States could not, and certainly should not, consider doing anything internationally without a UN mandate. A series of "global" agreements -- governing everything from climate change to nuclear tests to war crimes -- were consummated with active U.S. involvement and with manifest disregard for American sovereignty and constitutional processes. Over time, the Nation inexorably became hamstrung like Gulliver, both by myriad institutionalized constraints and obligations and by the logic that the United States was just another country, one whose vote and influence in multinational councils should count no more than any others'.

Since taking office, President Bush has confronted this syndrome time and again. To his great credit -- and to the outraged howls of self-described "internationalists," he has repeatedly acted to reassert our national sovereignty and to restore our ability to act unilaterally. He has renounced the Kyoto Protocol on global warming, rejected the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and "unsigned" the International Criminal Court treaty. He has also withdrawn the United States from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, clearing the way at last for the accelerated deployment of missile defense systems -- including at sea, a highly promising option about which Mr. Bush was briefed last week in Crawford.

The party line from the foreign policy establishment types at home and abroad is that such behavior constitutes damnable "unilateralism." The putative fear is that America will revert to isolationism. The real concern, however, is very different -- namely, that the United States will appreciate that it is able to act alone where it must, and that it may just have the will to do so.

The truth of the matter is that the world is a safer place, not only for American interests but for those of freedom-loving people elsewhere, when the United States has the military, economic and political power to engage unilaterally where necessary and is led by an individual who is willing competently to exercise such power. And, contrary to the critics' assertions, when President Bush does that on behalf of the people of Iraq and our vital interest in putting Saddam Hussein and his WMD programs out of business, he will enjoy the support of the majority of Americans and the gratitude of untold millions elsewhere around the globe.

Enjoy this writer's work? Why not sign-up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.


JWR contributor Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. heads the Center for Security Policy. Send your comments to him by clicking here.

Up

08/20/02: To Iraq or not to Iraq?
08/13/02: Trading with the 'enemy'
07/30/02: Who's trashing Ashcroft?
07/23/02: Wall Street's 'poisoned apples'
07/16/02: Back on the China front
07/09/02: See no evil?
07/02/02: Rethinking peacekeeping
06/25/02: Political moment of truth on defense
06/19/02: Inviting losses on two fronts
06/12/02: Make missile defense happen
06/04/02: The next 'Day of Infamy'?
05/29/02: Bush's Russian gamble
05/21/02: The 'next war'
05/15/02: Ex-presidential misconduct
05/07/02: When 'what if' is no game
05/02/02: Careful what we wish for
04/24/02: The real 'root cause' of terror
04/02/02: First principles in the Mideast
03/26/02: 'Renounce this map'
03/20/02: The inconvenient ally
03/12/02: Adults address the 'unthinkable'
03/05/02: The Saudi scam
02/26/02: Rumsfeld's 'now hear this'
02/19/02: Where's the outrage?
02/12/02: Post-mortem on 'Pearl Harbor II'
02/05/02: Spinning on the 'Evil Axis'
01/29/02: A challenge for the history books
01/22/02: Who pulled the plug on the Chinese 'bugs'?
01/15/02: No 'need to know'
01/08/02: Sentenced to de-nuclearize?
12/18/01: Missile defense mismanagement?
12/11/01: Is the Cold War 'over'?
12/04/01: A moment for truth
11/29/01: Send in the marines -- with the planes they need
11/27/01: 'Now Hear This': Does the President Mean What He Says?
11/20/01: Mideast 'vision thing'
11/13/01: The leitmotif of the next three days
11/06/01: Bush's Reykjavik Moment
10/30/01: Say it ain't true, 'W.
10/23/01: Getting history, and the future, right
10/16/01: Farewell to arms control
10/05/01: A time to choose
09/25/01: Don't drink the 'lemonade'
09/11/01: Sudan envoy an exercise in futility?
09/05/01: Strategy of a thousand cuts
08/28/01: Rummy's back
08/21/01: Prepare for 'two wars'
08/14/01: Why does the Bush Administration make a moral equivalence between terrorist attacks and Israel's restrained defensive responses?
08/07/01: A New bipartisanship in security policy?
07/31/01: Don't go there
07/17/01: The 'end of the beginning'
07/10/01: Testing President Bush
07/03/01: Market transparency works
06/27/01: Which Bush will it be on missile defense?
06/19/01: Don't politicize military matters
06/05/01: It's called leadership
06/05/01: With friends like these ...
05/31/01: Which way on missile defense?
05/23/01: Pearl Harbor, all over again
05/15/01: A tale of two Horatios
05/08/01: The real debate about missile defense
04/24/01: Sell aegis ships to Taiwan
04/17/01: The 'hi-tech for China' bill
04/10/01: Deal on China's hostages -- then what?
04/03/01: Defense fire sale redux
03/28/01: The defense we need
03/21/01: Critical mass
03/13/01: The Bush doctrine
03/08/01: Self-Deterred from Defending America
02/27/01: Truth and consequences for Saddam
02/21/01: Defense fire sale
02/13/01: Dubya's Marshall Plan
02/05/01: Doing the right thing on an 'Arab-Arab dispute'
01/30/01: The missile defense decision
01/23/01: The Osprey as Phoenix
01/17/01: Clinton's Parting Shot at Religious Freedom
01/09/01: Wake-up call on space
01/02/01: Secretary Rumsfeld
12/27/00: Redefining our Ukraine policy
12/19/00: Deploy missile defense now
12/12/00: Sabotaging space power
12/05/00: Preempting Bush
11/28/00: What Clinton hath wrought
11/21/00: HE'S BAAAACK
11/14/00: The world won't wait

© 2001, Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.