Finally, an argument well made
September 18, 2002

As I reread President Bush’s speech and the arguments for going after Iraq, I couldn’t help but think back to the comments of another Texan last Sept. 12. Sen. Phil Gramm stood on the Senate floor within a day of the disasters in New York and Washington to suggest in the strongest terms possible that, while we may not be able to hunt down every one of bin Laden’s buddies or change the hearts and minds of those to whom he appeals, we can do one thing to make the world safer in an era of state-sponsored or -supported terrorism.

Gramm said then that we could make certain that no rational leader, regardless of where his or her sympathies might lay, would have the courage to make common cause with terrorists like bin Laden by demonstrating the costs of doing so.

Taking out Saddam Hussein would certainly do that and the fact that some might believe he hasn’t really proved his case by coming up with the proverbial smoking gun before acting, might simply make them even more circumspect.

Perhaps that’s what Bush is doing right now.

The military campaign against Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi regime has already begun. Scores of U.S. aircraft are busily taking out his defenses and, presumably, targeting at least some of the sites at which his researchers are so busily working to develop the weapons he needs to cow his adversaries.

The question of whether we follow up these air raids with a massive ground presence à la Desert Storm remains to be seen. One hopes we won’t have to, of course, as the cost in U.S. lives of doing so may be much higher than most Americans are presently prepared to accept, but as the president makes the case for whatever action might prove necessary, that could change.

And he is finally making that case. His U.N. speech last week provided a public rationale for military action that went beyond what he and his spokesmen have said in the past and gave some coherence to the actions the administration is clearly considering in the months ahead. In the process, he has managed to prove one of the contentions of those who have said that the idea of tying U.S. action to either U.N. or foreign approval would be foolish.

It is clear to all at this point that the Bush administration will act on its own if need be and that realization is convincing many of our “allies” to sign on. The nations that have been carping the loudest are nations headed by followers, not leaders, and they now appear ready to do what they do best … follow a leader. Some have even been heard to suggest in recent days that it’s time to admit that Saddam Hussein is a greater threat to the peace than George W. Bush.

Bush is to be congratulated, not just for his willingness to make hard decisions, but for finally realizing that in a nation such as ours one cannot proceed without public support for those decisions. Many conservatives have been arguing for months that, while we firmly believe a case could be made justifying action against Iraq, the president hadn’t made it.

We cannot run around the world taking out “bad guys” whenever we decide to do so or invading foreign lands because at some point their leaders might threaten our allies or us. The decision to risk the lives of Americans must be taken only when it can be demonstrated that there exists a real threat to our national security interests that cannot be tolerated. Absent such a showing, Americans will inevitably become little more than the policemen of the world with a wide-ranging mandate to strangle tyrants in their cradles as well as to protect our people and neighbors from full-grown thugs. That is the road that leads to Mogadishu and the hubris that has destroyed great civilizations throughout human history.

Now, however, the case is being made and made effectively. Bush is arguing fairly convincingly that the world must act now against Hussein and making it clear that if we are forced to act alone we will do so because taking him out is in our national interest. It is still possible to disagree with the president’s conclusions or even to suggest that there are measures short of invasion that might allow us to deal effectively with the Iraqi threat, but it is no longer possible to suggest that the president is simply playing politics by considering a resort to the sword or to cavalierly reject the rationale he has presented as some of his critics do.

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David Keene is chairman of the American Conservative Union and a Washington-based government affairs consultant