- The war in Iraq was conceived by 25 neoconservative
intellectuals, most of them Jewish, who are pushing President Bush to
change the course of history. Two of them, journalists William Kristol
and Charles Krauthammer, say it's possible. But another journalist,
Thomas Friedman (not part of the group), is skeptical
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- 1. The doctrine
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- WASHINGTON - At the conclusion of its second week,
the war to liberate Iraq wasn't looking good. Not even in Washington.
The assumption of a swift collapse of the Saddam Hussein regime had
itself collapsed. The presupposition that the Iraqi dictatorship would
crumble as soon as mighty America entered the country proved
unfounded. The Shi'ites didn't rise up, the Sunnis fought fiercely.
Iraqi guerrilla warfare found the American generals unprepared and
endangered their overextended supply lines. Nevertheless, 70 percent
of the American people continued to support the war; 60 percent
thought victory was certain; 74 percent expressed confidence in
President George W. Bush.
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- Washington is a small city. It's a place of human
dimensions. A kind of small town that happens to run an empire. A
small town of government officials and members of Congress and
personnel of research institutes and journalists who pretty well all
know one another. Everyone is busy intriguing against everyone else;
and everyone gossips about everyone else.
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- In the course of the past year, a new belief has
emerged in the town: the belief in war against Iraq. That ardent faith
was disseminated by a small group of 25 or 30 neoconservatives, almost
all of them Jewish, almost all of them intellectuals (a partial list:
Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, William Kristol, Eliot
Abrams, Charles Krauthammer), people who are mutual friends and
cultivate one another and are convinced that political ideas are a
major driving force of history. They believe that the right political
idea entails a fusion of morality and force, human rights and grit.
The philosophical underpinnings of the Washington neoconservatives are
the writings of Machiavelli, Hobbes and Edmund Burke. They also admire
Winston Churchill and the policy pursued by Ronald Reagan. They tend
to read reality in terms of the failure of the 1930s (Munich) versus
the success of the 1980s (the fall of the Berlin Wall).
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- Are they wrong? Have they committed an act of folly
in leading Washington to Baghdad? They don't think so. They continue
to cling to their belief. They are still pretending that everything is
more or less fine. That things will work out. Occasionally, though,
they seem to break out in a cold sweat. This is no longer an academic
exercise, one of them says, we are responsible for what is happening.
The ideas we put forward are now affecting the lives of millions of
people. So there are moments when you're scared. You say, Hell, we
came to help, but maybe we made a mistake.
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- 2. William Kristol
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- Has America bitten off more than it can chew? Bill
Kristol says no. True, the press is very negative, but when you
examine the facts in the field you see that there is no terrorism, no
mass destruction, no attacks on Israel. The oil fields in the south
have been saved, air control has been achieved, American forces are
deployed 50 miles from Baghdad. So, even if mistakes were made here
and there, they are not serious. America is big enough to handle that.
Kristol hasn't the slightest doubt that in the end, General Tommy
Franks will achieve his goals. The 4th Cavalry Division will soon
enter the fray, and another division is on its way from Texas. So it's
possible that instead of an elegant war with 60 killed in two weeks it
will be a less elegant affair with a thousand killed in two months,
but nevertheless Bill Kristol has no doubt at all that the Iraq
Liberation War is a just war, an obligatory war.
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- Kristol is pleasant-looking, of average height, in
his late forties. In the past 18 months he has used his position as
editor of the right-wing Weekly Standard and his status as one of the
leaders of the neoconservative circle in Washington to induce the
White House to do battle against Saddam Hussein. Because Kristol is
believed to exercise considerable influence on the president, Vice
President Richard Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, he is
also perceived as having been instrumental in getting Washington to
launch this all-out campaign against Baghdad. Sitting behind the
stacks of books that cover his desk at the offices of the Weekly
Standard in Northwest Washington, he tries to convince me that he is
not worried. It is simply inconceivable to him that America will not
win. In that event, the consequences would be catastrophic. No one
wants to think seriously about that possibility.
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- What is the war about? I ask. Kristol replies that
at one level it is the war that George Bush is talking about: a war
against a brutal regime that has in its possession weapons of mass
destruction. But at a deeper level it is a greater war, for the
shaping of a new Middle East. It is a war that is intended to change
the political culture of the entire region. Because what happened on
September 11, 2001, Kristol says, is that the Americans looked around
and saw that the world is not what they thought it was. The world is a
dangerous place. Therefore the Americans looked for a doctrine that
would enable them to cope with this dangerous world. And the only
doctrine they found was the neoconservative one.
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- That doctrine maintains that the problem with the
Middle East is the absence of democracy and of freedom. It follows
that the only way to block people like Saddam Hussein and Osama bin
Laden is to disseminate democracy and freedom. To change radically the
cultural and political dynamics that creates such people. And the way
to fight the chaos is to create a new world order that will be based
on freedom and human rights - and to be ready to use force in order to
consolidate this new world. So that, really, is what the war is about.
It is being fought to consolidate a new world order, to create a new
Middle East.
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- Does that mean that the war in Iraq is effectively a
neoconservative war? That's what people are saying, Kristol replies,
laughing. But the truth is that it's an American war. The
neoconservatives succeeded because they touched the bedrock of
America. The thing is that America has a profound sense of mission.
America has a need to offer something that transcends a life of
comfort, that goes beyond material success. Therefore, because of
their ideals, the Americans accepted what the neoconservatives
proposed. They didn't want to fight a war over interests, but over
values. They wanted a war driven by a moral vision. They wanted to
hitch their wagon to something bigger than themselves.
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- Does this moral vision mean that after Iraq will
come the turns of Saudi Arabia and Egypt?
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- Kristol says that he is at odds with the
administration on the question of Saudi Arabia. But his opinion is
that it is impossible to let Saudi Arabia just continue what it is
doing. It is impossible to accept the anti-Americanism it is
disseminating. The fanatic Wahhabism that Saudi Arabia engenders is
undermining the stability of the entire region. It's the same with
Egypt, he says: we mustn't accept the status quo there. For Egypt,
too, the horizon has to be liberal democracy.
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- It has to be understood that in the final analysis,
the stability that the corrupt Arab despots are offering is illusory.
Just as the stability that Yitzhak Rabin received from Yasser Arafat
was illusory. In the end, none of these decadent dictatorships will
endure. The choice is between extremist Islam, secular fascism or
democracy. And because of September 11, American understands that.
America is in a position where it has no choice. It is obliged to be
far more aggressive in promoting democracy. Hence this war. It's based
on the new American understanding that if the United States does not
shape the world in its image, the world will shape the United States
in its own image.
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- 3. Charles Krauthammer
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- Is this going to turn into a second Vietnam? Charles
Krauthammer says no. There is no similarity to Vietnam. Unlike in the
1960s, there is no anti-establishment subculture in the United States
now. Unlike in the 1960s, there is now an abiding love of the army in
the United States. Unlike in the 1960s, there is a determined
president, one with character, in the White House. And unlike in the
1960s, Americans are not deterred from making sacrifices. That is the
sea-change that took place here on September 11, 2001. Since that
morning, Americans have understood that if they don't act now and if
weapons of mass destruction reach extremist terrorist organizations,
millions of Americans will die. Therefore, because they understand
that those others want to kill them by the millions, the Americans
prefer to take to the field of battle and fight, rather than sit idly
by and die at home.
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- Charles Krauthammer is handsome, swarthy and
articulate. In his spacious office on 19th Street in Northwest
Washington, he sits upright in a black wheelchair. Although his
writing tends to be gloomy, his mood now is elevated. The well-known
columnist (Washington Post, Time, Weekly Standard) has no real doubts
about the outcome of the war that he promoted for 18 months. No, he
does not accept the view that he helped lead America into the new
killing fields between the Tigris and the Euphrates. But it is true
that he is part of a conceptual stream that had something to offer in
the aftermath of September 11. Within a few weeks after the attacks on
the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, he had singled out Baghdad in his
columns as an essential target. And now, too, he is convinced that
America has the strength to pull it off. The thought that America will
not win has never even crossed his mind.
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- What is the war about? It's about three different
issues. First of all, this is a war for disarming Iraq of its weapons
of mass destruction. That's the basis, the self-evident cause, and it
is also sufficient cause in itself. But beyond that, the war in Iraq
is being fought to replace the demonic deal America cut with the Arab
world decades ago. That deal said: you will send us oil and we will
not intervene in your internal affairs. Send us oil and we will not
demand from you what we are demanding of Chile, the Philippines, Korea
and South Africa.
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- That deal effectively expired on September 11, 2001,
Krauthammer says. Since that day, the Americans have understood that
if they allow the Arab world to proceed in its evil ways -
suppression, economic ruin, sowing despair - it will continue to
produce more and more bin Ladens. America thus reached the conclusion
that it has no choice: it has to take on itself the project of
rebuilding the Arab world. Therefore, the Iraq war is really the
beginning of a gigantic historical experiment whose purpose is to do
in the Arab world what was done in Germany and Japan after World War
II.
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- It's an ambitious experiment, Krauthammer admits,
maybe even utopian, but not unrealistic. After all, it is
inconceivable to accept the racist assumption that the Arabs are
different from all other human beings, that the Arabs are incapable of
conducting a democratic way of life.
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- However, according to the Jewish-American columnist,
the present war has a further importance. If Iraq does become
pro-Western and if it becomes the focus of American influence, that
will be of immense geopolitical importance. An American presence in
Iraq will project power across the region. It will suffuse the rebels
in Iran with courage and strength, and it will deter and restrain
Syria. It will accelerate the processes of change that the Middle East
must undergo.
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- Isn't the idea of preemptive war a dangerous one
that rattles the world order?
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- There is no choice, Krauthammer replies. In the 21st
century we face a new and singular challenge: the democratization of
mass destruction. There are three possible strategies in the face of
that challenge: appeasement, deterrence and preemption. Because
appeasement and deterrence will not work, preemption is the only
strategy left. The United States must implement an aggressive policy
of preemption. Which is exactly what it is now doing in Iraq. That is
what Tommy Franks' soldiers are doing as we speak.
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- And what if the experiment fails? What if America is
defeated?
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- This war will enhance the place of America in the
world for the coming generation, Krauthammer says. Its outcome will
shape the world for the next 25 years. There are three possibilities.
If the United States wins quickly and without a bloodbath, it will be
a colossus that will dictate the world order. If the victory is slow
and contaminated, it will be impossible to go on to other Arab states
after Iraq. It will stop there. But if America is beaten, the
consequences will be catastrophic. Its deterrent capability will be
weakened, its friends will abandon it and it will become insular.
Extreme instability will be engendered in the Middle East.
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- You don't really want to think about what will
happen, Krauthammer says looking me straight in the eye. But just
because that's so, I am positive we will not lose. Because the
administration understands the implications. The president understands
that everything is riding on this. So he will throw everything we've
got into this. He will do everything that has to be done. George W.
Bush will not let America lose.
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- 4. Thomas Friedman
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- Is this an American Lebanon War? Tom Friedman says
he is afraid it is. He was there, in the Commodore Hotel in Beirut, in
the summer of 1982, and he remembers it well. So he sees the lines of
resemblance clearly. General Ahmed Chalabi (the Shi'ite leader that
the neoconservatives want to install as the leader of a free Iraq) in
the role of Bashir Jemayel. The Iraqi opposition in the role of the
Phalange. Richard Perle and the conservative circle around him as
Ariel Sharon. And a war that is at bottom a war of choice. A war that
wants to utilize massive force in order to establish a new
order.
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- Tom Friedman, The New York Times columnist, did not
oppose the war. On the contrary. He too was severely shaken by
September 11, he too wants to understand where these desperate
fanatics are coming from who hate America more than they love their
own lives. And he too reached the conclusion that the status quo in
the Middle East is no longer acceptable. The status quo is terminal.
And therefore it is urgent to foment a reform in the Arab
world.
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- Some things are true even if George Bush believes
them, Friedman says with a smile. And after September 11, it's
impossible to tell Bush to drop it, ignore it. There was a certain
basic justice in the overall American feeling that told the Arab
world: we left you alone for a long time, you played with matches and
in the end we were burned. So we're not going to leave you alone any
longer.
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- He is sitting in a large rectangular room in the
offices of The New York Times in northwest Washington, on the corner
of 17th Street. One wall of the room is a huge map of the world.
Hunched over his computer, he reads me witty lines from the article
that will be going to press in two hours. He polishes, sharpens, plays
word games. He ponders what's right to say now, what should be left
for a later date. Turning to me, he says that democracies look soft
until they're threatened. When threatened, they become very hard.
Actually, the Iraq war is a kind of Jenin on a huge scale. Because in
Jenin, too, what happened was that the Israelis told the Palestinians,
We left you here alone and you played with matches until suddenly you
blew up a Passover seder in Netanya. And therefore we are not going to
leave you along any longer. We will go from house to house in the
Casbah. And from America's point of view, Saddam's Iraq is Jenin. This
war is a defensive shield. It follows that the danger is the same:
that like Israel, America will make the mistake of using only
force.
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- This is not an illegitimate war, Friedman says. But
it is a very presumptuous war. You need a great deal of presumption to
believe that you can rebuild a country half a world from home. But if
such a presumptuous war is to have a chance, it needs international
support. That international legitimacy is essential so you will have
enough time and space to execute your presumptuous project. But George
Bush didn't have the patience to glean international support. He
gambled that the war would justify itself, that we would go in fast
and conquer fast and that the Iraqis would greet us with rice and the
war would thus be self-justifying. That did not happen. Maybe it will
happen next week, but in the meantime it did not happen.
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- When I think about what is going to happen, I break
into a sweat, Friedman says. I see us being forced to impose a siege
on Baghdad. And I know what kind of insanity a siege on Baghdad can
unleash. The thought of house-to-house combat in Baghdad without
international legitimacy makes me lose my appetite. I see American
embassies burning. I see windows of American businesses shattered. I
see how the Iraqi resistance to America connects to the general Arab
resistance to America and the worldwide resistance to America. The
thought of what could happen is eating me up.
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- What George Bush did, Friedman says, is to show us a
splendid mahogany table: the new democratic Iraq. But when you turn
the table over, you see that it has only one leg. This war is resting
on one leg. But on the other hand, anyone who thinks he can defeat
George Bush had better think again. Bush will never give in. That's
not what he's made of. Believe me, you don't want to be next to this
guy when he thinks he's being backed into a corner. I don't suggest
that anyone who holds his life dear mess with Dick Cheney, Donald
Rumsfeld and President Bush.
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- Is the Iraq war the great neoconservative war? It's
the war the neoconservatives wanted, Friedman says. It's the war the
neoconservatives marketed. Those people had an idea to sell when
September 11 came, and they sold it. Oh boy, did they sell it. So this
is not a war that the masses demanded. This is a war of an elite.
Friedman laughs: I could give you the names of 25 people (all of whom
are at this moment within a five-block radius of this office) who, if
you had exiled them to a desert island a year and a half ago, the Iraq
war would not have happened.
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- Still, it's not all that simple, Friedman retracts.
It's not some fantasy the neoconservatives invented. It's not that 25
people hijacked America. You don't take such a great nation into such
a great adventure with Bill Kristol and the Weekly Standard and
another five or six influential columnists. In the final analysis,
what fomented the war is America's over-reaction to September 11. The
genuine sense of anxiety that spread in America after September 11. It
is not only the neoconservatives who led us to the outskirts of
Baghdad. What led us to the outskirts of Baghdad is a very American
combination of anxiety and hubris.
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