Zeev's Turnips Talk Politics (ZTTP)

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Wrong Way to Do The Right Thing


By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Tuesday, March 11, 2003; Page A23


Last September, a few days after President Bush's much-praised United Nations address, which set his Iraq policy on its present course, I spoke with a U.S. senator who is deeply informed on foreign policy.

I offered the view that the president's speech was Donald Rumsfeld's policy in a Colin Powell package. Bush, it seemed to me then, was still heading to the war his secretary of defense wanted and using his secretary of state to build domestic and foreign support for his venture.

The senator disagreed. "Actually," he replied, "I think it's Colin Powell's policy in a Dick Cheney package." The tough words in Bush's speech were a bow to the administration's hawkish wing, represented by Cheney and Rumsfeld. But he thought Powell had won the substance by beating back his unilateralist foes and getting the Iraq issue to the United Nations.

At the time, I hoped I was wrong and the senator right. But events of the past few weeks suggest that Bush knew all along he was going Cheney and Rumsfeld's way. He intended to make war on Saddam Hussein under almost all circumstances short of Hussein's removal or abdication.

That, I think, is why public opinion abroad has lined up against Bush -- even in countries whose governments support his policy -- and why a majority of Americans still harbor deep doubts about the adventure on which we're about to embark. The worried American majority includes outright opponents of war but also many who accept Bush's immediate goals. The second group is apprehensive about his long-term objectives and the unintended consequences of pursuing them.

Bush's problem is that when he sought United Nations support last fall, he was looking for a marriage of convenience, not commitment. The administration never expected inspections to work -- and many in its ranks clearly hoped they wouldn't.

The inspection regime put into place fell short of the one called for by, for example, James A. Baker III, the first President Bush's secretary of state. Last August Baker called for "intrusive inspections anytime, anywhere, with no exceptions" and "all necessary means to enforce it." This halfway house between war and peace might not have worked, but it would have been useful to try it.

In political terms, Bush's approach was brilliant. By going to the United Nations in September, Bush disarmed many Democrats who would not vote against the president at a moment when he was seeking U.N. support. The president won himself a virtual blank check from Congress to proceed as he wished.

In retrospect, the most important and revealing Bush comments may have come the day after the United Nations speech. That's when the president mocked congressional Democrats who said they were reluctant to go to war absent U.N. support.

"Democrats waiting for the U.N. to act?" Bush said with a chuckle. "Seems like to me that if you're representing the United States, you ought to be making decisions based on what's best for the United States."

This was a clever distortion of the argument that the interests of the United States would be best served precisely through U.N. cooperation against Hussein. Bush then turned his distortion into an electoral stiletto. "If I were running," he said, "I'm not sure how I would explain to the American people, you know, 'Vote for me, and, oh, by the way, on a matter of national security, I'm going to wait for somebody else to act.' " That was the real Bush, using the language of Rumsfeld and Cheney, not Powell.

Of course the world would be better off without Saddam Hussein. As of last fall, Powell was winning broad support for tougher action carried out in a way that would have strengthened the United States by strengthening our ties with allies. Someday France will regret undercutting Powell, because he was the last, best hope for making this a genuinely cooperative venture. Its leaders may not think so, but France would have been better off inside the anti-Hussein alliance.

But the wreckage the administration's Iraq policy leaves in its wake cannot be blamed on France alone. The loss of allies and the turn of public opinion in so many democratic nations against us reflect fears that the United States is going to war not just to rid Hussein of weapons but on behalf of a grand theory. The theory sees unfettered American power as capable of remaking the world. That's certainly bold. It's also dangerous.

The paradox is that creating the more democratic world we seek requires more than power. It demands alliances, institutions and trust. Doing the right thing the wrong way for the wrong reasons could squander all three.


© 2003 The Washington Post Company


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8033-2003Mar10.html