This article in The New York Times contains a lot of food for thought about the Iraq War as a key step in a broader agenda, including the comment by President Bush (quoted below) that Maureen Dowd referred to in a recent column (referred to by us here). It discusses the situations with Syria and North Korea, and the possibility that they, along with other possible adversaries around the world, might be more willing to ‘cooperate’ now that the U.S. has shown what it can/will do to those that don’t.
(The NYTimes requires free registration, which is well worth it.)
Viewing the War as a Lesson to the World
By DAVID E. SANGER
WASHINGTON, April 5 � Shortly after Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld issued a stark warning to Iran and Syria last week, declaring that any “hostile acts” they committed on behalf of Iraq might prompt severe consequences, one of President Bush’s closest aides stepped into the Oval Office to warn him that his unpredictable defense secretary had just raised the specter of a broader confrontation.
Mr. Bush smiled a moment at the latest example of Mr. Rumsfeld’s brazenness, recalled the aide. Then he said one word � “Good” � and went back to work.
It was a small but telling moment on the sidelines of the war. For a year now, the president and many in his team have privately described the confrontation with Saddam Hussein as something of a demonstration conflict, an experiment in forcible disarmament. It is also the first war conducted under a new national security strategy, which explicitly calls for intervening before a potential enemy can strike.
…
“Iraq is not just about Iraq,” a senior administration official who played a crucial role in putting the strategy together said in an interview last week. It was “a unique case,” the official said. But in Mr. Bush’s mind, the official added, “It is of a type.”
In fact, some administration officials are talking about the lessons Mr. Bush expects the world to take from this conflict, and they are debating about where he may decide to focus when it is over.
…
Some hawks inside the administration are convinced that Iraq will serve as a cautionary example of what can happen to other states that refuse to abandon their programs to build weapons of mass destruction, an argument that John R. Bolton, the under secretary of state for arms control and international security, has made several times recently.
The administration’s more pragmatic wing fears that the war’s lesson will be just the opposite: that the best way to avoid American military action is to build a fearsome arsenal quickly and make the cost of conflict too high for Washington.
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martin
history will rear up and spit in your face
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