Friedman is quite honest here, both in
trying to �separate the wheat from the chafe� and in his attempts to cover his
previous commentary where he was more approving of the Bush2 stated reasons
for going to war. It�s been said
that before a war there are some believed good reasons. Afterwards, there are never any good
reasons. You always wonder if
another way would not have been more productive and less
costly.
However, this is not just about one local
neighborhood, Iraq, it is about Israel and Palestine, the best case study for
human ineptitude and institutionalized politics, historical animosity and
historical opportunity as we have in prima geopolitics today.
Since I�ve posted many times here about the
need for some heroic self-sacrifice on the part of the political leadership in
Israel and Palestine, let me share that I am cautiously optimistic and holding
my breath regarding recent developments.
I am waiting to see if Sharon has had a midnight �legacy conversion
experience� or just realized that all the pressure applied to the Palestinians
to change their stripes and demote Arafat will have the end result of exposing
Israel�s feet in concrete attitude since the Palestinians are moving
ahead. Lots of corny photo cops
abound, but I am waiting to see not the Kodak moments, but the WYSIWYG, or
What you see is what you get
moments. - KWC
Because We Could
By Thomas L. Friedman, NYT, June 4,
2003
The
failure of the Bush team to produce any weapons of mass destruction (W.M.D.'s)
in Iraq is becoming a big, big story. But is it the real story we should be
concerned with? No. It was the wrong issue before the war, and it's the wrong
issue now.
Why?
Because there were actually four reasons for this war:
the real reason, the right reason, the moral reason and the stated
reason.
The
"real reason" for this war, which was never stated, was that after 9/11
America needed to hit someone in the Arab-Muslim world.
Afghanistan wasn't enough because a terrorism bubble had built up over there �
a bubble that posed a real threat to the open societies of the West and needed
to be punctured. This terrorism bubble said that plowing airplanes into the
World Trade Center was O.K., having Muslim preachers say it was O.K. was O.K.,
having state-run newspapers call people who did such things "martyrs" was O.K.
and allowing Muslim charities to raise money for such "martyrs" was O.K. Not
only was all this seen as O.K., there was a feeling among radical Muslims that
suicide bombing would level the balance of power between the Arab world and
the West, because we had gone soft and their activists were ready to
die.
The
only way to puncture that bubble was for American soldiers, men and women, to
go into the heart of the Arab-Muslim world, house to house, and make clear
that we are ready to kill, and to die, to prevent our open society from being
undermined by this terrorism bubble. Smashing Saudi Arabia or Syria would have
been fine. But
we hit Saddam for one simple reason: because we could, and because he deserved
it and because he was right in the heart of that world. And don't believe the
nonsense that this had no effect.
Every neighboring government � and 98 percent of terrorism is about what
governments let happen � got the message. If you talk to U.S. soldiers in Iraq
they will tell you this is what the war was
about.
The
"right reason" for this war was the need to partner with Iraqis, post-Saddam,
to build a progressive Arab regime.
Because the real weapons of mass destruction that threaten us were never
Saddam's missiles. The real weapons that threaten us are the growing number of
angry, humiliated young Arabs and Muslims, who are produced by failed or
failing Arab states � young people who hate America more than they love life.
Helping to build a decent Iraq as a model for others � and solving the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict � are the necessary steps for defusing the ideas
of mass destruction, which are what really threaten
us.
The
"moral reason" for the war was that Saddam's regime was an engine of mass
destruction
and genocide that had killed thousands of his own people, and neighbors, and
needed to be stopped.
But
because the Bush team never dared to spell out the real reason for the war,
and (wrongly) felt that it could never win public or world support for the
right reasons and the moral reasons, it opted for the
stated reason: the notion that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction that
posed an immediate threat to America.
I argued before the war that Saddam posed no such threat to America, and had
no links with Al Qaeda, and that we couldn't take the nation to war "on the
wings of a lie." I argued that Mr. Bush should fight this war for the right
reasons and the moral reasons. But he stuck with this W.M.D. argument for P.R.
reasons.
Once
the war was over and I saw the mass graves and the true extent of Saddam's
genocidal evil, my view was that Mr. Bush did not need to find any W.M.D.'s to
justify the war for me. I still feel that way. But I have to admit that I've
always been fighting my own war in Iraq. Mr. Bush took the country into his
war. And
if it turns out that he fabricated the evidence for his war (which I wouldn't
conclude yet), that would badly damage America and be a very serious
matter.
But
my ultimate point is this: Finding Iraq's W.M.D.'s is necessary to preserve
the credibility of the Bush team, the neocons, Tony Blair and the C.I.A. But
rebuilding Iraq is necessary to win the war. I won't feel one whit more secure
if we find Saddam's W.M.D.'s, because I never felt he would use them on us.
But I will feel terribly insecure if we fail to put Iraq onto a progressive
path. Because if that doesn't happen, the terrorism bubble will reinflate and
bad things will follow. Mr.
Bush's credibility rides on finding W.M.D.'s, but America's future, and the
future of the Mideast, rides on our building a different Iraq. We must not
forget that.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/04/opinion/04FRIE.html
