how lucky we are to have a Bush administration
- From: PAPAFLORATOS@xxxxxxxxx
- Date: 29 Jul 2006 16:40:55 -0700
Warren's Piece
Clinton's secretary of state reminds us how lucky we are to have a Bush
administration.
by William Kristol
08/07/2006, Volume 011, Issue 44
Every time neocon warmongers like me get exasperated by the Bush
administration (and we've had increasingly good reasons for
exasperation in the last year or so, I might add), someone like
first-term Clinton secretary of state Warren Christopher pops up. Maybe
"pops up" isn't quite right, conveying as it does an implication of
activity and even energy. So let's just say that Warren Christopher
presented his credentials to the Washington Post op-ed page Friday,
criticizing the Bush administration, more in sorrow than in anger.
Bush, you see, had "resisted all suggestions that the first order of
business should be negotiation of an immediate cease-fire between the
warring parties," i.e., between the state of Israel and the terrorist
group Hezbollah.
Christopher's piece needs to be read to be believed. It needs to be
read as an example of the fatuousness of liberal elite opinion about
the world we live in. That opinion is dominant in the Democratic
party--and, unfortunately, has penetrated the Bush State Department
more than one would wish. Still, Christopher's op-ed is such a
convenient reminder of how much worse things could be that one wonders
whether he's on Karl Rove's payroll.
He's probably not. After all, this is the man who, as secretary of
state, allowed ethnic cleansing to go on far too long in the Balkans,
presided over humiliations in Somalia and Haiti, did nothing in the
face of genocide in Rwanda, didn't respond to terror at Khobar Towers,
and allowed Hafez al-Assad to treat him as a supplicant. He's back,
basically articulating the line of the non-Lieberman wing--that is, 95
percent--of the Democratic party.
What's his line? That "we should focus our efforts on stopping the
killing." How? Three recommendations. First, "an immediate cease-fire
must take priority, with negotiations on longer-term arrangements to
follow." In other words, the fact that one of the warring parties is a
state that had withdrawn from occupied territory and was scrupulously
complying with its obligations, and the other is a terror group that
was arming itself to the teeth and killing and kidnapping citizens of a
neighboring country, is irrelevant. And the notion that a terror group
should be in any way disadvantaged by the "longer-term arrangements to
follow," that the terrorists should pay any price for their actions, is
nowhere suggested by Christopher. Indeed, he is so much the Compleat
Diplomat that he never mentions the incident that caused the outbreak
of hostilities: Hezbollah's attack across the Israel-Lebanon border.
Second: "If a cease-fire is the goal, the United States has an
indispensable role to play." The highlighting of U.S. indispensability
is a (moderately clever) way of disguising the fact that Christopher
wants the United States to yield in its view of the Middle East
conflict to the Europeans and the United Nations. What does U.S.
indispensability mean to Warren Christopher? That only we can muscle
the Israelis into an agreement, and that "the Europeans are unlikely to
participate in a multinational enforcement action until the United
States commits to putting its own troops on the ground." In other
words, what is indispensable is not a distinctively American view of
the situation or the exercise of American leadership. It is helping the
international community to impose an evenhanded settlement on Israel
and Hezbollah.
Third: The United States has to engage in "direct dialogue" with Syria,
since Syria has "more leverage over Hezbollah's actions than any other
country save Iran." And what about Iran? Christopher leaves unsaid what
would undoubtedly be his recommendation: direct engagement without
conditions with that regime as well. He does write, "as the situations
with North Korea and Iran confirm, refusing to speak with those we
dislike is a recipe for frustration and failure." It would, I suppose,
be undiplomatic to mention North Korea's missile launches and Iran's
nuclear weapons program. They just happen to be nations "we dislike."
In Warren Christopher's world, we should dislike fewer regimes. Then,
presumably, we'd be disliked less. Israel, however, we should dislike.
After all, "every day America gives the green light to further Israeli
violence, our already tattered reputation sinks even lower." This isn't
even evenhandedness. Nowhere in his op-ed is Christopher as harsh about
Hezbollah--or Syria or Iran--as he is about Israel. Israeli violence is
the problem. Anti-Israeli policies are the solution. Warren
Christopher, meet Kofi Annan.
The Bush administration has wavered and floundered too much over the
last year. Its State Department remains in some considerable denial
about Iran, and its Defense Department about Iraq. We look forward to
resuming our constructive criticisms of the administration. But we
pause this week to say this: Given the spirit of today's liberal
establishment and Democratic party, so perfectly personified by Warren
Christopher, thank God we have a Bush and not a Kerry administration.
--William Kristol
.
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