Tuesday, September 17, 2002

Iraq developments

Much to President Bush's chagrin, the Iraqi government has agreed to allow the unconditional return of UN weapons inspectors. As Powell consulted with council members, Secretary-General Kofi Annan, working with Iraqi and Arab League officials, came up with a letter pledging that Iraq would let U.N. weapons inspectors return unconditionally. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan credited President Bush for the Iraqi reversal of policy, asserting that Bush "galvanized the international community" with his speech last Thursday. If the Bush administration were really concerned about nothing more than Iraqi acquisition of WMD, then the mood in the White House should be smug. However, Bush won't settle for anything less than regime-change, as noted by French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin:"There has been talk about working for regime change...[but] this is not included in the mandate of the United Nations. If we begin discussing it, where will it end? It's a totally different process."

Before it sounds as if I am accusing President Bush of narrow-mindedness in his approach to foreign policy, let it be noted that Larry Lindsey, economic adviser to the President, believes a war with Iraq would be good for the US economy:"When there is a regime change in Iraq, you could add three million to five million barrels [per day] of production to world supply..The successful prosecution of the war would be good for the economy." This linkage of increased military spending in times of national economic crisis is not a new one-- Reaganomics worked on similar premises.

Charley Reese's new column encourages us to ask ourselves some interesting questions, worth quoting at length:
You ought to ask yourself why President Bush recently scrapped 50 years of American strategic policy by announcing that the United States would be willing to use nuclear weapons on a non-nuclear state and that our policy would henceforth be pre-emptive attacks.
"What kind of government have you given us?" a lady asked Benjamin Franklin after they had drafted a new Constitution. "Madam," said Franklin, "We have given you a republic — if you can keep it."

And, of course, we could not. The republic died at Appomattox, and it's been empire ever since. The modest government, the freedom, the old policy of armed neutrality, the practice of relying on a citizen army, have all been scrapped. An all-volunteer force is in fact a mercenary force. And our government is strutting about as if it were the policeman in charge of planet Earth. Well, just remember, all empires fall. They fall because power corrupts, just as the British political philosopher said. They fall because they inevitably overextend themselves and go bankrupt. They fall because their citizens — reduced to passive watchers of games and consumers of bread — themselves become weak and corrupted.

If all patriotism led us to the sort of deliberation conducted by Reese, I would not hesitate to embrace it.