(London Times) Andrew Sullivan - Whose war is this? It is, first and foremost, the United Nations' war. Without the UN, it would never have happened. Indeed, without the UN, it wouldn't have even been necessary. Without the UN's restrictions on American force twelve years ago, Saddam would not be around today. Any non-UN, American-led coalition with any sense of military opportunity would have finished off the old Stalinist more than a decade ago. In the second place, this is Bill Clinton's war. It came as a result of the final Iraqi-UN impasse in 1998, when the inspections regime collapsed in the face of Saddamite deception and intransigence. In response, President Clinton formally shifted U.S. policy from containment to regime change. Yes, this was Clinton's policy. And yes, this is also the neoconservatives' war. By this I don't mean the alleged cabal of Likudniks infiltrating American foreign policy and directing the might of the superpower to serve the interests of a tiny, oil-free strip of land at the east end of the Mediterranean. By this, I mean simply that this war represents the winning of a long argument among Washington's policy elites about the future of American interests in the Middle East. Two things shifted the balance to the neoconservatives in Washington more than anything else. The first was Yassir Arafat's refusal at Camp David and Taba to accept the sweeping deal Barak offered for West Bank autonomy. Or to be more accurate, it wasn't Arafat's refusal to accept it that turned the tide. It was his refusal to offer any alternative whatsoever, except a return to the Intifada, and this time with suicide bombing as his main negotiating tool. And the second event, of course, was September 11 itself. When George W. Bush looked around him in the ashes of the World Trade Center for an analysis of what had gone wrong and a comprehensive strategy to put it right, the neoconservatives were the only credible advocates who had an actual plan. They weren't a cabal. And they weren't natural Bush allies.
2003-03-28 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive