' Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.
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Jewish World Review Sept. 9, 2003 / 12 Elul, 5763

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.

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'No more war in '04'


http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com | On the eve of the second anniversary of the deadly 9/11 attacks, George W. Bush offered the country a visionary, courageous and correct assessment of the progress of the War on Terror - and his strategy for waging and winning it.

One particularly noteworthy passage in the President's address televised to the Nation last Sunday was his characterization of the high stakes involved in this global conflict:

"For America, there will be no going back to the era before September the 11th, 2001 -- to false comfort in a dangerous world. We have learned that terrorist attacks are not caused by the use of strength; they are invited by the perception of weakness. And the surest way to avoid attacks on our own people is to engage the enemy where he lives and plans. We are fighting that enemy in Iraq and Afghanistan today so that we do not meet him again on our own streets, in our own cities."

Unfortunately, this presidential affirmation of U.S. policy geared towards fighting the terrorists and their state-sponsors on others' soil rather than our own is at risk of being undermined by recent actions the President has allowed to be taken in his name.

Preeminent among these was the decision announced last week that Secretary of State Colin Powell had been authorized by Mr. Bush to seek a UN Security Council mandate for post-war Iraq. At best, the effect was to signal the President's recognition that his U.S.-led liberation had failed and could only be legitimated, and salvaged, if those who had opposed it (in particular, the French, Germans, Russians, Syrians, Chinese and Secretary General Kofi Annan) were placated with American concessions leading to new military and/or political arrangements. At worst, the signal was the United States was preparing, once again, to bail out on a difficult and costly international mission.

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Matters were made worse by the coincidence of this apparent volte face with several others. For example, Secretary Powell pointed last week to the fact that talks about North Korea's nuclear weapons programs had taken place in the context of the six-party "framework" as evidence the United States was successfully containing the danger that Pyongyang will soon be able to wield and export the ultimate weapons of mass destruction. This claim rang all the more hollow for it being accompanied with reports that the Administration had decided to revert to the Clinton policy of giving Kim Jong-Il financial and other rewards before the North demonstrably abandoned its nuclear ambitions.

There was also the decision to back away from a resolution that would have put the other imminent nuclear threat - that posed by Islamofascist Iran - before the UN Security Council for urgent action. Similarly, with the exception of periodic warnings from Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld about Syrian contributions to instability in Iraq, the Bush Administration seems to have decided to give Damascus a pass.

Then there is Saudi Arabia. As Senator Jon Kyl (Republican of Arizona) will demonstrate in yet another congressional hearing on Wednesday, the kingdom continues to contribute vast sums and cannon fodder to the terrorist organizations we are fighting in Afghanistan, Iraq and many other places. Yet, the Administration's party line remains that Riyadh is "cooperating" fully with Washington and a reliable partner in the War on Terror.

In much the same see-no-evil vein, Secretary Powell actually declared last week that "U.S. relations with China are the best they have been since President Nixon first visit" in 1972. This despite evidence that the Communist Chinese remain very much the "strategic competitors" the Bush Administration confronted on taking office, thanks to, among other things, their continuing nuclear build-up, proliferation, threats to Taiwan, life-support for North Korea, trade-devastating currency manipulations and strategic mischief-making in our own hemisphere and elsewhere.

How can one square the seeming disconnect between the firm and robust things Mr. Bush says and what his Administration is actually doing on so many fronts - a disconnect unlikely to go unnoticed by our enemies?

A possible - and deeply worrying - explanation is that the President is heeding the counsel reportedly advanced of late by his political handlers. Published accounts say that the most influential of these, White House advisor Karl Rove, has warned that there must be "no more wars" for the remainder of Mr. Bush's term. Grover Norquist, who Mr. Rove allows to portray himself as a close ally, has opined publicly that "[Wars] are expensive and a drain politically. They are not political winners." According to Mr. Norquist, it follows that, if Mr. Bush persists in engaging in them, he could doom himself to being a one-term president.

Further evidence that the Administration is now following what might be called the "No More War in '04" strategy was obtained last week when an unnamed senior official told a reporter that the North Koreans could "breath easy because we aren't going to do anything to them for fourteen months."

As President Bush noted last Sunday, however, the alternative to our being on offense against our terrorist enemies and those who shelter, arm or otherwise support them is to be on defense. Just because we find war to be inconvenient or a "drain politically" does not mean we can avoid fighting them. It simply means we will likely wind up having to wage them, in the President's words, "again on our own streets, in our own cities."

If Mr. Bush wishes to be taken seriously - by either our foes or the American electorate - he would be well-advised to make clear that there is no daylight between his rhetoric and his policies concerning the War on Terror. After all, at stake is not only his presidency, but the national security.

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JWR contributor Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. heads the Center for Security Policy. Send your comments to him by clicking here.

Up

09/03/03: The Air Force's new lease on life
08/26/03: Don't go wobbly, George
08/12/03: Divided loyalties
08/05/03: The dot-connector
07/31/03: Wishful thinking about Islamist terror
07/22/03: Horatius Pipes
07/15/03: Making Saddam's day
06/17/03: UNDESIRABLE INFLUENCE
05/29/03: 'ROAD TRAP' FOR AMERICA, TOO
05/20/03: Saudi terror watch 05/13/03: 'Transformation, part deux'
04/29/03: Shooting the messenger
04/22/03: ISLAMIST POWER PLAY
04/15/03: Who's next?
04/08/03: Winning the peace
04/01/03: 'EMBED' FREE IRAQIS, NOW!
03/05/03: A friend in need
02/25/03: The plot thickens
02/18/03: Who's 'with' President Bush?
02/11/03: Islamists' White House gatekeeper
02/04/03: The Powell report
01/28/03: Bush's finest hour
01/14/03: North Korean scorecard
01/07/03: Nuclear meltdown
12/17/02: Serious about defending America
12/03/02: Defining 'regime change'
11/26/02: With friends like the Saudis...
11/19/02: The Jayna Davis files
11/12/02: Could Israel die of thirst?
11/04/02: Against us
10/22/02: Too clever by half?
10/17/02: 'Drain the swamps'
10/08/02: The temptations of George Bush
10/01/02: Return of the San Francisco Dems
09/24/02: The next crusader?
09/17/02: It is no accident that advocates of coercive inspections have opposed prez's goal of regime change
09/10/02: A model for Iraq
08/27/02: Beware 'consensus leadership'
08/20/02: To Iraq or not to Iraq?
08/13/02: Trading with the 'enemy'
07/30/02: Who's trashing Ashcroft?
07/23/02: Wall Street's 'poisoned apples'
07/16/02: Back on the China front
07/09/02: See no evil?
07/02/02: Rethinking peacekeeping
06/25/02: Political moment of truth on defense
06/19/02: Inviting losses on two fronts
06/12/02: Make missile defense happen
06/04/02: The next 'Day of Infamy'?
05/29/02: Bush's Russian gamble
05/21/02: The 'next war'
05/15/02: Ex-presidential misconduct
05/07/02: When 'what if' is no game
05/02/02: Careful what we wish for
04/24/02: The real 'root cause' of terror
04/02/02: First principles in the Mideast
03/26/02: 'Renounce this map'
03/20/02: The inconvenient ally
03/12/02: Adults address the 'unthinkable'
03/05/02: The Saudi scam
02/26/02: Rumsfeld's 'now hear this'
02/19/02: Where's the outrage?
02/12/02: Post-mortem on 'Pearl Harbor II'
02/05/02: Spinning on the 'Evil Axis'
01/29/02: A challenge for the history books
01/22/02: Who pulled the plug on the Chinese 'bugs'?
01/15/02: No 'need to know'
01/08/02: Sentenced to de-nuclearize?
12/18/01: Missile defense mismanagement?
12/11/01: Is the Cold War 'over'?
12/04/01: A moment for truth
11/29/01: Send in the marines -- with the planes they need
11/27/01: 'Now Hear This': Does the President Mean What He Says?
11/20/01: Mideast 'vision thing'
11/13/01: The leitmotif of the next three days
11/06/01: Bush's Reykjavik Moment
10/30/01: Say it ain't true, 'W.
10/23/01: Getting history, and the future, right
10/16/01: Farewell to arms control
10/05/01: A time to choose
09/25/01: Don't drink the 'lemonade'
09/11/01: Sudan envoy an exercise in futility?
09/05/01: Strategy of a thousand cuts
08/28/01: Rummy's back
08/21/01: Prepare for 'two wars'
08/14/01: Why does the Bush Administration make a moral equivalence between terrorist attacks and Israel's restrained defensive responses?
08/07/01: A New bipartisanship in security policy?
07/31/01: Don't go there
07/17/01: The 'end of the beginning'
07/10/01: Testing President Bush
07/03/01: Market transparency works
06/27/01: Which Bush will it be on missile defense?
06/19/01: Don't politicize military matters
06/05/01: It's called leadership
06/05/01: With friends like these ...
05/31/01: Which way on missile defense?
05/23/01: Pearl Harbor, all over again
05/15/01: A tale of two Horatios
05/08/01: The real debate about missile defense
04/24/01: Sell aegis ships to Taiwan
04/17/01: The 'hi-tech for China' bill
04/10/01: Deal on China's hostages -- then what?
04/03/01: Defense fire sale redux
03/28/01: The defense we need
03/21/01: Critical mass
03/13/01: The Bush doctrine
03/08/01: Self-Deterred from Defending America
02/27/01: Truth and consequences for Saddam
02/21/01: Defense fire sale
02/13/01: Dubya's Marshall Plan
02/05/01: Doing the right thing on an 'Arab-Arab dispute'
01/30/01: The missile defense decision
01/23/01: The Osprey as Phoenix
01/17/01: Clinton's Parting Shot at Religious Freedom
01/09/01: Wake-up call on space
01/02/01: Secretary Rumsfeld
12/27/00: Redefining our Ukraine policy
12/19/00: Deploy missile defense now
12/12/00: Sabotaging space power
12/05/00: Preempting Bush
11/28/00: What Clinton hath wrought
11/21/00: HE'S BAAAACK
11/14/00: The world won't wait

© 2001, Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.