There were just as many cynical realists in George Bush Sr.'s foreign policy
team. In the debate leading up to the first Gulf War, Secretary of State
James Baker justified attacking oil-rich Saddam Hussein for the sake of
"jobs, jobs, jobs." And when our coalition partner, the even oil-richer
House of Saud, objected to removing the murderous Hussein regime after its
retreat from Kuwait, we complied - to the point of watching Saddam butcher
thousands of Kurds and Shiites.
Bill Clinton also often weighs in with ideas on the Middle East. But during
his two terms he passed up an offer from Sudan to hand over bin Laden.
Shortly afterwards, the terrorist openly threatened us: "To kill the
Americans and their allies - civilians and military - is an individual duty
for every Muslim."
The Clinton administration also didn't do much about eight years of serial
terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, American servicemen in Saudi
Arabia, the East African embassies or the USS Cole. The $50 billion U.N.
Oil-for-Food scandal did not reflect well on Clinton's multilateral model of
dealing with Saddam Hussein.
The point of reviewing prior American naivete and cynicism is not to excuse
the real mistakes in stabilizing Iraq. Instead, these past blunders remind
us that we have had few good choices in dealing with the terrorism,
theocracy and authoritarian madness of an oil-rich Middle East. And we have
had none after the murder of 3,000 Americans on September 11.
After four years of effort in Iraq, Americans may well tire of that cost and
bring Gen. Petraeus and the troops home. We can then go back to the
shorter-term remedies of the past. Well and good.
But at least remember what that past policy was: Democratic appeasement of
terrorists, interrupted by cynical Republican business with
terrorist-sponsoring regimes.
Then came September 11, and we determined to get tougher than the Democrats
by taking out the savage Taliban and Saddam Hussein - and more principled
than the Republicans by staying on after our victories to foster something
better.
The jihadists are now fighting a desperate war against the new stick of
American military power and carrot of American-inspired political reform.
They want us, in defeat, to go back to turning a blind eye to both terrorism
and corrupt dictatorships.
That's the only way they got power in the first place and now desperately
count on keeping it.