Thomas Friedman, who has final thoughts on everything except his own contradictions over the years, reproaches Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld on the grounds that they have not advocated measures consistent with an exhaustive national effort. If we are so lathered up about the Muslim menace, why have we countenanced a tax cut? Why do we let Americans burn gas, ad lib? Why aren't we supplying the reformers in Afghanistan, and the new government in Iraq, with the kind of fighting power required to maintain the borders and guarantee stability within them?
There are very good arguments for sending more troops to Iraq and for reducing our reliance on imported oil, but these arguments have not persuaded either the commander in chief or his advisers, who believe that what needs to be accomplished can be done without gas rationing and a military draft.
What does have to happen is a softening of ideological positions. If the great fissures in the Middle East reduce to replays of old antagonisms between the Shiites and the Sunnis, we can make our modest demands, to the effect that Jesus, Moses and Muhammad should co-exist without nuclear weapons in their portfolios. But we must also make clear that the point will one day be reached when others than the United States will need to be responsible for enforcing co-existence.
The challenge is to accomplish this with continued reliance on what amounts to a constabulary in Afghanistan and Iraq, because we have no appetite for great armies there, and want to believe we have no need for them.
A note to readers: In Mr. Buckley's column for Sept. 1, misguided fact-checking efforts led to a real congressman's being wrongly named, whereas Mr. Buckley had intended to use a fictional name. Apologies to his readers, and especially to Rep. Bill Jenkins, R-Tenn., who is not running for re-election and does not do telephone solicitations.
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