One of the oddities of the news for the past some-odd weeks has been the growing analysis, polling, and punditry on a US war on Iraq.
The US, traditionally, has been reactive in war, or else has acted out of the blue. While the first war on Iraq in ’91 was deliberated and debated beforehand, it still sprang from that nation’s invasion of Kuwait and endangering of other nations in the region. The comic opera assaults on Grenada and Panama took place without warning. The war on Afghanistan was considered by many to be a foregone conclusion, deriving from an attack on the US. Korea was a reaction to an attack, as was WWII. Viet Nam was a creeping, incremental morass, a slow, undebated escalation over a period of years.
You have to go back to pre-Pearl Harbor WWII (if not all the way back to WWI) to find a full public debate, without the apparent confines of time or immediate threat, about whether the US should go to war.
Steven Den Beste has a brilliant series of essays on his site regarding the prospects of war on Iraq. I won’t quote from them, and I won’t comment, but they should be required reading for anyone discussing the issue, whether they agree with such a prospective war or not.
I always find it interesting when I hear people comment on President Bush disregarding the international community. The president, like all of the men and women in uniform, take an oath to protect the United States, not the international community. His job is to look out for us, the US, not the frail sensitivities of the european well-to-do’s. I enjoyed Stevens essay tremendously.
Unilateralism has a cost, and protecting US interests may be served by working and playing well with others. On the other hand, not everyone’s interests are the same as our own, and it’s not at all clear that the Europeans (to the extent that they can be lumped together into a single voice) are acting solely out of some greater moral and intellectual foundation, as opposed to simply looking after their own interests in these (and other) matters.
And that really the rub, isn’t it? I choose the EU as a convenient example of the US/Bush bashers. The problem, as you eloquenlty put it, is the motive behind the rhetoric. Is it because of a greater sense of good or is it for their own gain?
Well, I am certain if you ask them …