December 07, 2002

davidwarrenonline.com:"The crunch"

"If the United States and allies cannot eliminate so obvious a malefactor as Saddam, the "war on terror" is over, and we lost.
The future of state-sponsored terrorism is secure, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction will accelerate, their use in blackmail becomes inevitable, the check on their actual use is relaxed, the annihilation of the people of Israel can be safely predicted, and the rest of us must learn to live our lives under the threat of smallpox, anthrax, nerve gas, Scuds, and radiation.

A strong indication that the White House will neither back down, nor has lost its way, came with the appointment this week of Elliott Abrams as the new White House "point man" for Near East and North Africa (read, Israel-Palestine). It broke with tradition: the man who gets that job normally comes from the State Department or the CIA. Mr. Abrams is extensively on record, rejecting the defunct "Oslo process" to which large sections of both departments are still committed. He is also among the "human rights activists" - a man who refuses to buy into the thesis, again rife among the bureaucrats at State and CIA, that Arabs are incapable of democratic self-government (and therefore if you want to replace one dictator, you must be ready to install another). He does not believe we are "stuck" with monsters like Saddam and Yasser Arafat through the indefinite future. He is "outside the box" of the old realpolitik consensus -- along with Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Wolfowitz, and Mr. Bush himself.

For those in Israel and America who welcomed President Bush's June 24th speech on Israel-Palestine policy, and then were appalled by State Department backsliding and international diplomatic machinations to obviate the speech, Mr. Abrams's appointment came as joyous news. To the New York Times and CNN, it came as an inscrutable mystery. But the meaning of the appointment is in fact very clear: The administration remains determined not to allow another sovereign Islamist terror state to be set up in the suburbs of Jerusalem; not even to win support in Europe and among the "moderate Arab governments".

David Warren is just awesome.
As with all his columns, do read the whole thing.
It will "brief" you in advance for all the pro- Saddam spin you'll be hearing today on TV about th 13,000 pages in Arabic of Iraq's alleged weapons report to the U.N..
Mr. Warren is basically warning us not to expect any "peace miracles" from the Usual Suspects and *to* expect President Bush to have another Shane-like moment in his dealings with Iraq, the U.N. and our more reluctant "allies," like Russia, France and China.
It's pee or get off the pot time, if you will! (LOL)
Saddam's gotten away with his tyranny of murder for 11 years, but his time has run out and furthermore, he knows it.
Turkey said this week that they would provide bases and flyover rights and even Saudi Arabia is whining, but still making the right co-operative noises...they can't avoid doing their part by blaming 9/11 on the "Jews and Zionists" forever (Well, they can, but it's going to be one of the last official acts of the House of Saud should that be their choice).
David Warren forecasts that we may not go to war with Iraq this week, but many of us don't think it will be long now..We bloggers have been tracking the movement of men and materiel to the Persian Gulf theatre all summer, President Bush doesn't make a habit of calling the U.N. "irrelevant" for nothing or having Congress vote him war powers if they weren't needed if there isn't going to be a war for a damn good reason.
And if America wasn't going to fight a war, would Wolf Blitzer be broadcasting "live" from the Middle East? I think not!
Hold on to your hats, though, people.
As David Warren says at the end of one key paragraph: "It could get very ugly."
(And that was about the U.N. Security Council!)
All I want for Christmas is a Saddam-free and WMD-free Iraq!