December 07, 2002

Now I'm really worried... Steven

Now I'm really worried...

Steven Den Beste has been the most articulate and persuasive champion of the view that the Bush administration's plans for mounting a challenge to Iraq would materialize before the end of the year. Nevertheless, in view of this, he has now reached the conclusion that in fact there will be no real action on Iraq before February.

I've had my suspicions all along that, intermittent neo-Churchillian rhetoric notwithstanding, this administration may not really be serious about this war. As I've said before, Den Beste has been so successful at presenting the flawless engineer's-eye-view of the supposed strategy behind the apparent incoherence, so persuasive that Bush's bobbing, weaving and backtracking only look crazy to the superficial observer, that he always had me at least half-convinced. His essays are brilliant. They can put you under a kind of spell of clarity and logic. While you're reading one of them, it all makes sense. When you're not, the doubts return. I'm sure I'm not alone in having had this experience. Maybe the Bush administration needs some engineers on the foreign policy staff. They sure don't seem to be following the Den Beste plan.

Unless you are among those who believe that Iraq's weapons programs and other Saddam-generated mischief are none of our concern, or that the danger is no more than a self-serving chimera concocted by an oil-mad administration, there is real cause for worry here. Die-hard Bush partisans (Den Beste isn't one, by the way) tend to place all the blame for "obstruction" of US aims on the UN, UNMOVIC, Hans Blix, the EU, et al. There's something in this, no doubt, but a less infatuated observer could be forgiven for wondering whether the "obstruction" might not be a US aim as well.

Contrary to the view of most of my fellow Bay Areans, Bush isn't an idiot (though that doesn't mean that all of his policies are automatically devoid of idiocy.) He had to have known beforehand that delaying or obstructing US military action would be the only possible result of handing the matter over to the UN, and that the intention of most members of the UNSC in backing the resolution, and the goal of the inspections regimen, was to hinder rather than enable Anglo-American action. Cooperating with the "international community" in this matter (or even merely cultivating the semblance of cooperation, for the machiavels among us) has much to recommend it, to be sure; but only if it's being done for a reason. The UNSC's goal, to this fairly jaundiced eye, appears to be to leave the impression of doing something while leaving the status quo intact. The US's goal, I regret to say, eludes me.

It's rather clear at this point that they're stalling, using the UN and "homeland security" as cover. What's still not clear is the reason. Or if there even is a reason.

Some advice to those who are crossing out "December 8th" and replacing it with "February" in their "moment of truth" columns: you might want to think ahead and get to work on a "Springtime for Saddam" prediction, just in case it's needed when February rolls around. Michael Kelly, doubtless, already has his ready.

Posted by Dr. Frank at December 7, 2002 09:04 AM | TrackBack