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Osama, Saddam and DubyaSep 16 '02 Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line Saddam has to go. But the price can not be the democratic process.
Cynics contend Bush got elected President on September 11th. The rally-round-the-flag effect did wonders to the guy's approval ratings. Couple that with the observation that the terrorist act is a tectonic shift on the geo-political stage, something fundamental happened, and the dust will not settle for years, if not decades. Such are staples political legacies are made out of. An Osama joke making the rounds online has him warning the Russians to keep off or he will hide from them also. The Al Qaeda's advantages are of asymmetry. The virus long mutated, and the U.S. is armed with antibiotics for the older disease. The terrorist outfit is not a state, its cells do not necessarily lead you to its central leadership even if you manage to nab them, and it might be fundamentalist in its ideology but is into cutting-edge technology. The zeal to go after Saddam hence is more than a desire to punish states that might not comply with U.N. resolutions - Israel has a sorry record - or a fear that Osama and Saddam might gang up. Is the doctor looking for a disease to go with the anti-biotic at hand when an other-way-round arrangement does not look possible? I could not deliver Osama, so let me try and get Saddam for you? Or the fear that the Democrats might end up controlling both the House and the Senate, possibly bringing an end to the Bush presidency two years prematurely for all practical purposes? The timing of the saber-rattling on Iraq is suspect. Even if Saddam is to go - and I do think he should, as the other undemocratic regimes in the region in countries like Saudi Arabia and Egypt - and even if that might require a pre-emptive military offensive, the U.S. as a country, one among many, has to respect the same U.N. it accuses Iraq of disrespecting. The offensive has to be underwritten by a U.N. resolution, a move that necessarily has to be preceded by a full debate on Capitol Hill, and approval. Saddam is a dictator, and that is the primary reason he has to go, but his opponents, by definition, have to be guardians of the democratic process, in word and deed.  |
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