Editorial
Steinfels, Margaret O'Brien
Ends & means George Bush has performed superbly at the tactical level in dealing with the current Middle East crisis, both in organizing the U.S. military deployment and in encouraging a unified...
...What remains to be addressed is the remote cause of this crisis: the industrial world's deadly addiction to fossil fuels, all too aptly symbolized by the president's racing about in his speedboat...
...but to use the crisis for opportunistic overreaching is wrong...
...But he did not say that achievement of these ends would satisfy the U.S...
...We are acting, he said, to defend "our way of life" (meaning an unimpeded flow of petroleum...
...Even as he worked to preserve the world from war, he was toying, on a small scale, with the planet's future...
...How did we arrive in this situation...
...None of these statements served to define our policy goals or put limits on the military means to achieve them...
...For weeks, the president's answers were at best imprecise...
...Others argue that our national interest justifies using this opportunity to break the power of the oil cartel...
...objective...
...In our view, such goals are unattainable and the suggested means are flatly immoral...
...the UN acted properly in requiring Iraqi adherence to international law...
...We are protecting "our world" from "fundamental evil" (that would mandate a massive, even total response...
...That left the field open, and the experts rushed in-many of them contending that the U.S...
...According to Senator Daniel P. Moynihan, the president also said that the manner in which the current crisis is resolved will shape world order for decades to come...
...That is already an achievement...
...Time favors Saddam Hussein, we are told, because the embargo cannot be long sustained...
...We are responding to an assault on "the very essence of international order" (as in Panama...
...The U.S...
...in any case, merely forcing Iraq out of Kuwait will not prevent future aggression by its leader...
...was justified in acting to deter a possible Iraqi invasion of Saudi Arabia...
...military deployment and in encouraging a unified world response...
...Whether or not he realized it from the outset, he has helped to create a historic precedent that may foster growing trust in the concept of enforceable world law...
...they are willing to trade some hundreds of gallons of American and Iraqi blood for billions of barrels of cheap oil-this because OPEC's pricing practices violate the spirit of free enterprise...
...must move swiftly, massively, "surgically" to rearrange the map of the Middle East and preordain its future...
...But what's it all about...
...What is our goal...
...Therefore the United States must insure the removal of Saddam Hussein and the destruction of Iraq's capacity for chemical and nuclear warfare...
...May they be solar-powered.red...
...And, as of August 28, when he spoke with Congressional leaders, George Bush appears to agree: Absent further provocation, he and his aides indicated, the ouster of Saddam Hussein is not a U.S...
...The president did endorse the goals of Security Council resolutions-release of all hostages, Iraq out of Kuwait, restoration of the legal government...
...May a thousand points of light dawn upon him...
Vol. 117 • September 1990 • No. 15
