We doubters
Dionne, E. J. Jr.
E.J. DIONNE Jr. WE DOUSBTERS How to form a consensus on Iraq I have a terrible foreboding that when we look back on our debate over the impending war with Iraq, we will be disappointed in...
...My own doubts are rooted in the Bush administration's failure to prepare our country for the long commitment that will be required if this war is to achieve the results its supporters promise...
...I find it astonishing that Bush and his lieutenants are not willing to offer a sober calculation of the long-term costs of this war, factor those costs into the nation's budget, and ask Americans to pay the price...
...But doubters do not share the confidence of so many of the war's supporters that victory will revolutionize the politics of the Middle East...
...The danger is that he will fail to build the consensus, at home and abroad, to turn an American military victory into a genuine triumph for our national security, and for democracy...
...Those of us who are doubters but not full-fledged opponents constitute, by a fair reading of the polls, about one-third of our fellow citizens...
...Like many Americans, I do not feel fully comfortable in either of the big camps lined up against each other over this war...
...But the leaders of Germany and France are only following European public opinion...
...We still don't know how the administration intends to handle the aftermath of what one hopes would be an American military victory...
...We are unlikely to want to do the job of rebuilding Iraq all by ourselves, or with the British alone...
...This is why it matters that we have allies, including, eventually, those obstreperous French and Germans...
...Yet like so many of my fellow doubters, I find it hard to be a wholehearted supporter of the antiwar movement...
...For all my misgivings about President Bush, I find it absurd to call him a greater threat than Saddam, as some in the antiwar movement do...
...It's hard to escape the feeling that those who always wanted to "finish" the last Gulf War by getting rid of Saddam are using the events of September 11 as a rationale for doing what they wanted to do on September 10...
...Even if you think that Jacques Chirac and Gerhard Schroder are being opportunistic, you wonder how much the Bush administration created the opportunity they are exploiting by conditioning public opinion against us...
...But that is an achievement Bush now threatens to undercut by being indifferent or dismissive toward those who lack his own certainty...
...By being a man of few doubts, Bush pushed a reluctant world into dealing with the dangers posed by Saddam...
...WE DOUSBTERS How to form a consensus on Iraq I have a terrible foreboding that when we look back on our debate over the impending war with Iraq, we will be disappointed in ourselves...
...he doubters...
...Some in its ranks harbor reflexive anti-Israel sentiments that I find repellant, even though I am no supporter of Ariel Sharon...
...And it is not as obvious to me as it is to the war's supporters that this battle is the clear next step in our response to 9/11...
...God bless the Czechs and the Poles, the Portuguese, the Spanish, the Estonians, and other Europeans standing with us...
...Instead, they would shuck off the costs to the next generation...
...We doubters cannot identify with those who see American power as a force for evil in the world, and we believe President George W. Bush was right to increase pressure on Saddam Hussein to disarm...
...Some of my doubts are, purely and simply, doubts about this administration...
...It's easy to trash the French and the Germans...
...More than he knows, he needs the doubters...
...Would we be in this fix- would millions of demonstrators have poured into European streets-if the administration had not been so publicly indifferent to European views on issues ranging from global warming to the International Criminal Court...
...But it is unrealistic to think that these nations will be in a position to offer serious help, financial or military, in the postwar work of transforming Iraq...
...We worry about the unintended consequences of military action and can't quite shake the hope that the very military buildup Bush has carried out creates opportunities to disarm and perhaps even unseat Saddam through means short of war...
...Their failure to count the costs can only make you wonder about how committed they are to what will be an arduous struggle to pacify and democratize Iraq...
...We may end up starting a war without any real argument over what it will take to win the peace...
...Many of us agree with British Prime Minister Tony Blair's recent statement that, given the nature of the Iraqi regime, "ridding the world of Saddam would be an act of humanity...
Vol. 130 • February 2003 • No. 4
