Editorial After victory
Baumann, Paul
After victory H owever dubious George W. Bush's decision to go to war, the swift mil-itary victory of the United States and Britain over Saddam Hussein's forces in Iraq is a good thing. A short war...
...So far, Bush has done little to inform or educate the American people about the costs and the complications of establishing a major U.S...
...Of equal concern to critics was how "preventive" war, conducted in the absence of any imminent threat, would undermine the international system and the prospects for world stability and order...
...intervention depends on the nature and length of the U.S...
...And this is a president who boasts that Saddam's defeat has shown that he means what he says...
...Widespread looting and reports of revenge killings give some idea of the forces the war has unleashed...
...The task ahead in Iraq is enormous...
...Fewer still thought the war would last long or pose any insuperable problems to the U.S...
...troops out of Iraq as soon as democratic institutions can be established...
...rule and provide the transition to Iraqi democracy...
...Any larger role for the UN is being resisted by the administration...
...interests will trump all others...
...The United States has dramatically reduced aid to Afghanistan while allowing most of the country to fall back into the hands of competing warlords...
...It is in George W. Bush's own interests, of course, that the reconstruction and democratization of Iraq go well and as swiftly as possible...
...military supremacy as the basis for creating a global Pax Americana...
...actions...
...A short war has meant fewer military ca-sualties on both sides as well as fewer civilian deaths...
...military...
...security and interests were threatened by the mere fact of Saddam's regime, will Bush soon be warning of the threat posed by the Baathists in Damascus or the radical Islamists in Tehran...
...April 15,2003...
...Few of Saddam's fellow Arabs are sorry to see him go...
...The United States would be foolish if it failed to take advantage of the UN's expertise or rejected the legitimacy UN participation will bring...
...In this regard, however, the administration's postwar record in Afghanistan is not encouraging...
...Saddam's removal also promises to bring a measure of greater stability to the immediate region...
...At what point the UN should begin to play an important role in Iraq's reconstruction is a legitimate point of political dispute...
...action worried about were the consequences of an American victory and subsequent occupation of an Arab country...
...The defeat of Saddam and destruction of the Baath Party is certain to improve the lives of Iraqis, a people who have lived under a vicious police state for thirty years...
...He has also agreed to consult with a representative of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan about the makeup of the "interim authority" that will replace U.S...
...Few critics of the Bush administration's decision to wage war against Iraq defended the legitimacy of Hussein's regime...
...Having insisted that U.S...
...Saddam spent much of the last two decades waging war against his neighbors while trying to build an arsenal that would make him master of the entire Middle East...
...posture toward Afghanistan goes largely unremarked...
...Such a step is obviously necessary if food, water, and medical care are to be provided to the Iraqi people...
...The presence of two hundred fifty thousand American soldiers in Iraq, and the skeptical scrutiny of the rest of the world, should make it harder for Bush to avoid accountability there...
...As Jean Bethke Elshtain notes (page 11), just-war concerns must continue to guide U.S...
...presence in the Middle East...
...Can the United States govern an Arab nation of 24 million people, one riven by fierce ethnic and religious antagonisms and having a long history of political violence, without being seen as an imperial oppressor...
...Is the Bush administration, as some of its more ideological spokesmen suggest, rewriting the rules of international conduct so that U.S...
...Bush has said that he wants U.S...
...Iran is, after all, part of the "axis of evil...
...military administration will soon be put in place...
...What opponents of unilateral U.S...
...While the world has been distracted by the run-up to the war in Iraq, the U.S...
...At the urging of British Prime Minister Tony Blair, he has agreed to give the UN "a vital role" in providing at least humanitarian assistance...
...At this point, how the Arab world reacts to U.S...
...occupation and whether a stable Iraqi democracy emerges...
...At the moment, it appears that a U.S...
...Will the victory in Iraq encourage or deter those who want "to use U.S...
...Answers to these questions will become clearer as the administration's plans for a postwar Iraq become known...
...More worrisome, if the threat of terrorism was the reason the United States went to war with Iraq, then the logic of the administration's doctrine of preemption can easily be extended to Syria, Iran, and elsewhere...
...See Andrew Bacevich, page 10...
Vol. 130 • April 2003 • No. 8
