Stop Dean
EDITORIAL Stop Dean Al Gore's endorsement of Howard Dean was anything but polite. A more diplomatic politician would have praised Dean's major rivals for the Democratic presidential...
...We believe that in fact Bush will not stand by and let China fire missiles at or near Taiwan this spring...
...The Bush administration should then make it clear, publicly, that it has no objection to the Taiwanese people's exercising their democratic right to hold a referendum on such a question...
...A stop-Dean movement may appear quixotic, but it's not...
...Chen's critics in the Bush National Security Council claim that Chen is playing politics with the issue in his reelection campaign...
...Why not remind everyone that Dean would have left Saddam Hussein in power, with his mass graves, torture chambers, $25,000 stipends for families of Palestinian suicide bombers, ties to al Qaeda, and all...
...That is the silver lining in this otherwise dark cloud...
...But his rivals have confronted him effectively on neither...
...This is an event to be feared...
...Dean's foes have let him get away with insinuating that Bush may have been told about the 9/11 attacks beforehand by the Saudis...
...Here, as so often, prudence and honor offer the same counsel...
...We need to remake the Democratic party...
...The Chinese premier professed himself delighted by the administration's condemnation of Taiwan and opposition to a referendum, reminded everyone that China still reserves the right to use military force against Taiwan in the event of any "provocations," and traveled back to China gloating about the American president's gift to Beijing...
...He is hoping, and with good reason, that the Taiwanese people will vote overwhelmingly to demand that China remove these missiles and commit to a peaceful resolution of the cross-straits issue...
...But they've been scared into silence by Dean's tough talk and momentum...
...Moriarty then proceeded to tell reporters "on background" that what the president really meant was that he opposed Taiwan's plans to hold a referendum this coming March...
...Fred Barnes Stand by Taiwan It was a sad spectacle: Sitting next to Chinese premier Wen Jiabao, visiting emissary from the world's largest dictatorship, President Bush last week performed a kowtow that would have made Bill Clinton blush...
...And all this will play out as the war on terrorism, and the outcome in Iraq, hang in the balance...
...strength and leadership if they see China succeeding in pushing the United States around because Beijing doesn't like a democratic referendum nearby...
...For that is the great risk that Moriarty's policy has created...
...Only when interviewed after the debate did Kerry attack Dean's tax hike proposal, declaring taxes the chief difference between himself and Dean...
...And now, unbelievably, so do some senior officials in the Bush administration...
...The party has shifted...
...The facts in the Taiwan case are straightforward enough...
...So China wants to squelch democratic expression in Taiwan as much as possible...
...In his inaugural address in May 2000, President Chen declared that as long as China "has no intention to use military force against Taiwan, I pledge that during my term in office, I will not declare independence, I will not change the national title, I will not push for the inclusion of the so-called 'state-to-state' description in the Constitution, and I will not promote a referendum to change the status quo in regards to the question of independence or unification...
...Again, not a word from his rivals...
...Many Democrats are terrified that a nominee who vehemently opposes the war, likens the Bush administration to the Taliban, and plans to raise taxes on the middle class can't be elected...
...But President Chen has made it abundantly clear that he has no intention of taking such steps...
...Our nation in its 200-year history has never made a worse foreign policy mistake," Gore said...
...In both cases, the point is that the two presidents expect to be rewarded politically for faithfully expressing the majority view in their countries...
...Only one" candidate for the 2004 nomination, said Gore, had stepped forward as he had and come out early, loudly, and extravagantly against President Bush's decision to invade Iraq...
...Dean has no lock on Iowa, and a lead even as large as Dean's in New Hampshire is always precarious...
...Can Dean be stopped...
...Chinese leaders, both military and "civilian," have repeatedly, and quite recently, warned that China is willing to use force if necessary to make Taiwan surrender its sovereignty and accept Beijing's rule...
...Kerry, Lieberman, Gephardt, and the others let it pass...
...Robert Kagan and William Kristol...
...And last week, after Koppel questioned Dean about it in the New Hampshire debate, Dean's opponents said nothing...
...For themselves and their party, and because others haven't the moxie to step forward, it's time for the Clintons to take on Dean...
...No one was watching...
...On December 6 on Fox News Sunday, Dean was asked about the theory...
...It therefore does not run afoul of President Bush's admonition...
...Dean would undo Clinton's previous shift of the party to the center...
...After all, the president simply repeated old American warnings against Taiwan's changing the "status quo" regarding its sovereignty...
...Because it will harm the Democratic party and lead to a general election campaign brimming with bitter assaults on the very idea of an assertive, morality-based American role in the world...
...President Chen is abiding by that pledge...
...Does it increase confidence in U.S...
...Lieberman and Gephardt, both backers of the war, have been no more aggressive in criticizing Dean on Iraq...
...Chances are, Gore's endorsement didn't sway many voters...
...A more diplomatic politician would have praised Dean's major rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination—Dick Gephardt, Joe Lieberman, John Kerry, John Edwards, Wesley Clark—as esteemed colleagues and said they were all capable of being president (including one selected by Gore himself as his 2000 running mate...
...Last week's misstep on Taiwan is dangerous...
...Instead the former vice president dismissed the whole bunch as "great candidates...
...But the present policy risks encouraging such a miscalculation by Beijing, and thus makes a crisis more likely...
...And in neither case does the fact that the policy is politically popular make it illegitimate...
...The antiwar, Bush-loathing, culturally liberal left now has the upper hand...
...So there is a way out of this mess...
...For one thing, Beijing's dictators don't like expressions of democracy, either in territories they control, like Hong Kong, or in countries they want to control, like Taiwan...
...But a plurality of Democratic voters in New Hampshire support the invasion of Iraq...
...But he lamely explained the reason he didn't raise his hand was his belief "in my vision for the country...
...Over the past few years, China has been building a vast arsenal of short-range ballistic missiles across the strait from Taiwan...
...It should at the same time make clear the American view that China has no right to undertake or threaten military action in response to the referendum, and the American commitment to respond appropriately if China engages in any such threats—that we would "do whatever it took" to defend the Taiwanese democracy, to quote the president from a couple of years ago...
...Gore would make the prowar position unacceptable for a Democrat in 2008, when he challenges Hillary for the presidential nomination...
...At present some 496 of these missiles are ready to be launched at a moment's notice against the Taiwanese people...
...Beijing also fears that the more the Taiwanese people have a chance to express their views freely, the more likely that someday they will express the view that they want to be truly and officially independent...
...At the Democratic debate in New Hampshire last week, Kerry was asked by ABC's Ted Koppel why Many Democrats are terrified he will be the nominee...
...Not so long ago, President Bush described China's heavily armed tyranny as a "strategic competitor" of the United States...
...Its dominance will likely culminate in Dean's nomination...
...Second, it deters the Chinese from believing they can get away with military intimidation this coming spring or in the future...
...We need to remake America...
...Gore's lurch to the left and Dean's likely nomination mean trouble...
...Fortunately, there is time to undo much of the damage...
...Sure, they're wary of provoking boos and hisses from the Democratic activists who attend debates...
...Despite its disagreeable kowtow last week, the Bush administration can still maintain—and needs to insist—that it has not changed longstanding American policy toward Taiwan...
...He said he didn't personally believe it, "but we don't know and it'd be nice to know" if it's true...
...But it did signify a pivotal moment for the Democratic party...
...This is the right course for two reasons: First, it honors rather than betrays President Bush's commitment to support democracy and democratic practices around the world...
...Kerry was free to insist, before the largest New Hampshire audience he'll ever have, that Bush would crucify Dean on the tax issue...
...The problem for Chen, however, is that the Chinese government has always hated the idea of a referendum in Taiwan—any referendum on any subject...
...Following a script dictated by Beijing, and translated into English by senior national security council official James Moriarty, the president condemned Taiwan's popularly elected president for certain unspecified "comments and actions" indicating a desire for Taiwan's independence...
...he hadn't raised his hand to show he thinks Dean could defeat Bush...
...It was too late...
...Now, in response to this alarming situation, Taiwan's President Chen is proposing to hold what he calls a "defensive referendum" in March on the question of Beijing's missiles...
...His proposed referendum has nothing to do with the issue of independence...
...And indeed, Chen does hope that his public position regarding China's missile threat will serve him well in the March elections—a bit the way President Bush hopes his position regarding the war on terrorism will help him next November...
...But they've been scared into silence by Dean's tough talk and momentum...
...And there was more...
...President Chen will officially announce that the subject of the March referendum will indeed be China's missiles and not independence...
...Dean raised this loony-left conspiracy theory during a radio interview on December 1 and called it "interesting...
...Two other Democrats are threatened by Dean and Gore: Bill and Hillary Clinton...
...Now the administration is soft as marshmallows, so eager to please that it endangers a democratic ally's fundamental security—and our own credibility and leadership in East Asia...
...Other nations in Asia—and around the world—are also watching...
...But Bush has never made such a statement, nor has any administration official in a public setting...
...Dean is vulnerable on at least two issues, taxes and the war...
...What an opening...
...The Pentagon, both under this and the previous administration, has reported that Beijing's ability to launch a successful attack on Taiwan is increasing rapidly, while Taiwan's ability to defend itself is decreasing—and the ability of the United States effectively to intervene may be decreasing as well...
...If China believes the United States opposes Taiwan's referendum, then Beijing's leaders may also believe that Bush will stand by and do nothing if they threaten or take military action...
...To avert such a crisis, the president needs to revert to his core principles and make clear that the United States supports the Taiwanese democracy...
...The worst offenders on this score are Dean's Democratic opponents...
...In his background interviews with the press, Moriarty told reporters that the administration opposes any referendum on any topic...
...Bill Clinton has warned Democrats against becoming "more liberal" and Hillary has backed the Iraq invasion...
Vol. 9 • December 2003 • No. 15
