Ambivalence

Steve Duin, a columnist for the Oregonian, has written a column that I think comes closest to correctly describing the attitude of the muddled middle as far as Iraq is concerned. I think it would be useful for both sides in this debate (pro and anti) to read what he has to say and consider how their comments are playing in Peoria.

Can we stick by our guns without drawing them? 02/13/03 As the United States moves inexorably toward another dead-of-night invasion, the president's certainty and our ambivalence about war with Iraq are equally disconcerting. The use of the first-person pronoun is purposeful. Most of us share a resolute skepticism about where to go from here. While a majority of Americans are tempted to give President Bush and Colin Powell the benefit of the doubt, we don't share their passion for war. As we listen to the most zealous arguments, nothing is more convincing than the suspicion that both the peaceniks and the radio-booth patriots have another agenda up their sleeve. We aren't uninvolved in the debate, just unpersuaded. We hate bullies like Saddam Hussein, but we're not sure he can't be corralled and contained like Libya's Moammar Gadhafi. We despise the French cowards and apologists, but we're not invading France. We know the Iraqis need a fresh start, but we can't ignore the scent of oil in the neighborhood. We are sick and tired of trembling before a cowering psychopath in an Afghan cave. But while we believe Sept. 11 justifies the Bush administration's shift toward pre-emption, we think this week's propitious link between Iraq and al-Qaida means 9/11 has become a cynical part of the administration's PR campaign. Most of us, I think, are comfortable with the United States' unofficial designation as "world cop," whether we're walking the beat in Bosnia, Somalia or Iraq. We live in a global community and only the United States recognizes the moral imperative for community policing. But it's hard not to be unnerved by this country's long-running good-cop-bad-cop routine in the Middle East. In 1972, Henry Kissinger, then national security adviser to President Nixon, was the bad cop. When Kissinger met with the Shah of Iran and agreed their interests were served by destabilizing the Ba'athist regime, both sides encouraged Kurdish rebels to step up hostilities in Iraq. The United States didn't want the rebellion to succeed, just distract the regime that would eventually spawn Saddam. And we forgot to tell the Kurds we would abandon them when it struck our fancy . . . which it did in 1975. After the Shah and Saddam made peace, the United States withdrew military support and Saddam had a green light to take his revenge on the Kurds. When he grew bored with the tools of conventional torture, he blanketed the rebels with chemical weapons and mustard gas. If we're seeking the moral high ground in Iraq, in other words, we're voyaging into uncharted territory. This may explain why the Iraqis share our ambivalence about their imminent "liberation." Offered the opportunity for this police action in 1991, the first President Bush said, "We've done the heavy lifting. We will not intervene." At a time when most Americans are more concerned about the sanctity of our borders, Bush's son is dead set on intervention on the far side of the globe. As unnerved as we are by that prospect, are we sure he's wrong? That's the troubled state of our ambivalence: Even as we lean toward one conclusion, we hear the siren's song of the opposing argument. Saddam is a monster who has gassed his own people and dodged the honest scrutiny necessary to determine if he's prepared to nuke ours. Only the United States is equipped to stare him down. Our resolve should mean something, even if the United Nations' doesn't. North Korea, after all, may be watching. Do we trust our president to examine all alternatives short of war? Can we eliminate Saddam without eviscerating Iraq? Is it possible for the world's one and lonely cop to stick by its guns without drawing them? The best columns, they say, are sparked by great conviction, sustained by a passionate argument and close with a final twist of the knife. This one may fail on all three counts because the essential war requires so much more.

I am ambivalent about war with Iraq, so I agree with most of what Duin has to say in this column. But I am not ambivalent about Bush's honesty. He has none. Therefore I come down reluctantly on the side of no war...now.