President Bush, in his address to Congress after 9/11, made the most important policy declaration since the Monroe Doctrine: friend to our friend is our friend, friend to our enemy is our enemy. Given the velocity of events in the modern world, it cannot be otherwise.
Picture a world in which we had not taken action. It would, on one level, be a more peaceful world, and President Bush would have an easier shot at reelection. But the same people who complain that our national deficit will burden the next generation should apply that logic to the Iraq situation. If America had done nothing, Iraq would still be to trying to shoot down U.S. planes conducting fly-over inspections pursuant to post-Gulf War agreement. We would then have to decide between permitting American planes to be shot down (with their pilots, if alive, subject to Hussein-style justice) or discontinuing the flights.
In that scenario, choosing the former would be criminal, but backing down would constitute a major humiliation, and our timidity would be interpreted by the Arab world as license.
If we had not taken action against Iraq, does anyone this side of a lunatic asylum doubt that Saddam Hussein – who had already used WMD and come dangerously close to possessing nuclear weapons – would have amassed an arsenal of frightful proportions?
Americans should understand that self-flagellation only emboldens a deranged individual. They should also take note of Lincoln’s observation: “The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate for the stormy present.”