By Dan Calabrese ——Bio and Archives--September 5, 2013
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Now let me be clear — I suffer no illusions about Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal man. A ruthless man. A man who butchers his own people to secure his own power. He has repeatedly defied UN resolutions, thwarted UN inspection teams, developed chemical and biological weapons, and coveted nuclear capacity. He's a bad guy. The world, and the Iraqi people, would be better off without him. But I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States or to his neighbors, that the Iraqi economy is in shambles, that the Iraqi military a fraction of its former strength, and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history. I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a U.S. occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Qaida. I am not opposed to all wars. I'm opposed to dumb wars.
We may not be directly imminently threatened by what's taking place in a Kosovo, or Syria, or Rwanda in the short-term. But our long-term national security will be impacted in a profound way and our humanity is impacted in a profound way. And so I think it's important for us to get out of the habit in those circumstances again I'm not talking about circumstances where our national security's been directly impacted, we've been attacked, the president has to act quickly. It's important to get out of the habit of saying well we'll let the president stretch the boundaries of his authority as far as we can, Congress will sit on the sidelines, snipe, if it works the sniping will be a little less, if it doesn't a little more, but either way the American people and their representatives are not fully invested in what are tough choices. And we as a country and the world are going to have to start taking tough choices. I do get frustrated, although I understand how complex this is, and any time you're involving military action people may ask, this may do more harm than good. I understand those arguments. I wrestle with them every day.So let me see if I have this straight. The direct-threat question was vital in Iraq, but in Syria it's all about our "long-term national security" and "our humanity." OK. Got it. The best argument Obama's defenders can make is that he is not planning a full-scale invasion - "no boots on the ground," eh? - and thus we're not looking at a long-term commitment of lives, money and resources. But the rejoinder to that is even more powerful: If we're attacking just to attack, and it's not going to change the situation in any meaningful way, how are we protecting our long-term national security or preserving our humanity by doing it? We can't just "contain" Assad until he "falls away into the dustbin of history like all dictators?" Guess not. But honestly, that entire last paragraph gives Obama far too much credit for seriousness in this whole discussion. Anyone can look at these two quotes and see what they really demonstrate. When Obama was an Illinois state senator with huge political ambitions, it was easy and profitable for him to demand proof of a direct threat in a speech in which he continually taunted, "You want to pick a fight, President Bush?" Now that he's president and he's feeling pressure to back up his own "red line" pronouncements (even as he tries his best to pawn such pronouncements off on others), any justification will do and it really doesn't matter whether there's a direct threat. Obama's disingenuousness aside, I'd be open to supporting military action if anyone could make the case that it would impact the situation to the betterment of our strategic interests. But no one is even trying to do that. They just keep insisting "we must act" because we must. Bush made the case for how deposing Saddam Hussein would serve our interests. How will attacking Syria do that? Even a not-very-convincing case would be better than what Obama has offered so far, which is no answer at all to that question, but a complete reversal to what he used to say about the need for direct threats when it served his political interests to do so.
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Dan Calabrese’s column is distributed by HermanCain.com, which can be found at HermanCain
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