Now that we are at war with Iraq, the ruminations that follow may seem moot. Even so, they are worth pursuing. Intellectual honesty demands that we ask ourselves if the American right, in order to justify this war, has drifted from a position it has championed since the 1950s, when writers such as William F. Buckley, James Burnham and Russell Kirk laid the foundation of the conservative movement.
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(This article originally appeared in The Wanderer and is reprinted with permission. To subscribe call 651-224-5733.)
I have in mind the warnings the early conservative theorists offered about avoiding “Wilsonian” attempts to remake the world in the American image.
The early conservative leaders stressed that America should use its military forces only in pursuit of our enlightened national interests, not in futile attempts to play policeman to the world. They warned that we must respect the differences between national cultures, rather than assume a mandate to “make the world safe for democracy,” in the manner that Woodrow Wilson explained his understanding of the United States’ role in World War I.
Why then were rightwing writers supportive of the United States’ military efforts during the Cold War, in Korea, Vietnam, and Nicaragua? Because they judged Communist aggression as a threat to our national interests. They did not view these wars as an altruistic attempt to rescue subject peoples from Communist dictators — noble as that may be, in and of itself — but as an effort to thwart a Communist expansion that would one day threaten us: the “domino theory.” There were to be no vague humanitarian missions for the old conservatives. The American military would be called upon to make the supreme sacrifice only to defend the country, not to enforce United Nations mandates.
And what is it that makes me think that the American right may be abandoning this position? The words of the conservative commentators of today. Many of them appear to be justifying military action against Sadddam Hussein in Wilsonian terms. Consider Cal Thomas. He scolded demonstrators who opposed going to war with Iraq: “Do all of those demonstrating, including the Hollywood elitists, care nothing for the carnage visited on innocent women, children and men by Saddam Husssein? Where is their humanity? What is the difference between them and other morally obtuse people who pass by a crime victim lying in the street because they do not wish to be involved? As the most powerful nation on Earth, do we not have some responsibility to protect the lives of others?”
William Kristol has teamed with Lawrence Kaplan in a new book: The War Over Iraq. They make the same case as Thomas: “Saddam has imprisoned, tortured, gassed, shot and bombed thousands upon thousands of his own subjects. He has launched wars of aggression against neighbors and still seeks to dominate the Middle East. He has expended vast resources on the development of weapons of mass destruction.”
Kristol and Kaplan scold the national leaders who refuse to confront these facts: “The debate over war with Iraq has shown that too many opinion makers, elected officials and others who guide the fortunes of the world’s superpower have lost their capacity to identify evil and act against it. Even when it stares them in the face.”
Mona Charen sees things similarly: “Backwardness, despotism and a violence-prone religious elite have made the Arab world a cauldron of radicalism. But if the nation in the geographical and metaphorical heart of the Arab world were to be firmly planted on the road to freedom, prosperity and pluralism, it will represent a decisive rollback of the forces of darkness… Iraq will be a beacon for all Arabs.”
And what is wrong with this line of thinking from the old conservative point of view? The absence of any mention of America’s national interests. No one questions that Saddam is evil. The question is whether we have a responsibility to remove him from power because of that fact. If we do, we will be fighting wars forever, because there are a lot of tyrants around the world. And it would be the definition of Wilsonian internationalism.
So am I saying war with Iraq cannot be justified by the standards of the conservative movement of old? That conservative thinkers such as James Burnham would not be in favor of toppling Saddam? No. I am not sure what people like Burnham would say. But they would not back a war with Iraq merely because Saddam is a tyrant. How then would they argue for it?
There are several modern conservative commentators who make the case as the old conservatives would have made it. They argue that Saddam’s regime must be removed because it is in our national interest to do so. They may be wrong in their evaluation of the stakes, of course. That is another issue. The point just now is that they are not making their case solely on humanitarian grounds. Take television commentator Bill O’Reilly, for example. He argues that we cannot “allow a dictator who has weapons that would make Hitler salivate remain a threat to the world” because he is certain that if Saddam or Osama bin Laden had “the power to do so” they would use these weapons to “slaughter Americans.”
Syndicated columnist Paul Greenberg argues similarly: “America is no longer isolationist. We’re no longer going to sit around and wait for the sucker punch. We’re not going to be surprised by another Pearl Harbor or even another Sept. 11.” As does Tony Blankley: “The danger to the civilized world of weapons of mass destruction falling into terrorist hands is unconditional. Any nation that is an agency for such transfers is, objectively, a threat to the civilized world.”
William Rusher agrees: “The danger to the United States from Iraq is technically not ‘imminent.’ But if Bush waits until it is, the danger will have multiplied manyfold. As he said last week, the threat to America’s security is ‘grave and gathering,’ and he decided to act while it can still be forestalled.”
Is it irrelevant that Saddam is a thug and tyrant? No. There is nothing wrong with arguing, as has President Bush, that a regime that threatens American national interests is led by villainous men; nothing wrong with highlighting their evil behavior to galvanize support for our military efforts to topple them. But the national interests must be present first. This is what Bush meant when, on the opening night of the hostilities, he defined our war goal as guaranteeing that the United States would “not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime.”
Our young men and women in the military take an oath to defend the United States from its enemies; they take no oath to force the world to comply with the latest politically correct understanding of how it should be run. (I am not, by the way, arguing that Cal Thomas, Mona Charen, William Kristol and Lawrence Kaplan do not see things this way, only that their rhetoric sometimes ignores this aspect of going to war with Iraq.)
These will be interesting weeks, in many ways. But they should settle once and for all the question of whether Saddam is a threat to the United States. We will find out if he had weapons of mass destruction. For President Bush, the die is cast.
