John Kerry may have had French support, but it's now becoming clear that a few international leaders recognized a big stake in George W. Bush's success. Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi went so far as to tell an Italian TV station that his decision to give up his nuclear program helped Mr. Bush win re-election. "America was very worried that Libya might get a mass destruction weapon, so they were very happy about our decision," he said. "It was Mr. Bush who promised to reward Libya if we got rid of this program. The withdrawal of this program was pro-Mr. Bush." There's a "global test" at work here, all right, but not the one Mr. Kerry spoke of during the campaign. Rather, Gadhafi applied his own version of the test: Is he better off standing with or against the American president in a post-Sept. 11 world? With Mr. Bush then planning to insert a major chunk of U.S. military power into the heart of the Mideast, the answer became obvious. Gadhafi quickly handed over his nuclear components and ratted out A.Q. Khan, father of the Pakistani bomb, as a nexus of proliferation. Gadhafi isn't alone. Pakistani President Musharraf was caught between Al Qaeda and the U.S., and wisely chose the U.S. -- which is why several major Al Qaeda leaders are in custody, including Khalid Sheik Mohammed, planner of the 9/11 attacks. Meanwhile, terrorist attacks in Saudi Arabia, Indonesia and elsewhere upped the pressure on reluctant leaders to join the war on terror, significantly advancing the U.S. cause. This may come as a surprise to liberal American politicians, but the president is succeeding in reorienting the world by forcing "frontline" states to abandon a tolerant or worse policy toward Islamic terrorists and get right with the U.S.
--Brendan Miniter
More on the War
In Iraq, the most notable upshot of the weekend bombings was a call for restraint from across Iraq's Shiite leadership, from Grand Ayatollah Sistani to the punk cleric Al Sadr, all of whose eyes are now firmly fixed on the prize of next month's elections. This has produced some confused griping that the coming of majority rule in Iraq (a good thing) means the coming of Shiite rule (a bad thing: see the Friday Washington Post column by David Ignatius entitled "How Iran Is Winning the War").
Mr. Ignatius should calm down, or at least attempt coherence. Of course Iran has been keen to make sure Shiite leaders come out on top in Iraq's democratic power scramble, rather than seeing the creation of a Saddam redux. But so what? There's no need or interest on the part of Iraq's incipient Shiite leadership to become Iranian puppets. Au contraire: Iraq has the region's second biggest oil reserves, the strategic geography and the powerful middle class. Remarkably convenient, it also enjoys the advantages of a military alliance with the world's superpower, with enough U.S. muscle stationed in Iraq itself to do serious damage to any neighbor. No, a Shiite condominium over the entire region controlled from Tehran is not in the cards. A far more realistic worry is that Tehran will play footsie with Iraq's Sunni insurgency as a way to keep the new government off balance and gain bargaining leverage with Baghdad and Washington while discouraging the export of any pesky democratic notions to Iran. That would be completely in character with how the cretinous, antisocial Iranian "revolutionary" regime has conducted itself for the past 25 years.
--Holman W. Jenkins Jr.
No comments:
Post a Comment