Issues raised by Richard Clarke
Obviously there are a lot of issues in this controversy that will take time to sort out. Bush's critics keep saying the Administration has been hesitant to make anything like a full story available. Even now they are digging out a limited number of documents to make Clarke look bad.
I'll repeat, like Kevin Drum, that the period before 9/11 is far less interesting than the period after. But still:
1. How did the approach to international terrorism change in the transition from Clinton to Bush? Less money or other resources, or more? Higher profile at decision-making tables and briefings, or less? More work on different possible responses to different crises--or some kind of master plan that took 8 months to prepare?
2. Has there been a focussed, intelligent attack on international terrorism, even to this day? Did the war in Iraq somehow detract from such an effort?
3. What are the indications that the war on Iraq is actually helping, not hurting, in the larger war (a possibility Clarke does not seem to allow for)?
One of the most interesting things Clarke has said is that the Bushies were focussed on "Cold War issues," including missile defence and, yes, Iraq. I think in the latter case we should speak of "immediate post-Cold War issues," but the point is clear: let's take up where the last Republican administration left off, constantly implying Clinton screwed everything up.
Bush ran as a proud isolationist in 2000, and he took a lot of vacation time in his first eight months in office. But the neo-cons clearly had their opportunities to get to him: there is no longer a Communist threat, but there is another threat that is just as bad: radical Islam/terrorism. They probably presented the Mylroie material about Saddam being involved in everything bad that happened outside Iraq; and Chalabi material comparing Saddam to Hitler and Stalin inside. In conclusion, they would have suggested that regime change in Iraq would have positive ripple effects throughout the region.
In other words, I am guessing this was going on, perhaps with no great sense of urgency, before 9/11. I really don't think it was ever primarily about oil, or helping a few of Cheney's friends. (On the other hand, Bremer stands out even compared to his predecessor for wanting maximum involvement in Iraq by multinational oil companies; and Cheney's friends include both Haliburton and Chalabi).
I also don't think it was primarily some sort of flanking action to help Israel. Someone has written that Israel was actually much more concerned about Iran than Iraq. I think for a while Bush was truly focussed on the "road map," but it hasn't had much attention from him recently.
The people around Bush Senior probably tended to feel badly about the way Gulf War I turned out. They loved the idea of "making that right" (without, of course, admitting that they had ever done anything wrong). Bush Jr. could both continue and improve upon his father's legacy--surely the dream of many an older son.
But then the big question: how did this become the predominant plan, occupying far more resources than any other theatre of action, after 9/11?
It still made sense to them, I would suggest, to see the world as it was just after the Cold War. One can reason with big, powerful Moslem states, no matter how bizarre the regimes in place seem: Saudi Arabia, Egypt, even Pakistan. The much bigger problem is the "rogue states." But these are basically the rogue states of 10 years earlier. The Axis of Evil included North Korea--we are still waiting to find out exactly what kind of nuclear program they have. We are hearing more about Libya and Syria, even though they weren't officially in the "Axis." They are autocratic regimes, democratizing would seem to be good for them, and progress on this front will support the idea that invading Iraq made sense.
But: when was the last time anyone was frightened by Syria or Libya? Iran is not what it once was--it seems Pakistan was selling them nuclear technology, but in such small and outdated increments that they still have no actual weapons--and Iraq, as we know, was virtually defenceless. Some of these countries used to have air forces, and modern tanks. Now they're sliding into the true Third World, with the poorer African countries.
Meanwhile Bush has hardly said boo about Pakistan itself, Egypt, or Saudi Arabia. Everything is supposed to be copacetic with Russia, where the KGB has a tight hold. Turkey is our trusted NATO ally, period. Maybe Bush's critics are wrong in their specific predictions. Maybe he isn't generating recruits for the terrorists, or causing Al Qaeda to grow. It still doesn't follow that he knows what he's doing.
(Powell has apparently been leading the new diplomacy-based "Democracy" initiative, including a trip to Saudi Arabia to negotiate freedom for prisoners. Christopher Hitchens writes about Kurdish uprisings in Syria, clearly inspired by the autonomy of Kurds in Iraq, and bizarrely says Powell, "as usual," was in the wrong place at the wrong time.)
It all reminds me of the old saying that generals fight the last war. Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney and Powell all remember Gulf War I very vividly. Maybe they started Gulf War II because they really couldn't imagine what the new war is going to look like.
Glenn Reynolds (and others) always asks: what plan do Bush's critics have? This is a fair question. I would go farther. It is probably true that the people (like Kerry) who now say: "great to be tough and deploy troops, but you didn't do it right, or in the right place"-- would not actually have favoured any big deployment of troops, or "tough" action, anywhere. It is only after Bush shows tough action is in their future that they say: OK, but do it differently.
In other words, there is some truth in saying the pro-Bushies are in favour of taking action against "terror," even if Iraq is only tangentially involved; the anti-Bushies are against action, or say they honestly don't know what to do.
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