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Why them? Why now? Not Such a Bright IdeaBy Rick Horowitz It's been a while,
but I remember it this way... In the town of Chelm, the story goes, a visitor chanced once night upon a man with downcast eyes, pacing back and forth beneath a street lamp. "What seems to be the problem, friend?" the visitor inquired. "I am looking for my wallet," the other man replied. "And you lost it right here?" the visitor asked. The other man shook his head. "Not at all," he replied, and pointed off into the murky distance. "I lost it over there." "Then tell me, friend, why do you not seek your wallet where you lost it?" "Because,"
the man replied, "the light is better over here." I'm not much for foreign policy by parable, but this one is too perfect to ignore. Every day seems to bring us 24 hours closer to making war on Iraq, not because Iraq is our biggest problem right now -- our biggest problem right now may still be hiding in some cave in Afghanistan -- but because the light is better in Iraq. We'll fight the Iraqis because we can find the Iraqis. Nobody's putting it quite that way, of course -- nobody official, at least -- but that's the simplest way to read it. Do you find this approach to superpower strategizing even vaguely comforting? I wish I did. I also wish I were more easily amused. If I were more easily amused, maybe I'd be grinning at the administration's frantic efforts to turn Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden into co-conspirators, into soul mates. And if I were grinning, maybe I wouldn't be half as nervous about the various horribles the newest bin Laden tape suggests are in store for us. And if I weren't half as nervous, maybe I wouldn't mind that we're focusing most of our attention, and most of our finite resources, on something other than those horribles and the man who may be sending them our way any time now. So much for wishing. So much for my wishing, anyway. The president and his advisers are still doing plenty of wishing -- most immediately, that we'll buy their claim that bin Laden's latest rant proves how cozy he and Saddam are, how al-Qaeda and Iraq are joined at the ammo clip. Yes, the voice on the tape calls on Muslims everywhere to rise up and defend the Iraqi people should the United States launch an attack. But that's been bin Laden's goal for years: to turn any conflict in that part of the globe into a holy war between Muslims and the infidels. And the administration's goal? The president and his advisers (enablers?) want to characterize any conflict in that part of the globe as a war against terrorism. They're only too happy to link bin Laden with the chief of Baghdad. The way it looks from here, though, the logical ladder is pretty wobbly: * We say we want to get rid of Saddam because he's tied to terrorists and he's a threat to the United States. * For months now, our intelligence analysts have been skeptical of Saddam's ties to terrorists. They've also said that Saddam is unlikely to pose a direct threat to us unless we threaten his grip on power. * But our analysts have also predicted that an American attack on Iraq will increase the chance of al-Qaeda attacks on us. * And as we get closer to war with Iraq, al-Qaeda's leader threatens to do just what our analysts predicted. And since he also wants to turn war into holy war, bin Laden speaks in support of the Iraqi people. * So then the administration uses bin Laden's support of the Iraqi people to further justify what it's been planning to do all along -- attack Iraq. Self-fulfilling prophecy? Self-deluding prophecy? We'll just have to see. But at least the light will be better. Posted 2/13/03. Rick
turns up the lumens on newsmakers twice every week -- tell your friends!
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Rick Horowitz
