Posted on 01/21/2005 12:05:22 AM PST by DoctorZIn
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Thursday, January 20, 2005 · Last updated 8:50 p.m. PT
Cheney puts Iran at top of trouble list
Vice President Dick Cheney addresses the crowd at the Texas/Wyoming Ball at the Washington Convention Center Thursday, Jan. 20, 2005, in Washington. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
WASHINGTON -- Vice President Dick Cheney, in an interview hours before he and President Bush were sworn in for a second term, said Iran now tops the list of the world's potential trouble spots.
Iran is pursuing "a fairly robust new nuclear program" and "is a noted sponsor of terror," he said in an interview Thursday with syndicated radio host Don Imus.
"You look around the world at potential trouble spots, Iran is right at the top of the list," the vice president said.
Another concern, Cheney said, is the possibility of Israel making an initial military move if it became convinced Iran had significant nuclear capability.
"Given the fact that Iran has a stated policy that their objective is the destruction of Israel, the Israelis might well decide to act first, and let the rest of the world worry about cleaning up the diplomatic mess afterwards," said Cheney, who appeared on the show with his wife, Lynne.
The Bush administration might seek U.N. sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program if necessary, Cheney said. The administration prefers to address the problem with diplomacy and doesn't want more war in the Middle East, he said.
On Monday, Bush reaffirmed his support for a diplomatic settlement of Iran's nuclear program but said, "I will never take any option off the table."
During her Senate confirmation hearings this week, Secretary of State-designate Condoleezza Rice named Iran as one of six "outposts of tyranny" that would require close U.S. attention.
Iran repeatedly has denied allegations of a secret nuclear weapons programs, saying its nuclear activities are for peaceful energy purposes.
In the Inauguration Day interview, Cheney also said he overestimated the pace of Iraq's recovery from the U.S.-led invasion.
Asked to name his mistakes in planning the war in Iraq, Cheney said he had not anticipated how long it would take the Iraqis to begin running their own country. Not until after Saddam was ousted did the United States realize the extent of the Iraqi leader's brutality in putting down revolt in 1991, Cheney said.
"I think the hundreds of thousands of people, literally, that were slaughtered during that period of time, including anybody who had the gumption to stand up and challenge him, made the situation tougher than I would have thought," he said. "I would chalk that up as a miscalculation, where I thought things would have recovered more quickly."
January 20, 2005, 8:14 a.m.
Democracy is the new name for peace.
Toward a foreign policy for democratic nations.
EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the version of a speech presented at the Venice Conference IV on November 19, 2004, as a working paper for Center-Right Parties of the North Atlantic Alliance. Under the leadership of Senator Ferdinando Adornato of Italy, and drawing upon many sources, a public "charter" or "manifesto" is to be issued in 2005.
This speech is published here as prepared.
World War IV began in a long string of terrorist attacks, whose real nature went unrecognized until on September 11, 2001, huge billows of black smoke curled above New York City, Washington, D.C., and a field near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.
This sudden outbreak of World War IV altered the strategic picture of the world.
Several almost entirely new questions were thrown into our faces. Among these were such questions as asymmetric warfare, preemptive warfare, rogue states, and humanitarian intervention.
The Historical Challenge
Before tackling these questions, it is necessary to recall the dynamic narrative in which these concepts fit. A clear grasp of this narrative should shape the foreign policy of the Center-Right parties of the North Atlantic. This vision was once promoted by the parties of the left, too, but the Left, alas, seems now to have lost its zeal for promoting freedom in the world.
In the year 1900, the number of democracies in the world could be numbered on one hand, all concentrated in the North Atlantic states. Over the next hundred years, two great anti-liberal currents swept through intellectual and political life.
The first turbulent current was Communism, which aimed to destroy freedom in the economic order. Communism also imposed the most rigid and draconian dictatorship on politics and culture that history has ever seen. Communists promised that socialism would be better for poor people than capitalism.
The second was Fascism, which also proposed that dictatorship is superior to democracy. "Democracy," the fascists said, is "all talk and no action," outmoded, weak, and indecisive. Fascists promised that dictatorship would be better for poor people, and predicted that dictatorship would sweep the whole world. The fascist challenge aimed to destroy freedom in the political order.
Both these political claimants, Communism and Fascism, were anti-liberal. They set out to eradicate individual liberty, free associations, and democratic institutions. They aimed to eradicate free communities of every type, and thus destroy the rich communitarian dimension of liberal societies.
The Liberal Spirit — Vindicated, Tested
Both the Fascist model and the Communist model disgraced themselves by becoming risible "losers" — by their dramatic economic failures — and by the terror they imposed upon their subjects. Fascism ended in war and ruin, while Communism reduced its peoples to the economic level of the "the fourth world." The enduring memories these plagues left behind are concentration camps and gulags.
Meanwhile, the nations that at great cost defended the liberal idea spent so much energy in battles to the death against the political threat of dictatorship and the economic threat of socialism, that they neglected the moral and cultural foundations of the free society.
Nonetheless, the main narrative line of the liberal spirit was vindicated — namely, that the truly energizing and creative power of history is liberty. Liberty is the brilliant golden thread of historical progress.
On the other hand, among free women and men a certain weariness and lassitude, not to mention spiritual barrenness and cultural relativism, slowly became visible. With victory over the foes of freedom in hand, many lost sight of the rigors of spirit that liberty demands.
For this reason, when World War III (the Cold War) ended successfully, people on all sides wanted a long rest. Most wanted, after so much suffering and deprivation, mainly to enjoy life. Instead, the terrorists of 9/11 jolted us awake to new dangers, and brutally reminded us that hundreds of millions of young men and women around the world still do not share in the blessings of liberty.
Thus, the tasks of liberty are still not completed. The blessings of liberty and the protections of individual dignity and human rights have not yet come to the one billion human beings of the religion of Islam. This gap in basic liberties has allowed the good name of Islam to be manipulated by a small but deadly network of Islamic terrorists with political ambitions, perhaps best described as "Islamofascists."
Liberty's Dynamism
Since leftists today rarely celebrate the dynamism of economic liberty, parties of the left are slow to become excited by the challenge of bringing liberty to other cultures. Their anti-capitalist tendencies are so powerful that they loathe the economic system of free societies. They tend to argue that peoples in other civilizations do not hunger for "our kind" of liberty, are not "ready" for it, cannot make it work.
By contrast, the first principle of the parties of the Center Right is the dynamic power of liberty — in culture, in politics, in economics. The parties of the Center Right aim to open the way to liberty in every culture and nation on the planet. They hold that liberty is written into the inner workings of three distinctively human activities — insight, judgment, and choice. All three are personal actions. All three are free.
In this way, liberty is written into the constitution of human nature, and the right to express this liberty is a natural right, valid for all human beings, in all times and places. There are no leaders who boast that their people are "unfree," by nature worthy of enslavement.
Insight, judgment, and choice, the three capacities that distinguish the human being from all other creatures on earth, are precisely the capacities that give rise to humor and laughter, wisdom, irony, tragedy, responsibility, glory, and in short all the qualities that enrich the human story with drama, color and honor. Where there are humans, there is liberty.
The impulse to extend the boundaries of "the three liberties" — liberty from tyranny and torture, liberty from poverty, and liberty of conscience, inquiry, and speech — is the mainspring of the foreign policy of Center-Right nations.
A Positive Agenda
A grasp of this background narrative — that liberty is the mainspring of history — is essential to a discussion of the Era of Terrorism. For in attacking terrorism, we must formulate an alternative — the state of the world we are trying to establish, a world in which free societies replace tyrannies. This end clarifies all the means, strategies, tactics, and actions deployed toward that end. The reason is that free societies tend to treat one another by way of persuasion, not force.
It is not true to say that "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter." A terrorist is a person who kills defenseless civilians deliberately and as a matter of policy, as an instrument for compelling compliance or even subjugation. The aim of terrorism is not at all freedom, but capitulation to the will of the terrorist.
To repeat and elaborate, the end toward which parties of the Center Right aim is a world of free societies, in which young men and women may enjoy dignity, freedom, prosperity, and opportunity to explore and fulfill their talents, so that they may live with satisfaction rather than resentment.
At any one stage in real-time history, such an end may be only partially realized. But it is the end toward which by nature all things human already tend. Liberty is a long school, and even the most advanced societies have not yet learned all that it entails.
It is this end that must be kept in mind at every stage of the following discussion. It is not enough to kill or imprison terrorists. One must also help them build free societies that will fulfill their talents and aspirations. The war on terror must be met with a positive agenda, not merely a defensive one.
Toward a Foreign Policy
As matters stand, much of the Islamic world is sorely tempted by profound feelings of resentment, because of the relative backwardness of Islamic societies, which a millennium ago were leading centers of civilization and law in the entire world. This feeling of inferiority, in conflict with older feelings of superiority, has generated powerful turmoil in the bosoms of many Muslims, especially the young. In addition, widespread longings among Muslim peoples for the same prosperity and liberties that other peoples of the world enjoy are powerfully contesting the murderous resentment of the violent. We have seen these revolts often recently — against the Taliban in Afghanistan, Saddam Hussein in Iraq, and in massive popular discontent within Iran and Sudan. Among Muslims today, the longing for liberty among the many is contesting with the lust for bloodshed among the few.
With this backdrop in mind, we turn now to four immediate perplexities.
ASYMMETRIC WARFARE 1. There is no doubt that Osama bin Laden (not alone) has raised a huge challenge for contemporary statecraft, viz., how to protect the peace of right order against a wholly new type of threat.2. The newness of the threat comes from two things: First, the rise of a new type of non-state international actor; second, the power and the danger of certain new technologies of destruction, such as "dirty" nuclear materials mixed with explosives, chemical weapons, and biological weapons. All these can be prepared in very small sizes which can be carried by only one man. All are capable of killing many thousands of civilian victims and wreaking massive destruction
3. Osama bin Laden has grasped the vulnerabilities of free and open societies today. Their technological networks are very complex, highly integrated, and easy to disrupt with precise acts of violence. Tall buildings like the skyscrapers of New York are manifestly vulnerable. The same is true of great suspension bridges, nuclear power plants, water reservoirs, communications hubs, even the virus-prone internet.
4. Bin Laden has demonstrated how relatively easy it is for a small, disciplined, highly trained cadre of warriors willing to die in the attempt to wreak horrific damage, and to terrorize entire nations (as in Spain recently).
5. The essence of asymmetric warfare today consists of three elements: (1) a non-state actor; (2) secretly or at least unofficially supported by rogue states (such as Iran) and/or weak states (which may have little control over vast sections of their own national territory); and (3) expertise in training terrorists in the clandestine disciplines and arts, and in the use of weapons of mass destruction that may be put on target by single persons choosing to (or at least willing to) die in the attempt. In addition, practitioners of asymmetric warfare make use of the internet for communications, and the relatively open travel systems of the West.
6. Since a terrorist group is not a state but a shadowy, unofficial network, deterrence as used in the Cold War is an ineffective counter-strategy.
7. Since a crime-and-detection defense is essentially passive, and concedes the first (and possibly horrific) strike to the foe, its weaknesses are manifest. For example, the United States treated the first bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993 as a crime problem, and that approach seemed to encourage, and certainly did not discourage, the second and fatal attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.
8. Finally, the threat of asymmetric warfare calls for new defensive strategies which require fresh thinking about at least one of the requirements for a just war and also about one traditional principle of international law. One of the traditional requirements for a just war is that the offensive assault against which defense is morally legitimate must be "imminent." But what does "imminent" mean when the attacking force is not launched through the mass mobilization of entire armies near a national border, but by a single clandestine attacker carrying a weapon of mass destruction (e.g., a dirty nuclear bomb, chemical or biological weapons, or even a high explosive placed in a crowded and vulnerable civilian environment)? When did the attack of September 11 become "imminent"? Perfect advance intelligence might have spotted the conspirators on their way to carrying out their deadly missions (if their pre-planned method had been detected in advance). Failing that, the evidence of "imminent threat" appeared for sure only when the second plane crashed into the World Trade Center, and other planes were known to have been hijacked simultaneously. In other words, too late.
9. For this reason, the imminence of offensive assault under conditions of asymmetric warfare in contemporary circumstances needs to be redefined, to meet conditions of contemporary reality. Both international law and just war theory need slight modifications, based on ancient precedents, to adjust their reasoning to account for new technological realities. The contemporary realities of "imminence" need to be reexamined.
FORWARD-LEANING DEFENSE 10. It is in this context that a new defensive strategy has been worked out, which might best be called "forward-leaning defense," although some have chosen the unfortunate name "preemptive warfare." The point of the new defense is, under certain conditions, to go seek the practitioners of asymmetric warfare — the terrorists — in the lands where they have established their support systems, not only their training camps, but also their diffused operational centers ( "safe houses") of command, communications, strategic and tactical planning, and intelligence. Forward-leaning defense is an active defense aimed at putting the terrorists on the defensive in their own lairs, rather than waiting for them to attack with offensive operations.
11. The conditions for this forward-leaning defense are these: (1) "probable cause" intelligence about the existence and location of the afore-named operational centers of terrorist networks; (2) legal authorization for the defensive attacks from legitimate national authorities (self-defense is the primary responsibility of the governments of nation states); (3) and, if attainable in due time, the cooperation of a coalition of willing states capable of making legitimate arguments for the justice of the cause.
12. It goes without saying that the other conditions of just war theory must be met by the actions of forward-leaning defense, especially the in bello conditions such as no intentional harm to innocent civilians, strictly minimal collateral harm, and the use of weapons that are proportionate to circumstances.
13. In the best of all circumstances, the approval of an international body would be ideally required, to prevent a new right for preemptive warfare to be generated, whereby rogue states using false pretences could make war on less powerful states whose goods they coveted. Today, the United Nations is not in an objective position to provide such counsel, however, for it is almost always possible for a group of nations in the U.N. to protect their own interests by blocking the needed consensus.
14. The situation might be different if there were a separate international organization of the like-minded, committed to the goals of democracy and human rights, and whose internal disagreements would not prevent consensus on matters of grave importance, such as the self-defense of member states from anti-democratic assaults.
ROGUE STATES 15. The most dangerous foes of free societies are certain rogue states that are determined to accrue power by violating international order (for instance, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights) at the expense of their own people and of other nations. Both Afghanistan under the Taliban, and Iraq under Saddam Hussein, are recent examples of such states. Afghanistan injured international order by harboring the training camps of Al Qaeda. Iraq used oil money to corrupt the UN system, to defeat the UN sanctions imposed upon its arms programs, and to hide the weapons programs of its secret services. Iran and North Korea are now the preeminent international threats. Sudan's genocidal attacks upon its own citizens in Darfur qualify it also for the list of rogue states. Until it changed its ways, Libya also qualified as an ominous and threatening menace to the world.
16. There is considerable evidence that Iran, in particular, is extremely active in training, aiding, financing, and in some cases even directing terrorist groups now active in the Islamic world — including Hamas, Hezbollah, Al Qaeda, and others. In the minds of some, the capital of Iran is also the headquarters of the "terrormasters," whose malignant influence is felt throughout the international terror network. While consensus on that point is growing only slowly, Iran's strenuous efforts to develop nuclear weapons, and to evade the inspections regime of the Atomic Energy Agency, have already become a cause for urgent alarm throughout the civilized world.
17. Rogue states are those nations that not only violate international norms in their treatment of their own population but also threaten the peace and security of other nations. It is the latter feature, the international threat, that commands the attention of the rest of the world. To some extent, when a rogue state abuses the human rights of its own citizens, it offends the norms of the whole human community, and may well draw the comment and criticism of many nations and international organizations. But the resources of the world community for correcting abuses within sovereign nations are very limited. International intervention, always reluctantly agreed to, is necessarily restricted to threats to the peace and security of other nations, and to such flagrant cases of internal abuse (genocide, for instance, including enforced famine) as can scarcely be overlooked by civilized peoples. Alas, however, even the worst cases of such abuse are likely to draw the corrective attention of other nations only if their own vital interests are threatened. The resources of nations, after all, are finite, and their range of action cannot be unlimited.
18. This principle of finitude has necessitated the distinction between global idealism and global realism. While free nations have an interest in the spread of democracy to all nations, they must limit their commitment of military and other expensive aid to those cases in which their own security or vital interests are inextricably involved. No nation is infinite, and common sense binds them to a certain modesty of reach.
19. Rogue states are different in their size, power, geography, capacity to disrupt the international community, and historical relationships to world order. For this reason also, the proper response to them by other nations must often be unique to each unique case. No one pattern fits all.
HUMANITARIAN INTERVENTION 20. Post-1991 events such as the genocides occurring in Rwanda and Kosovo, the famine in Somalia, the reign of terror in southern Sudan, and other international crises have taught those who feel compassion for the sufferings of their fellow human beings — and are responsive to the ancient question: "Am I my brother's keeper?" — of the need for new criteria for the intervention of other states for humanitarian reasons. In some cases, it is politically and morally too difficult merely to do nothing. In the face of extreme suffering on the part of large number of people, it seems positively wrong to do nothing.
21. Over the years, public debate has sorted out five succinct conditions under which humanitarian intervention by other nations is called for. [See, e.g., Tony Blair's speech to the Economic Club of Chicago in April 1999].
(1) Are we sure of our case? War is an imperfect instrument for righting humanitarian distress; but armed force is sometimes the only means of dealing with dictators.
(2) Have we exhausted all diplomatic options? We should always give peace every chance, up to the point at which the danger occasioned by delay exceeds the danger that arises from intervention.
(3) On the basis of a practical assessment of the situation, are there military operations we can sensibly and prudently undertake?
(4) Are we prepared for the long term? In the past, we talked too much about exit strategies. But having made a commitment, we cannot simply walk away once the fight is over; better to stay with moderate numbers of troops than return for repeat performances with large numbers.
(5) Do we have national interests involved? The mass expulsion of ethnic Albanians from Kosovo demanded the notice of the rest of the world. But the deciding difference was the danger of this activity in such a combustible part of Europe, with a history of provoking a larger war.22. These may not be the only conditions to be considered. Fresh thinking on the criteria for deciding when humanitarian intervention is legitimate and necessary and when not, is a matter of practical urgency.
THE INSTITUTIONS OF LIBERTY 23. The first exercise of liberty is personal and moral. It appears in personal acts performed with reflection, deliberation, and open-eyed choice. But its second exercise is public, through appropriate institutions of politics, economics, and culture, and this exercise of liberty is the primary responsibility assigned to political and social leaders. These political, economic, and cultural institutions extend the reach of liberty into every sphere of everyday life. Building up such institutions in any one of these spheres is very difficult; building them in all three at once is difficulty cubed. It should come as no surprise, then, that building a fully free society is a long-term affair. Yet it must be noted that some nations (Western Europe after 1945, East Asia after 1960) made stunning progress in less than a generation.
24. In our time any global order worthy to be called just must be characterized by institutions of liberty. Liberty and justice are mutually interdependent. No free society is worthy of the human race if it is not just. No society does justice to the human race if it is not free.
25. In our day, when we speak of a global order, we mean more than international law and the universal declaration of rights. Globalization these days points beyond the political order. For we also face new economic realities such as open and free global trade — the economic dimension of global order. This economic order has been created by at least five factors: an exponential increase in global trade; virtually instantaneous movements of global capital; instant worldwide communications; international labor mobility; and the rapid spread of entirely new technologies.
Thus, the new global order has a political dimension, insofar as the reach of democratic institutions and institutions of human rights keeps expanding (although slowly) around the world. It is also rapidly gaining an economic dimension, as is reflected in the much-misunderstood term "globalization." Finally, it is at last becoming clear, as well, that the new international order has a moral and even a religious dimension.
26. Europe alone among the continents is tending (at least among elites and in European bureaucracies) in an ever more secular direction. By contrast, in Africa, America, and Asia, we see a reawakening of religious reasoning and moral seriousness, in revulsion against secularism, relativism, and nihilism. Meanwhile, the 53 Islamic nations of the world retain a strong sense of religion, despite inroads by failed secular ideologies such as socialism, marxism, Arab nationalism, enforced secularism (such as in Turkey). But the Islamic nations are also being torn by an upheaval of modern jihadism, which borrows from 20th century secular movements such as fascism and Leninism its methods of terror, secrecy, organization by cells, and predilection for bloodlust. This odd jihadism also nurses passions based upon a myth of return to eleventh-century Shari'a law. The vast majority of Islamic peoples, however, seems to be appalled by the extremism of the jihadists (as we have seen in Afghanistan, Iran, Sudan, Pakistan, Iraq and elsewhere). Many want to be devout Muslims, but also enjoy the fruits of the progress in prosperity and human dignity during recent centuries.
Virtually everywhere, in any case, religion is a far more potent energy in world affairs today than most scholars of a generation ago had predicted or even imagined. And secularism is no longer an untarnished or wholly attractive ideal. In particular, secularism seems to have no way to reverse the tangible moral decline within otherwise advanced countries.
27. Friedrich Hayek argued shortly after World War II that if liberty is to prosper in the new age, it will be necessary for all who believe in liberty, whether believers or unbelievers, to end the patricidal feuding that followed the French Revolution of 1789. The proponents of liberty are not too many, but too few, and so they must learn to cooperate on behalf of the spread of liberty.
In most of the world, the love for liberty has two main sources. The first is rooted in human experience and human reason, the second in certain religions. On the one hand, it is not the case that freedom is understood everywhere in the same way. On the other hand, by a kind of via negativa, the wars, oppressions, holocausts, and cruelties of the 20th century have taught practically the entire world a revulsion against certain "crimes against humanity," and opposition to severe violations of human rights. These revulsions, in turn, have given new currency to moral and religious reasoning about the nature of human beings. They have raised questions about the ground of human rights, and the origin of human conscience.
Further, it has become clear that in order to appeal to all peoples and cultures, a merely secular articulation of these questions would be too narrow, non-inclusive, and unsatisfactory. It would leave unattended the religiousness of the great majority of people on the planet.
By the same measure, the intellectual and linguistic traditions of no one among the world's global religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism and a small number of others) would by itself be any more satisfactory than a merely secular idiom. In some ways, it might be less so. Nonetheless, we now need a way of thinking and speaking about religious and moral reasoning that is open both to believers of many different faiths and to unbelievers. Taking religion into account in a fair and open fashion is required by the necessities of building free societies open to all, and of living together in reasonable amity and mutual respect.
28. One way of developing such a language might be to reflect upon the requirements of human liberty itself. Even unbelievers may be willing to contemplate a source of human rights beyond the power of the state. One practical, institutional step in this direction has been the negative command that the state and its officials must not make laws respecting the domain of conscience and the free exercise of religion. At the same time, religious institutions and their leaders must not make political decisions in the domain of secular governance.
Another path toward the conception we are searching for is to recognize that the decision human beings make with respect to the duties their conscience recognizes in relation to their Creator — whether to accept or to reject a duty of gratitude to such a Creator — is prior in time and in seriousness to any other obligation, including any obligation of civil society. The relation between the individual and the Creator of all is prior to the relation of that individual to other human beings in civil society (and even in family life). That is why this duty, when it is recognized, is said to be inalienable. No other person, not even father or mother, or brother or sister, or spouse, can make this decision except the individual alone. And no institution of civil society may intrude upon it. The decision each individual takes toward the Creator (even if to reject any such duty) cannot be 'alienated' either by the state or any other association, not even the family.
29. In the large 'prison literature' of the 20th century, many survivors such as Sharansky and Mihailov have described the via negativa by which their experiences under the torments of interrogators and torturers led them, first, to resolve not to tell a lie; that is, to be faithful to the light within them that marked off what is true from what is false. At first, they thought of that light as part of themselves. Then, since every part of themselves was under assault by their torturers, and still they were determined to be faithful to the light, they began to think that light, after all, was not entirely under their own control, but seemed to come as it were from a source beyond themselves. In this way, they were led to recognize the obscure presence of God within themselves. Others, of course, under the same experience, did not go so far; in this realm, above all, freedom reigns. When they reached this point of fidelity to the light of truth, such prisoners as Sharansky and Mihailov (and a legion of others) experienced a great inner freedom and power — even a power greater than that of their adversaries. For they had what their interrogators wished to take from them, and could not. So long as they remained faithful to truth, they were inwardly free. They gained a great sense of the dignity that flows from freedom held in the light of the truth. Such old phrases as 'The truth shall make you free' reverberated in their hearts with new meaning. And so also the phrase: 'Give to Caesar that which is Caesar's, and to God that which is God's.' This maxim is the chief barrier against all totalitarianism. All things do not belong to the state. There are limits on the state. The rights and even the liberty of the individual come from fidelity to the truth — which for Jews and Christians (but perhaps not for secularists) is another name for God.
30. The rights of the individual cannot be alienated from him by any other individual or institution or earthly power. But such rights are only mere words — air through lips — unless they are protected by a democratic regime. On this point, Sakharov and Sharansky and many other moral heroes of the past century gave witness. It is in the nature of dictators to use individuals as means and to abuse their rights. It is also their nature to seek enemies, in order to keep their subjects in fear.
By contrast, democracies rooted in the rule of law and committed to honoring both individual rights and the consent of the governed tend toward peace. When the governed must give consent to war, they tend to count the costs, and agree only as a last resort. Thus, in our time, democracy has become the new word for peace. And it has also become the new word for personal dignity. For the institutions that constitute democracy rightly understood — the rule of law, the separation of powers, the protection of individual rights, limited government, and the like — provide the best ecology in which rights can actually be exercised, talents developed, and personal dignity respected.
Dictatorship or democracy? The freedom of all is unsafe so long as there are dictatorships, abusing their peoples.
31. That is why the nations of the North Atlantic have committed themselves to spreading knowledge of democratic principles in every culture of the world, and to giving assistance to democratic associations and individuals. For it is the belief of North Atlantic peoples, for reasons of both philosophy and faith, that the same natural rights they declare for themselves belong to all other human beings as well. After all, they have their origin in the Creator of all, and they belong to all who share in the same human nature.
After the fall of Nazism and the fall of Communism, after so many decades of bleak suffering, a natural weariness descended upon the peoples of the North Atlantic. They thought for a brief time that their hard work was done, and they could now rest in their own domestic prosperity and peace. Suddenly, the War declared on all of them on September 11, 2001, and May 11, 2004, ended their illusions.
In our time, the world must live either in freedom or in fear. And freedom for the individual cannot be secured, nor the rights of individuals kept safe, except in democracies designed for that purpose. The maxim bears repeating: Democracy is the new name for personal dignity. Democracy is the new name for peace.
— Michael Novak, former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Human Rights Commission and to the Bern Round of the Helsinki Talks, holds the George F. Jewett Chair in Religion and Public Policy at the American Enterprise Institute.
FREEDOM AND IDEALISM
[Victor Davis Hanson]
This is the first time that an American president has committed the United States to side with democratic reformers worldwide. The end of the cold war has allowed us such parameters, but the American people also should be aware of the hard and necessary decisions entailed in such idealism that go way beyond the easy rhetoric of calling for change in Cuba, Syria, or Iran-distancing ourselves from the Saudi Royal Family, pressuring the Mubarak dynasty to hold real elections, hoping that a Pakistan can liberalize without becoming a theocracy, and navigating with Putin in matters of the former Soviet republics, all the while pressuring nuclear China, swaggering with cash and confidence, to allow its citizens real liberty. I wholeheartedly endorse the president's historic stance, but also accept that we live in an Orwellian world, where, for example, the liberal-talking Europeans are reactionary-doing realists who trade with anyone who pays and appease anyone who has arms-confident in their culture's ability always to package that abject realpolitik in the highest utopian rhetoric. But nonetheless the president has formally declared that we at least will be on the right side of history and thus we have to let his critics sort of their own moral calculus.
Posted at 01:48 PM
Russia, Syria work
Israel stunned by Kremlin double-cross,
super-weapons deal
as Assad shops for missiles in Moscow
Posted: January 21, 2005
1:00 a.m. Eastern
Editor's note: Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin is an online, subscription intelligence news service from the creator of WorldNetDaily.com – a journalist who has been developing sources around the world for almost 30 years.
© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com
Israel is fearing a double-cross by Moscow on arms deals that could make Syria a more serious strategic missile threat to the Jewish state, reports Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is planning his first state visit to Russia next week and he goes with a long shopping list of cooperation agreements and arms deals. The visit comes at a time when Russia is embarking on a plan to expand its political influence and once again become a key player in Middle Eastern affairs, according to the report by Yoram East in the premium, weekly intelligence newsletter published by WND.
Topping the Syrian shopping list are upgrades of packages for existing equipment, including hundreds of artillery and ballistic missiles. Next is the purchase of at least 18 units of the SS-26 surface-to-surface missiles, also known as Iskander-E.
Israel's main concerns are not so much about the sale of modern weapon systems to replace aging equipment in the Syrian military, but rather about Israeli technology incorporated in these systems offered by the Russians to their military hardware clientele.
A source in Jerusalem told G2 Bulletin Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, observing with some suspicion Assad's plan to visit the Kremlin, became truly alarmed as intelligence reports accumulated showing Russia is not only interested in selling hardware to the Syrians, but that it was using as bait supposedly secretive growing technological and scientific ties with Israel.
One report reveals the Russians had offered similar proposals to the Iranians and by doing so were blatantly breaching one by one understandings and agreements achieved with Israel over the past five years. This distressing development has an immediate effect on Israel's military ties with India, the emerging giant whose military industry is linked both to Israel and Russia.
A number of joint Russian-Indian-Israeli projects are currently underway with more planned to come in the near future. They are all based on the understanding Israeli components, technology and know-how, will not be included in any weapons' agreements between Russia and the Arab world, especially with Syria.
An Israeli general told G2 Bulletin it's not just an issue of the Russians selling the Syrians super-weapons. Syria already has the largest surface-to-surface missile force in the Arab world. Israeli officials believe a line in the sand needs to be clearly delineated for both Israel's allies and adversaries because of the increased threat these weapons would pose.
According to Russian sources Syria's existing equipment is based on:
- 24 launch pads with up to 200 missiles of the type Luna-M -- a tactical missile with a range of 70 kilometers. This weapon system was used against a northern Israeli air base during the 1973 war.
- Tochka Tactical Missile system -- Israel claims Syria has 36 launch pads for this type with an arsenal of 200 missiles with a maximum range of 70 kilometers.
- P-300 Tactical System, commonly known as the Scud family, of various types with a total of 54 launch pads and with an arsenal of close to 500 missiles of various types some supplied by North Korea, China and Cuba.
While the Iskander-E can, according to the Russians, "hit a target with pin point accuracy," Israeli officials are not alarmed. Israeli military industry scientists are convinced they will be able to overcome advantages of any missiles desired by Assad.
As the Syrian president began to negotiate with the Russians before his visit to Moscow, it is not yet clear whether he will return home with a closed Iskander-E deal. Syrian, Russian and Israeli officials are still engaged in a verbal battle of mutual accusations, denials and clarifications, and President Vladimir Putin is still waiting to see how his tactics will affect his relations with Washington.
Is Rumsfeld on His Way out?
From DEBKA-Net-Weekly Jan. 7 Updated by DEBKAfile
January 20, 2005, 12:54 PM (GMT+02:00)
To subscribe to DEBKA-Net-Weekly click HERE .
How President George W. Bush fills the key post of secretary of defense will be one of the pivotal decisions defining the second term he inaugurates with pomp and pizzazz in Washington Thursday, January 20. Much as he may praise Donald Rumsfeld for his “excellent job”, the secretary is believed by DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s Washington sources to be on his way out. The timing of his resignation – certainly not before Iraq’s January 30 election - depends on a choice of successor, for which the White House has been holding discreet contacts for weeks. That choice in turn depends on the president defining his end-game for Iraq and laying it out in clear policy guidelines.
A Democrat might be appointed to the post, in the same bipartisan way in which Republican William Cohen served as President Bill Clinton’s defense secretary.
A changing of the guard at the Pentagon amid the ferocious guerrilla war in Iraq will give the Bush administration a chance to review key policy goals:
1. Does the United States mean to persist in fighting a winning war in Iraq- as Bush keeps on declaring?
2. Do Washington and US military chiefs appreciate that guerrilla and terrorist wars cannot be fought to a clear-cut, victorious finish, that US forces will never fully control Iraq and that American influence over its diverse ethnic and religious communities will always be limited?
4. Will the Bush administration act on the conviction gaining ground among US strategists and commanders in Iraq that Sunni non-participation in the election holds the danger of civil war flaring soon after the election and that this flare-up could quickly degenerate into a religious conflict between Shiite and Sunni Muslims? Washington might decide this is the moment to withdraw US troops before they are dragged into battle by one side or the other.
4. Will Rumsfeld’s successor prefer alternatively to shore up US military gains in Iraq or prepare American forces for a staged pullout?
The guidelines required by the next Pentagon chief will be needed not only for Iraq but for the allied global war on terror. Bush’s inability to clearly chart the way forward so far deterred Senator John McCain from putting his name forward, although this Vietnam War hero would have been regarded by the president as an ideal candidate for the job.
The directives expected from the White House will also depend on the new secretary’s own input on fast-moving events stemming from the success or failure of the Iraq election. The US-led coalition and Iraqi command will deploy 300,000 troops to police Iraq’s streets and polling stations. According to DEBKAfile’s intelligence sources, despite this presence, Iraqi guerrillas and al Qaeda fighters, massing in the area north of Fallujah and up to Mosul, are poised for a no-holds-barred offensive to disrupt voting and sabotage its outcome. Our sources add that Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi’s group and insurgent commanders have set up a joint headquarters at Hit on the Euphrates midway between the two cities and, moreover, the incoming traffic of men and weapons from Syria has swelled in the last week.
The elected government that emerges from the election is generally expected to be Shiite-dominated and ruled through remote control by the most influential Iraqi Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani. Beyond that, the prospects of a peaceable transition from the Allawi administration are hazy. Elected government in Baghdad may ask US-led coalition forces to stay on until stability is achieved. That prospect would be unpopular in America and alienate the people of Iraq given the constantly rising scale of terrorist violence and American and Iraqi casualties. The alternative hazard of civil war triggered by a Shiite-dominated regime in Baghdad would on the other hand condemn the Bush administration’s entire Iraq policy to failure.
Reza Pahlavi latest interview with BBC Radio!
http://www.rezapahlavi.org/index.htm
Bump!
January 21, 2005, 8:07 a.m.
The Hersh File
Sy gets it wrong, again.
Tony Blankley thinks that Sy Hersh probably committed espionage with his latest article in The New Yorker, in which he breathlessly speaks of secret commando teams and joint American-Israeli efforts to target Iranian nuclear facilities. My pal Roger Simon rather suspects that Hersh was simply used by the Bush administration to make the mullahs even more nervous than usual. Hersh himself seems to think of himself as a seer, a prophet of upcoming military actions by the United States against a collection of terror-supporting enemies, starting with Iran. This is clear enough from his title, "The Coming Wars."
I have usually ignored Hersh's articles and books over the years, because there were so many errors in them that I could never figure out what, if anything, was true. Better to ignore him altogether than get sucked into a morass of confusion. And of course, Hersh has long specialized in stories that are severely damaging to the American mission. He almost never seems to think we have real enemies, he invariably takes the side of anti-American critics, and it never seems to occur to him that there are people in the government who are desperately trying to do the right thing. Real life is full of paradox, indecision, and error, with rare moments of decisiveness and coherence. But Hersh's world is black and white, there are clear winners and losers, and policy is driven by a handful of willful men and women who know where they want to go and how they want to get there.
I think that’s plain crazy.
Still, "The Coming Wars" is ostensibly about Iran, so I thought it behooved me to take a look. But it was classic Hersh incoherence, almost from the beginning. Early on he says that he spoke to current and past defense and intelligence officials, but shortly thereafter he says, "The Defense Department and the White House did not respond to requests for comment on this story."
There was apparently no editor at The New Yorker who noticed that you can’t have it both ways. For if "the Defense Department" wouldn’t comment, then how could Hersh have spoken to current Defense officials? In fact, Hersh’s claim — “they wouldn’t talk to me” — is not true. Prior to publication, senior Defense Department officials told Hersh that he was dead wrong on several counts — something he might have mentioned, unpleasant though it is.
Internal inconsistency has always been one of Hersh’s trademarks, and "The Coming Wars" abounds with other examples. The most hilarious comes when his sources fess up that "the core problem is that Iran has successfully hidden the extent of its nuclear program, and its progress." I think that’s right, and it follows that we'd have to be very careful about planning any operation against the Iranian nuclear program. But Hersh doesn’t think in straight lines, because he somehow manages to claim, with a tone of utter confidence, that "(Hersh’s intelligence sources) believe that about three-quarters of the potential targets can be destroyed from the air, and a quarter are too close to population centers, or buried too deep, to be targeted." Once again, you really can't have it both ways: If the Iranians have hidden the program from us, we can't possibly know which ones can be hit from the air, because…we just don’t know. That’s what "successfully hidden" means.
I entirely agree with Roger that of course any rational administration would be going all-out to get all the information about the Iranian nuclear program. And I entirely agree with Tony Blankley that any journalist who reveals details of our quest for that information should be relegated to the lowest levels of Hell, whether the real thing or the legalistic equivalent. Guantanamo, maybe? No, no, only kidding, hoHo. But I don't think we need worry too much about Hersh's revealing the darkest secrets of American intelligence, because he doesn't have them. He can't even write a logically consistent paragraph.Anyway, if you actually indulge your masochistic strain and read the whole thing, you will discover that this isn't really an article about American foreign policy. It’s an overwritten and hyperventilated assault on Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, for, according to Hersh, crushing the CIA in the interagency battles over control of certain kinds of intelligence operations. The big quote (from "a former senior C.I.A. officer"): "For years, the agency bent over backward to integrate and coordinate with the Pentagon," the former officer said. "We just caved and caved and got what we deserved. It is a fact of life today that the Pentagon is a five-hundred-pound gorilla and the C.I.A. director is a chimpanzee."
Anyone familiar with Washington knows what that quote is all about. It's a classic "cover your a**" line, combined with a touch of "apres nous, la deluge." The guy is saying that things were manageable, but just barely, when he was there, but then he and his cohorts made the terrible mistake of cooperating with the Defense Department, and they got the shaft. So if anything goes wrong henceforth, the CIA is blameless; it's all Rumsfeld’s fault.
Like so much in the Hersh piece, this claim is ridiculous. If anything, Rumsfeld has been irresponsibly timorous in this, as in all other interagency battles. He famously refused to let DoD employees go work on the National Security Council Staff, thereby guaranteeing that the NSC would be manned by State Department and CIA professionals whose instincts would be different from those of Defense professionals. Rumsfeld meekly ceded total control over all investigations of WMDs in Iraq to the CIA. His intelligence czar, Stephen Cambone, has a hard-earned reputation as the CIA’s Pentagon poodle. Nobody thinks Cambone is a threat to CIA's influence. There is indeed a battle of sorts going on over how much latitude our military forces should have in wartime, and it’s a serious question, far removed from the sort of drivel Hersh presents. The actual discussion stems from several cases in which the Pentagon had to get approval from the CIA — and from State as well — before proceeding with intelligence operations, even though time was of the essence. In some of those cases, approval either did not come, or it came too late. Those who want our commanders to have greater autonomy are not — contrary to Hersh’s brief — trying to circumvent congressional oversight or well-defined legal parameters. They are, rather, requesting clearer definition and a more efficient system.
But the funniest of all of Hersh’s little gags is the suggestion that aggressive self-assertion by the Pentagon — which he perceives behind DoD and White House concerns about some aspects of the sweeping intelligence reform just passed by Congress — will somehow diminish "competitive intelligence." It is precisely the opposite. The misconceived "reform" provides for greater centralization, and thus much less competition among the elements of the intelligence community. For CIA officials, past or present, to whisper the opposite is simply one more example of the deceptive character of those officials.
And of S. Hersh, their unconvincing mouthpiece.
— Michael Ledeen, an NRO contributing editor, is most recently the author of The War Against the Terror Masters. He is resident scholar in the Freedom Chair at the American Enterprise Institute.
The Hersh File
Sy gets it wrong, again.
Michael Ledeen
NRO
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1325222/posts?page=29#29
Iranians cheer massively Mr. Bush's Inaugural speech
SMCCDI (Information Service)
Jan 21, 2005
Reports from across Iran are stating about the massive welcoming of President George W. Bush's inaugural speech and his promise of helping to bring down the last outposts of tyranny.
Millions of Iranians have been reported as having stayed home, on Thursday night which is their usual W.end and outgoing night, in order to see or hear the Presidential speech and the comments made by the Los Angeles based Iranian satellite TV and radio networks, such as, NITV or KRSI.
The speech and its package of hope have been, since late yesterday night and this morning, the main topics of most Iranians' conversations during their familial and friendly gatherings, in the collective taxis and buses, as well as, among groups of young Iranians who gather outside the cities on the Fridays.
Many were seen showing the " V " sign or their raised fists. Talks were focused on steps that need to be taken in order to use the first time ever favorable International condition.
Many Iranians, who were looking for the World's super power firm moral support and financial aid to credible secularist opposition groups, are now becoming sure that Mr. Bush's agenda is indeed to help them to gain Freedom, Secularity and Democracy. They do believe correctly that such way will avoid an unnecessary US invasion or military strike against Iranian facilities which will help the Mullahcracy to consolidate its illegitimate and unpopular power, while causing heavy financial damages and human causalities.
What had always been missing in order to create a wide scale Iranian democratic revolution, such as what happened in Georgia, was till now a firm and noticeable World pressure on the Islamic regime and a trustable Opposition Council with a correct agenda.
Various reports from underground groups are stating that Iranians will be increasing the Civil Disobedience Movement by making more strikes and demos in the days ahead.
Right On!
All right, it just keeps getting better and better! Again, if President Bush can deliver a State of the Union address just half as good as yesterday's historic speech - maybe by the end of next month, maybe sooner - reports will start coming in from Iran that cracks and rifts are developing and expanding in the "mullah-ocracy." Bush needs to specifically say that we stand strongly with the Iranian people. I think he will. He almost has to now.
And good for Dick Cheney. Iran's all publically saying how they'll smash American intervention into their country. Well, Cheney comes out and talks about the Israeli threat. Like, "even if we play dead, Iran, you still have the potent Israeli threat to deal with. The Israelis might not destroy you on their own, but they sure can make life difficult for you."
I must say that I've always been doubtful that the regime in Iran can be ousted by anything other than military action before they get "the bomb." Yet, the prospects for a "peaceful" transition of power (people will die in any potential outcome) in Iran have never been better. By the end of 2005, I think there is a good chance of regime change in Iran, Syria, and Lebanon.
Now we all look forward to February 2.
Nervous? Just because Tehran is issuing non-stop bluster (remember Saddam's 'sea of blood'?) doesn't mean the three stooges Khamenei, Khatami, Rafsalami are nervous.
Just because Iran is in the ten-ring on the shooting ranges of W, Cheney, Condi and Rummy oughtn't make the mullahs quiver like Jello.
Simply on account of a little passing reference to the 5,000 JDAMs we just sold Israel the Revolutionary douche bags needn't book their flights on Travelocity to beat feet with the Roaming Gnome.
But they should bear in mind: Ceaucescu had no clue.
This thread is now closed.
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Just because Iran is in the ten-ring on the shooting ranges of W, Cheney,
Condi and Rummy oughtn't make the mullahs quiver like Jello.
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