Posted on Monday, February 10, 2003 - 7:42 pm:

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quote:

For the last several months Saddam Hussein and his henchmen have been making an escalating series of threats against the allied forces that are amassing on their borders. They are threatening to send out suicide bombers, they are threatening to kill the invaders in a sea of fire, they are threatening essentially that they will use these weapons of mass destruction, which they claim they don't possess. All these things are now going on. So therefore how would it look if, in the face of this threat, we were to back down now and say, "We're not going to tackle Saddam Hussein, we're going to leave this (Inaudible) dictator in power." It's pretty obvious how it would look. It would look that the West was scared of Saddam Hussein, it would appear that Saddam Hussein had faced down the great powers of the world. He has done this before, he has spun his defeat in 1991 into a great victory. He has a built a mosque called the Mother of All Battles Mosque on the outskirts of Baghdad to celebrate the serious victory over allied coalitions. And if we were to back down now, it would be another joyous victory for Saddam Hussein, or so it would appear. And then only our friends, our allies in the Arab world who have gone and put their necks on the line to help us would be brutally exposed.

Our friends and allies in the Muslim would be brutally exposed for having helped us. Saddam would claim a victory. And what would be the impact of this upon the war on terrorism? It's an interesting question to think about, because if you read the writings of Osama bin Laden in the 1990s, what emboldened al Qaeda to act? Was it American strength? No, it was American weakness. It was the fact that we were chased out of Vietnam, we were chased out of Beirut, we were chased out of Somalia. Read the writings of Osama bin Laden. He said in a 2000 recruitment video for al Qaeda, "We believe that America is much weaker than Russia. And our brothers who fought in Somalia told us they were astonished to observe how weak, impotent and cowardly the American soldier is." This is what drove al Qaeda to attack us, because they felt they could get away with it. And what would be the impact of Saddam Hussein ... the ally, at least for the time, being of al Qaeda ... were to face down the United States and our allies in the Middle East? I suggest that it would embolden the terrorist enemies that we face in the world.

Now, Professor Walt raises the suggestion that American action in Iraq would somehow inflame the Arab street and lead to a setback in the war on terrorism. This is exactly the argument that people made when we went into Afghanistan, if you will recall. I don't remember the Arab street being inflamed. I remember a deathly silence after our great victory over the Taliban. There was only one time when the Arab street was truly inflamed, and that was on 9/11 when they saw America brought low, when they saw America's weakness exposed. That was when there was dancing and jubilation on the street. When America showed strength, when we overthrew the Taliban, there was no dancing in the street. And similarly I suggest to you, whatever the direct links between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda, and I believe that Secretary Powell's presentation today was pretty convincing on that point ... but whatever the links, I think the indirect moral effect of backing down now after we have gone so far would be disastrous, because it would send a message of American weakness and irresolution that would simply reinforce the moral that al Qaeda took from the 1990s, which is that America is, in Osama bin Laden's words, "A paper tiger." I don't think that's the message we want to send, and I think it would be a very dangerous message to send for our future security and our interests in the region.

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