Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, February 17, 1991 TAG: 9102180328
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: C/3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Alan Sorensen
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
At the time Aiken made the remark, the actual military stakes in Vietnam had been overtaken by a perception problem: U.S. leaders believed that if America were to suffer defeat, its credibility as a power in the eyes of the rest of the world - and thus U.S. power itself - would diminish.
As a result, what had to be avoided was not so much military defeat as the appearance of defeat. If our credibility could be salvaged, Aiken was saying, we would win.
It's sort of like the victory presidential candidates achieve when they fare better than expected in an early primary. Another candidate may have gained more votes, but (assuming you've succeeded in lowering expectations beforehand) you still can claim a win. And you will have won, in a sense: Victory is in the eye of the beholder.
Given this understanding, we shouldn't be surprised by the suggestion that Saddam Hussein hopes, even in military defeat, to snatch a political triumph by winning the Arab masses' admiration.
"I don't buy the idea that Hussein could somehow win by losing," Defense Secretary Dick Cheney said at a recent press conference. But if Moslems buy the idea, the long-term political consequences could render a military victory Pyrrhic.
Even if Saddam dies, we could win the war and lose the peace. Arab martyrs go to heaven; their ghosts can remain to rally Moslems and haunt our efforts. In short, we can't know for sure if the war was wise until its political consequences are apparent.
Whether it was a just war, of course, depends on intentions more than consequences. "Our cause is just," says President Bush, and he is right. The effort to make Iraq quit Kuwait is a just cause.
But I believe war is justified only as a last resort. A continued blockade, it seems clear, would have inexorably diminished Iraq's strength. There was evidence sanctions and isolation were having an effect. Because these weren't given a chance to work, the resort to war was premature.
In any case, intentions may be noble but consequences - wanted or unwanted - are what count in history. And only history will tell if victory was attained. (When people say they won a "moral victory," it's a sure bet they lost something.)
As Americans, we tend to believe we reinvented ourselves on the shores of the New World; we put less stock in history than others do. But history holds lessons worth consulting. Consider this scenario:
A national leader comes to office after a long apprenticeship. His experience is mainly in foreign affairs. Lingering accusations of wimpishness bother him. He appoints as his State Department head someone with little experience in foreign policy. During his second year in office, a challenge arises in the Middle East. With the lessons of Munich in 1938 heavy on his mind, he responds aggressively, and militarily.
George Bush? Yes, but also Anthony Eden, the British prime minister who in 1956 ordered military action against Egypt at Suez. The Suez operation was not, in strictly a military sense, a failure. But it proved a political disaster and an inglorious end to Britain's claim to leadership in the Middle East. (Incidentally, on their way out, the British colonialists in 1961 arbitrarily drew up Kuwait's boundaries.)
History shows war after war fought ostensibly to secure peace, but peace is not sustained. Will this war be different? Maybe. At the least, a murderous dictator bent on hegemony in the region and control of its oil supplies will have been stopped.
Beyond that, the Gulf War could stimulate efforts to bring stability to the Middle East after the fighting has ended. The international response to Saddam's rape of Kuwait may have laid groundwork for a post-Cold War order, rooted in collective security and international law and supported by an invigorated United Nations.
We can't achieve such nice things, though, if we believe war wipes out all history and conflict and passions, or if we think all that's needed is to reposition pawns and redraw maps and let the future take care of itself. To win this war, we need to broaden and clarify our conception of victory. We need to stretch our sense of time and our calculations of consequences.
Right now, many Americans appear uncomfortable with the passage of time. The news flickers by on the screen. President Bush seems impatient for a ground war, just as he was impatient to go to war in the first place. We assume time is our enemy. We want the final score.
But the final score won't come until much later, and it won't consist of a Pentagon damage-assessment or body count. If war is the extension of politics by other means, then the outcome of this war will depend more on the political context and postwar diplomacy than on defeating Iraq or killing Saddam. We'll need to heed important lessons of history. We must take steps to prevent future wars.
To win:
The United States finally must realize how slippery alliances in the Middle East can be. Only four years ago, American ships were protecting Kuwaiti tankers carrying Iraqi oil from Iranian attack. Right up until the August invasion, the Bush administration was fighting sanctions that Congress wanted to impose on Iraq for its illegal efforts to secure nuclear weapons. How long before a new regional power, a Syria or Iran, rises to replace the Iraqi menace?
We must arrange an embargo on the export of sophisticated weapons to unstable, developing countries led by military despots. As the Gulf War demonstrates, sooner or later such weapons are hurled back at us.
America must avoid trying to sustain a colonial arrangement, propping up Persian Gulf monarchies with the threat of force to assure Western access to the region's oil. The United States needs an energy policy to reduce dependence on foreign oil. In the Mideast, political legitimacy and stability must flow from democracy, from respect for human rights, and from efforts to reduce the huge disparity in wealth between oil sheiks and Moslem masses.
The world must address a major source of Arab humiliation and resentment that make heroes of men like Saddam. Having established the principle that Saddam cannot link withdrawal of Kuwait to Israel's withdrawal from Palestinian lands, we could support an international conference after the war has ended. An Arab-Israeli settlement would be a lasting triumph.
What happens if Saddam declares victory and goes home? I am reassured by Secretary of State James Baker's comments on postwar scenarios the other day, in which he described hopes of an allied success without vengeance.
America historically has kept grudges in standoff or defeat. (North Korea and Vietnam were winners!) It has been generous in victory. (Japan and Germany were defeated!)
Iraq will be lucky if it loses.
by CNB