Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, March 7, 1991                   TAG: 9103070474
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-12   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

WAR IS WON, BUT NOT YET THE PEACE

If accountability in government means holding officials responsible for failed policies, it also means giving them credit for policies that work.

But soon after the stunning military success of the U.S.-led coalition became evident, the president cautioned Americans against euphoria. And that, too, should be heeded. The war is over, but there is no peace.

To earn his popularity, Bush correctly did two very important things.

First, the president convinced the vast majority of his countrymen of the justness of using force, if need be, to expel Saddam Hussein's army from Kuwait. That was accomplished by such means as operating under the auspices of the United Nations Security Council, obtaining clear congressional approval before going to war, holding together the international coalition that opposed Saddam, and refusing to turn the war into a racist crusade against the Iraqi people.

Consequently, Saddam was unambiguously the bad guy - not quite a Hitler perhaps, but a dangerous and aggressive customer nonetheless. By the time Congress debated the point, the issue for most was not whether Iraq's invasion of Kuwait warranted war but whether, at that point, war was yet necessary.

Second, Bush exercised the military option with deadly efficiency - and patient restraint. The massive slaughter of allied forces that many had foreseen simply did not happen. So far as is known, the allied military adhered to a policy of keeping Iraqi civilian casualties to a minimum. And despite the ease with which the Iraqi army was routed, the president resisted any temptation to order the U.S.-led forces to push their way to Baghdad.

In doing so, he wisely avoided expansion beyond all recognition of official war aims, which never included Saddam's overthrow or the occupation of Iraq.

Why, then, not be euphoric?

Partly because the war exacted so terrible a toll on the Iraqis.

Saddam survives, at least for now, but tens of thousands of his soldiers are dead - many of them, perhaps most, conscripts given no choice in the matter. And while the allies' policy of concentrating on military targets (plus the greater accuracy of modern weapons) may have spared countless civilian lives, countless other Iraqi civilian lives inevitably were lost - for example, from lack of access to vital medical treatment.

Americans can take pride in the performance of their military, and relief in the fact that allied casualties were so few. But the destruction wrought by war, even if Saddam is to blame, is not cause for glee.

Nor can there be euphoria when looking at the new face of the Middle East. America's display of might has created diplomatic openings. But those openings may prove narrow and difficult to negotiate, and the U.S. experience in Europe after World War II not much of a guide. The Gulf War was not World War II; America today is not the global giant economically that it was in the days of the Marshall Plan.

And the Middle East is not Europe. Democracy is a scarce commodity in the region, including among America's Arab allies. The regime's record in coalition partner Syria rivals Saddam's for barbarity. Liberated Kuwaitis hunt down Palestinians; civil war rages in defeated Iraq; Iran, the domain of fundamentalist Islamic mullahs, looks on from next door.

No tears would be shed, as the administration has phrased it, if the Iraqis themselves were to do in Saddam. But in a nation where assassination is the standard method for changing governments, it's worth wondering about the nature of his prospective successors.

If by quashing Saddam the war has demonstrated to other Third World tyrants the costs of aggression, it may help avert future wars, future horrors, future loss of life. If it does, President Bush will deserve the same praise 10 and 20 years hence that Americans are according him now. But whether it does may depend on the ability of America and her allies to achieve peace as smartly as they achieved military victory.