Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, March 16, 1991 TAG: 9103190378
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-11 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The Democrats' votes are surely fair game for political review and criticism. Everyone acknowledged during the debate in January that the decision on whether to continue sanctions or authorize President Bush's immediate use of force was crucial and historic.
At the time, Democrats stressed that their votes hinged on timing and tactics, not on the goal of ousting Iraq from Kuwait, for which there was broad agreement. Still, the GOP can't be expected not to maximize profit from its leader's triumph. (The other side would have hoped to gain politically had the war bogged down.)
But to accuse Democrats of appeasement? That goes too far.
The ploy is perhaps predictable, coming from some Republicans who thrive on questioning the loyalty and patriotism of the opposition. The appeasement charge, though, confuses support for sanctions with inaction. It also begs for a few historical reminders.
"Appeasement doesn't work," President Bush proclaimed last November. He should know.
Bush said appeasement wouldn't work as he was making preparations for war. What he didn't say is that appeasement of Saddam Hussein by his and the previous administration helped create conditions for war in the first place.
It was the Reagan-Bush administration that, with U.S. intelligence, weapons and money, supported Saddam in the war with Iran that Saddam started.
Iraq became the third-largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid, behind only Israel and Egypt.
And while Saddam was using chemical weapons against Iranians, gassing Kurdish villages, torturing civilians and trying to steal parts for his nuclear-bomb program, what were the Reagan and Bush administrations doing? They were aggressively resisting Democratic efforts in Congress to impose sanctions against Iraq.
Iraq was, after all, a major oil producer, and Saddam was a force to be reckoned with in the Persian Gulf. The Republican administrations had dismantled Democrat Jimmy Carter's energy policy that would have made the United States energy independent by 1990.
Better to placate Saddam than make him angry, the GOP thinking went. He might even prove a moderate.
In 1990, a group of senators visited Iraq to reassure Saddam that America remained behind him. Alan Simpson, the Republican Senate whip - and the same senator who recently called CNN's Peter Arnett a "sympathizer" - took special pains to soothe Saddam's feelings.
The Iraqi president's problems were "with the Western media and not with the U.S. government," Simpson obsequiously opined.
Last June, the Bush administration was still resisting any punitive actions against Iraq proposed by congressional Democrats.
And the week before the invasion, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq - under instructions from the Republican administration in Washington - assured Saddam that his disputes with Kuwait were an Arab, not a U.S., affair.
"We have no opinion . . . on your border dispute with Kuwait," the ambassador said.
Eight days later, Iraqi tanks rumbled across Kuwait's border.
Republicans can gloat all they want about Bush's triumph. They deserve to share in the glory. They're perfectly within their rights to criticize some Democrats for opposing the president and exaggerating the risks of war.
But they shouldn't go accusing others of appeasement.
by CNB