I just came across an oldie-but-goodie from columnist Charles Krauthammer, a "neoconservative" darling and a hardline hawk on the Iraq War.
Back in March of 2001, only a few weeks after the Bush Administration took power, Krauthammer was still grumbling about Clinton's intervention in the Kosovo War. Conservatives like Krauthammer had no Patriotically Correct scruples about being antiwar when Clinton was President. One of the first foreign policy problems Bush had to confront after taking office was unrest in the Balkan nation of Macedonia.
Krauthammer grumped mightily about how Clinton's Balkan intervention had created terrible problems for the US. If the subject weren't so serious, it would make almost humorous reading now (my emphasis):
Unfortunately, getting out is not an option. Even though the original commitment was folly, once a superpower makes a commitment to Balkan stability, its very presence creates a new national interest -- credibility -- where there was none there to begin with.
We have two options: deputize and "Vietnamize."
(1) Deputize the Europeans to do the dirty work. ... While we're stuck with peacekeeping because of our previous commitment, an escalation to counterinsurgency is absurd. It is the Europeans' front line, not ours. They ought to man it.
(2) In Vietnam, we tried to get out by getting the locals to replace our soldiers. In this case, ironically, the locals are Serbs. We've already "Vietnamized" one part of the conflict by allowing Serbs to return to a border region that had become a center of activity for the Albanian guerrillas. Macedonia is a harder case, but in the end it may be Serbia that will guarantee the security of Slavs in Macedonia.
There is little more that we can do about this quagmire. But it should be a lesson the next time a president comes to the American people and asks for intervention in a local war, on the grounds that if we could only get rid of the bad guys, peace and light will reign. Sometimes that is true; most times it is not.
Yeah, next time Administration advocates of war promise that just getting rid of the bad guys will bring peace, light and grateful "liberated" citizens showering US troops with flowers, we should think about it a little more carefully.
2 comments:
Excellent Article. I concure compltetly. And when another Demo gets in office, the Repubos will be anti-war again. Never fails. That's why mouth's have two sides.
That Happy Chica,
Marcia Ellen
Yeah, and in general it's a good thing that foreign policy issues get debated actively. But when it actually comes to war, it would be better if the cause were solid enough that most people could agree on it. But that's probably not realistic. War is the most high-stakes issue there is, so if people are taking it seriously, there's likely to be *more* debate about it, not less. - Bruce
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