PATRICK BUCHANAN (On Fox)
Consider the diplomatic dilemmas our president confronts. Does he, like
his father in Desert Storm,
enlist Syria in the war coalition, or are the Syrians enemies? Does he
reach out to President Mohammad Khatami, the
elected leader of an Iran that is deeply hostile to the Taliban, or are
they too on the enemies list? Does Bush seek Vladimir
V. Putin's help, or does Russia's war against the Chechens, who have
committed acts of terror, disqualify them as allies? Do
we press for peace between Yasser Arafat and the Israelis, or is that
rewarding terror? What took place last Tuesday was an
atrocity. What is coming may qualify as tragedy. For the mass murder of
our citizens has filled this country with a terrible
resolve that could lead it to plunge headlong into an all-out war
against despised Arab and Islamic regimes that turns into a
war of civilizations, with the United States almost alone. In the
presidential campaign of 2000, we failed to make foreign
policy the issue. But what I said then retains relevance: "How can all
our meddling not fail to spark some horrible retribution
.... Have we not suffered enough--from Pan Am 103, to the World Trade
Center, to the embassy bombings in Nairobi and Dar
es Salaam - not to know that interventionism is the incubator of
terrorism. Or will it take some cataclysmic atrocity on U.S.
soil to awaken our global gamesmen to the going price of empire?
"America today faces a choice of destinies. We can
choose to be a peacemaker of the world, or its policeman who goes about
night-sticking troublemakers until we, too, find
ourselves in some bloody brawl we cannot handle." In his intervention in
Lebanon's civil war, President Reagan made a rare
blunder. But when our Marines were massacred, he did not send a mighty
army to avenge them. He used U.S. power to exact
a price, then extricated us from that war. There is no vital American
interest at risk in all these religious, territorial and tribal
wars from Algeria to Afghanistan. Let us pay back those who did this,
then let us extricate ourselves. Either America finds an
exit strategy from empire, or we lose our republic.
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