Gore returns.
Frank Rich delivers a cogent, highly critical column in today’s New York Times about Al Gore, freshly returned from self-imposed hiatus. (*) Rich notes the cynicism of Gore’s new support for universal health care: the details of Gore’s plan will come later. He also takes Gore to task for criticizing the Administration’s Iraq policy but endorsing the UN Security Council resolution. What should Bush do now that the resolution has passed? Gore does not know.
In fact, as Gore said in his Iraq speech in September, he favors building an international coalition before removing Saddam Hussein from power, because the cooperation of other nations will then be better secured in the wider War on Terrorism. (†) Around this pivots the debate. Gore says that the US should not intervene in Iraq with relatively few allies. The flaw here is that it presumes that Al Qaeda is a threat more pressing than Iraq, when the reverse is true. While Al Qaeda has attacked with frequency US interests and even the homeland itself, Al Qaeda is far from acquiring a nuclear weapon. Through various means and connivances Iraq, however, will soon have such a weapon within its reach. Thus, while Iraq is less likely to attack the US, any attack from Iraq entails more risk, particularly because of Iraq’s current store of chemical and biological agents. A threat from Iraq has a low likelihood of occurring but presents a very high level of danger. It is upon this matter of risk analysis that Gore’s argument proves itself inadequate.
Rich focuses the Democratic Party’s attention on its failure to develop a coherent foreign policy. Until the Democrats have something serious and relevant to say on national security and related matters, there is no reason for voters to trust the Democratic Party, no matter what its domestic policies are. It’s nice to see that Rich has read Heather Hurlburt’s excellent Washington Monthly article (‡) that, incidentally, I cited to it in an earlier post. (§) Hurlburt should be at the top of all progressives’ reading lists.
November 28th, 2002 at 13:15
I’d hardly call Rich’s column cogent, more of an intentionally ignorant smear. I watched one of Gore’s interviews, and read transcripts of another, and he very clearly stated what he wanted to do about national security.
He said that he thought we should have a clear focus on Al Qaida. In this point, and in his assessment of the relative threat from Al Qaida and Iraq, he’s in agreement with no less than the director of the CIA. That organization’s threat assessment considers Hussein to be less dangerous than he has been for a decade, and the terrorist organization to have reconstituted itself to full strength.
He’s criticized the handling of the Iraq situation in numerous very specific ways. While the press may like to reflexively brand him as vague, it would be hard to imagine a less fitting description.
The article’s particular criticism was that he had no plan for dealing with a post-9-11 world, which simply isn’t true.
And how should he know where we’re going from here, when he isn’t presently sitting in the oval office and making its policy?
November 30th, 2002 at 23:45
Thank you for posting.
If the CIA Director, George Tenet, believes that Al Qaeda is a greater danger to the US than Iraq, then I would have to disagree with him, though it may be, obviously, that he has information that I don’t.
Rich’s point was very strong, I thought, as it concerned Gore’s lack of an alternative on Iraq policy. Focusing on Al Qaeda is not an alternative to Iraq policy. The Iraq situation cannot wait. When the Gulf War began, as we discovered later, Saddam Hussein had been merely months away from having a nuclear weapon. Had Iraq built such a weapon, it would have changed the balance of power in the Middle East. Saddam Hussein could be months away, again, at this very moment. Even if he isn’t, unless some affirmative step is taken, he will eventually have the bomb.
I don’t think inspections have a chance of working. Arms control inspections only work if the host country is a voluntary participant. The current regime wishes to keep its WMD. Iraq is a big country. There are just two many hiding places for too many storage containers, none of which have to be very big to represent great danger to human beings. The only solution is for a new government to take power in Iraq. The new government must eschew WMD.
Al Gore is rightly angry that the first Gulf War was not finished properly. Multiple and conflicting explanations have been given on why the US let Saddam Hussein off the hook at the end of that war. That mistake should not justify another mistake?which would be a good description of letting Saddam Hussein off the hook, again.
If we on the Left fail to present serious policy alternatives, then we will fail to win the public’s ear.