The following exchange -- between President Bush and Tim Russert on NBC’s “Meet the Press” of February 8th -- summarizes in a nutshell the essence of the current argument now taking place over the Iraq War:
“Russert: But can you launch a preemptive war without iron clad, absolute intelligence that he had weapons of mass destruction?
“President Bush: Let me take a step back for a second and -- there is no such thing necessarily in a dictatorial regime of iron clad absolutely solid evidence. The evidence I had was the best possible evidence that he had a weapon.
“Russert: But it may have been wrong.
“President Bush: Well, but what wasn't wrong was the fact that he had the ability to make a weapon. That wasn't right.”
Nub of the argument:
Democratic (anti-war): preemptive war against a threatening rogue-nation dictator who may possess WMDs is NOT justified without “iron clad, absolute intelligence.”
Republican (pro-war): preemptive war against a threatening rogue-nation dictator who may possess WMDs IS justified with the best evidence we have.
Just off the top of my head:
The anti-war (Democratic) argument is purer, cleaner, more recognizably “principled."
The pro-war (Republican) argument is messy, complex, more reliant on judgment and experience.
My view is that the Democratic argument fits Adam Garfinkle’s description -- in his article “Foreign Policy Immaculately
Conceived” (in the August/September 2003 issue of Policy Review) -- of an “amazing thing” happening:
“All of a sudden, crystalline truth rises from the clear flame of an obvious logic that, for some unexplained reason, all of the experts and practitioners thinking and working on the problem for years never saw. This is the immaculate conception theory…at work.”
That is, the liberal argument assumes the President should have made the decision (to go to war) only if the condition of certainty existed -- something possible only in a utopia.
In contrast, Bush’s main feature as President has been his pragmatic sense of perception (that the terrorist threat is serious) and his ability to decide.
The coming election will test the American public on this question….