June 20, 2004
Response to Readership

Current Affairs and Classic

Concerning the larger attacks in Iraq: Do you see these as primarily the responsibility of the surrounding dictatorships? Do you think it will ever be possible to retaliate with airpower to deter these attacks from happening?

Primarily? I am not sure about that. After all, if the infiltrators met a quick end, no appeasing government could coerce others to go into Iraq. In Afghanistan once the madrassas learned that their student volunteer jihadists were being vaporized by US bombing, they advised them not to go into Afghanistan. But you are right—it would be far easier to let Syria and Iran know that any terrorist camps on their side will be bombed. I assume should President Bush be reelected, he will tell them just that. And I am equally sure a President Kerry would not.

In “Feeding the Minotaur” you capture the core feelings and frustrations of many --- but you give no approach to winning this war. How is this war to be won?

We will have a clear choice in November. A President Kerry will seek a negotiated exit, stop offensive operations, promise not to bomb or go into Syria or Iran, turn much over to UN peacekeepers (if he can bribe them), and declare the war a police matter that is largely over. Bush, if reelected, will stay the course in Iraq, then turn his attention to Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq, and remind Saudi Arabia, Libya, and others that the US retains all options to ensure Middle East terrorists are not given aid and sanctuary. So we will have a clear choice between a face-saving and easy armistice and withdrawal, and a tough, bitter slog that will eventually lead us to victory and the destruction of Islamofascism. It is up to the American people to decide. They can become children, lap up a Michael Moore, and rant about the lack of Saddam’s fingerprints on the 9-11 planes’ controls—or grow up and resemble their grandfathers to destroy some very wicked enemies.

Given the impact of adverse public opinion on the government and al Qaeda’s confidence that the West’s courage and resolve will eventually falter, what do you think the future will hold?

Hanson: Europe is tottering. If we hesitate or pull out, it will simply make arrangements with local terrorists and radicals to win exemption from further attacks. Spain will be the paradigm for all of Europe. Yours is an interesting question here at home, because it goes right to the heart of what sort of people we 21^st-century Americans are. I still believe we will press home the fight, but everyday I hear enough lunacy aired to cast that optimism into doubt. Some very silly ideas the last thirty years have become firmly entrenched in American society, and it may prove that the America I think still exists really does not. Look to November for answers.

With the troubles in northern Iraq and the fighting that transpired in Fallujah, do you think that it was due to the failure of Turkey to allow the 4th Infantry Division descend into northern Iraq?

Hanson: Yes, I wrote just that at the time of Turkey’s decision not to allow the division’s descent—that it would cost us lives. And it did. My problem with the war was that the entire northern part of the Sunni Triangle capitulated, its soldiers were later humiliated by their cowardice (but not beaten), unemployed, and subject to jeers from Kurds and Shiites.

Nor do I have much sympathy with Turkey after that. I know conventional D.C. wisdom says let bygones be bygones; but I think there is a change of mood in a Turkey at war with itself—that does not bode well for the US or our continued alliance. When NATO is declared de jure dead, I doubt it would be wise to continue a military alliance with Turkey, at least with so many Islamicists in its government.

Isn’t the enemy in the Middle East Islam? To end this war, should US policy be the destruction of the religion?

Hanson: No. I don’t think so. Look at India, Malaysia, and Indonesia where we don’t have a great deal of trouble with Muslims. Rather, the problem is in the Middle East, where a reactionary Islam, Arab tribalism, post-Soviet Baathism and statism, combined with failed states and autocratic governments, create this lethal brew of Islamofascism. Those who say our war has nothing to do with Islam are as wrong as those who swear it is with Islam itself. Islamic fascism has the same position in the Middle East as the KKK once did in the South circa 1920 or so—generally derided, but not to the degree that average folks would wipe it out, given their own ambiguous views about race and their historic hatred of Yankees. But once the KKK was discredited, its members jailed, and its reputation soiled, no one wanted anything to do with it.

What are your thoughts on the International Institute of Strategic Studies' Strategic Survey 2003-4, which contends that Al-Qaeda has grown because of the war in Iraq and that there are still 18,000 Al-Qaeda members still active around the world?

Hanson: If true, that is equal to a division- far less than the 20 million or so Japanese, German, and Italian combatants that we took on in World War II, much less the 2 billion Chinese, Russians, Eastern Europeans, and African and Asian states that made up the so-called communist bloc. I am wary of the  "because of Iraq" logic-the rationale of all phony wars. It is like saying, "because of the battle of Midway" now we are fighting the Japanese all over the Pacific, or "because of B-17 raids in 1942" we got ourselves into a war in North Africa and Sicily. The fact is we have made amazing progress in dismantling bases in Afghanistan, pressuring Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, taking out Saddam Hussein, and shutting down terrorist enclaves in Europe, America, and Asia. Once you go to war, of course, the enemy fights back even more fiercely. Those holed up in Fallujah or Mr. Sadr's followers are either Baathist holdouts, al Qaeda operatives, or pro-Iranian militants who were our enemies long before March 2003.

What we are witnessing is a coming showdown, where lines are drawn, the sides become clear, and the stakes apparent. So al Qaeda has not "grown" so much as grasped that it is now in a war for its existence and must either come out and fight or slowly be strangled. Witness the situation in Saudi Arabia that is at least clearer than the last decade, when the Royal Family paid bribe money to deflect the killers against us. I suspect that there are fewer al Qaeda members now than before the invasion of Afghanistan. If they are so smart, how did they turn a friendly Saudi government into their enemy, lose Afghanistan, make an enemy of a once neutral Musharraf, and are without the intelligence and succor of Saddam's Iraq? And they are about to turn 350 million timid Europeans into perturbed hosts ready to expel or at least closely monitor all foreign Arab nationals.

What do you think about this Chalabi deal and being close to the VP with the accusations that he helped Iran and gave inaccurate information about the war?

Hanson: I don't have real information about it, and so cannot ascertain whether he was intriguing with Iran to cement his position in Baghdad or simply continuing long-standing stealthy dialogues that suddenly became "treasonous" in light of domestic friction over the war here at home. I'm sure there will be plenty of books written to allow us to sort out the fiasco. For now "Chalabi" has become a buzz word, a mere symbol like "Halliburton" or "Guantanamo" that is evoked to whip up emotion, not to  discuss a complex problem.

States bordering Iraq are providing men, material and economic support to those fighting and killing American troops in Iraq. What is the best way for our government to respond to this activity on a diplomatic and military level? How would you grade the Bush administration's handling of this activity?

Hanson: The answer is predicated on whether we are at war or once again managing a limited police matter. I would have thought 9-11 answered that, but it did not. If we are at war against fascism, then we are using half-measures and will never win unless Syria and Iran cease being havens for our enemies. If this is a police action to keep a lid on things and keep the harvest of Americans to manageable levels, then perhaps we can pull it off and return to the protocols of the past twenty-five years since the Iranian hostage crisis. Personally, I'd prefer to gear up and win the global war once and for all, which demands either a radical change of heart in Syria and Iran, or at least a Libya-like conversion, or the removal of those governments.

As far as morality is concerned, from the get-go the U.S.-imposed regime of sanctions upon Iraq was grossly immoral, just like the English blockade of Germany after the end of the Great War. These policy decisions caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent people in both instances. Was Hussein a bad guy? Sure. Then why did NR's hero, Don Rumsfeld, and Washington arm Saddam in the 1980's? Because he was "our" bad guy then, when it seemed he was about to lose to Iran. Morality, indeed. Do you want to invade China, next, Professor Hanson?

Hanson: Calm down and quit the boilerplate hyperbole that only reflects a hysteria rather than reasoned analysis. The English mistake in 1918-9 was not the blockade, but allowing a mostly victorious German army to surrender in France and Belgium-"we were stabbed in the back by Jews and communists and never lost"- rather than to be crushed under an Allied counterattack that ended up in Berlin. Not "hundreds of thousands," but rather 50 million died for that blunder a mere twenty years later.

But enough of bottled piety.  We gave some intelligence to Saddam and allowed a few arms sales-less than 2% of his aggregate arsenal that otherwise was supplied by the Russians, French, Germans, and Koreans. I did not agree with that decision, but was aware of the reasoning-a radical theocracy in Iran had taken our diplomats, organized killers of Americans in Lebanon, and promised our destruction. The realpolitik was not unlike our decision to arm the mass-murdering and former Nazi-partner Stalin in 1942, albeit on a much smaller scale-a policy rarely criticized today by the Left although we knew at the time that 30 million Russians had been liquidated, and our aid would only strengthen such repression both during and after the war. There is little morality in war, and states are faced with choices between bad and worse. Only utopians from the campus or newsroom have the luxury of hindsight and leisured perfection. China? Rather than worrying about a hypothetical and nonsensical US invasion, why not turn your attention to China's real invasion of Tibet and its subsequent near annihilation of Tibetan culture. Criticizing the US for not being divine is easy, but taking on an autocratic government whose predecessors killed 50 million of their own people is quite another thing.

Can Islam coexist with the West and its modernity or will events result in a war that may, in the end, provoke a nuclear retaliation and a third world war, a war more terrible and destructive than has ever been known?

I surely hope not. And in fact I don’t think it will happen that way. Many of the Gulf States live with and thrive on modernism, and seem to have accommodated Islam with it, albeit with a strong dose of anti-Semitism and convenient anti-Western parlor talk.

The danger, as I see it, is that the terrorists still do not fully comprehend their peril or the strong visceral hatred of them that they have earned in the West. Thus countries like Syria, Lebanon, and Iran that think this is all a funny game discount the real peril that they are in. If there is another 9-11 and if the terrorists are shown to have originated from a Middle East country that knowingly harbored them, then the American reaction really would be terrible. It would have to be— if we were to continue our civilization. Ask yourself what we would have done had the Soviets sent a one-kiloton cruise missile into the World Trade Center. As I gauge US public opinion, it is in a holding pattern, watching events in Iraq. It simmers over the beheadings; it is tired of seeing the Arab Street; it has no patience with the Arab talking heads who assure us that we are to blame, but for the moment it is not ready to unleash its full power. So let us hope that nuts like the mullahs, Mr. Assad, the Pakistani border al Qaedists, or Hezbollah do not do something stupid—because this time there is no real restraint on American counter-responses.

What do you make of the 9-11 commission?

Hanson: Nothing like it is all bad or all good. Investigations, if done properly and timed right, are, of course, essential for a democracy. But look at this present politicized charade.

Televised grandstanding; hearings sometimes held in places like Greenwich Village; former Clintonites who need to be questioned for their own laxity now questioning others (who will police the police?); a jeering gallery; generals summoned from the front to sit and be hectored; and bad timing since we are in the most critical moment in Iraq as the handover nears.

It all reminds me of the Athenian Assembly during the last phase of the Peloponnesian War when the mob adjudicated critical negotiations and always came to the wrong and ultimately fatal decision. The most recent hair-splitting over Saddam and al Qaeda was pathetic. We all know Zarqawi was close to bin Laden and was treated in Baghdad; we all know that al Qaedists were encouraged to attack Kurds in Iraq. Add the still strong possibility that Atta was in Prague and that Saddam knew a great deal about the first World Trade Center, and the statement of the New York Times that there were no “ties” is really shameful. Saying al Qaeda and Saddam had no relations is like saying Milosevic knew nothing about the Kosovar and Bosnian holocausts. Mr. Clinton would have none of it—and neither should we now in Iraq.

Again, the New York Times headlines say it all.

Why do you think the U.S. failed to come to Israel's defense and veto the U.N. Security Council's May 19 resolution condemning Israel for its actions in Gaza?

Hanson: The U.S. apparently has this tacit relationship with Israel that goes something like this: "We have x-number of dramatic public displays of support we can give you per year. Any more and we lose swing Israeli supporters here at home and make things unnecessarily messy abroad. So on the big things we are with you; but on the symbolic ones, let us recede a little for cover.

Good idea? In peace, perhaps. In war? I doubt it's wise unless Israel is doing something opposed to our interest, which right now is defeating fascists in the Middle East. Once the radicals in the Middle East realize that we support Israelis because they are democratic and precisely not like a Syria, Libya, or Saudi Arabia, and that we are proud rather than ashamed of such allegiance, they will see that we are at least principled and mean business. As a general rule, the Middle East has everything to do with autocratic and tribal rule versus democracy-envy, jealousy, pride, and emotion clouding the issues of proper boundaries and relations between Israel and Palestine.

I have no question that America will achieve its military goals in Iraq.  My fear is that the liberal press will somehow make it a defeat.  If this is our most serious enemy, how do we defeat it?  Should changing public opinion be a military objective?  Should national defense also include the weapons to achieve a national will to stay the course?

Hanson: Iraq is now a symbol for the Left, divorced from reason and logic, perhaps like Vietnam circa 1971. It represents preconceived stereotypes -America is imperial, exploitative, crass, cruel, and run by mean, white Republican males who connive to profit at others' expense-which are not supported by the facts of liberating 26 million from fascism, providing billions in aid, and supporting democratic reform. Had Bush bombed Serbia for 8 weeks, he would have been called a "coward" who was afraid to have "boots on the ground" and a war-criminal who incinerated babies from 30,000 feet. In turn, had Clinton invaded Iraq, he would be praised for bringing Wilsonian idealism and American sacrifice back to foreign policy by promoting democracy, feminism, and freedom abroad. By the same token, if we persist in Afghanistan and Iraq, within ten years Bush will be considered a great president, in the manner that the removal of Milosevic is considered Clinton's only major foreign policy achievement.

Do you believe that we are not at the 'mission accomplished' level like the sign on the boat announced LAST May?  One might assume from your appeal to shock and awe that you might agree that we should just nuke Najaf.  Is this the message you intend to send about Iraq?  That would be pretty shocking and awful; although I am not sure it would play well in the popularity polls.

Hanson: Be careful of rhetorical excesses like "nuke Najaf" when some suggest that in war you cannot promise to arrest or kill Mr. Sadr only to back off and invite him to join the political process, or march off and surround Fallujah only on the eve of victory to invite in former Baathists to occupy it. The fact is that we must find a balance involving the Iraqis, but using enough force to defeat the terrorists-not easy when Islamic fascism, Baathism, tribalism, and Arab nationalism are all at odds with consensual government. We are doing OK, but must get tougher with the killers, and let the Iraqis have more air time, more praise, and more honor in creating a unique society in the Middle East.