Washington — Perhaps it is too early to mention the obvious.
Yet as our special ops soldiers crawl through Saddam’s hinterland,
targeting his defenses, mapping out routes for our troops to
overwhelm him, there is a lull in the war. It is not too early to
review what the popinjays of “internationalism” have wrought.
“Internationalism” is the nonce enthusiasm of the United Nations
and lesser international bodies that presume to reign over the
world in the Twenty-First Century, regulating lesser bodies
(legally constituted governments) and providing “collective
security” for all. As the bloody failure of “internationalism” in
Bosnia signifies and the bloodier neglect typical of
“internationalism” shouts aloud from places such as Rwanda,
“internationalism” is mostly gasconade and claptrap
Internationalism has only delayed the inevitable, to wit, the
military enforcement of treaty obligations on Saddam Hussein. In
the end posturing diplomats of dubious character are no match for
brute dictators of violent character. And so military force has
been sent in. Actually our Air Force and special ops have been at
work for some time. A handball buddy of mine who flew Marine
helicopters during Gulf I talks of how in the prelude to that war
he flew specially-trained Marines into the desert reaches around
Saddam’s trenches. During the day these fellows would cover
themselves in sand and wait under the desert sun. At night they
would dust themselves off and map out areas free of land mines for
our forces to pass through en route to the Iraqis’ vital parts.
Then my friend would fly in and take them back to base for a warm
bath and a cool beer.
Maybe this time around M. Chirac would like to fly out into the
desert for a little sun with our Marines. As we review the
achievement of the internationalists at the United Nations, this
towering fatuity of Gallic pretense has got to get full credit. The
French president revealed the United Nations for the sham that it
is. No serious diplomatic venture facing serious disagreement among
the nations of the world will ever be undertaken there again.
Henceforth, as the venerable historian Paul Johnson has opined this
week in the Wall Street Journal, “we shall see much more
of this kind of diplomacy…in which deals are struck on a
bilateral or trilateral basis to suit the needs of the moment.” The
national interests of sovereign states are real. The ceremonious
dithering of “internationalist” bodies such as the United Nations
and even the European Community are ruses to cover the schemes of
second- and third-rate powers.
France is a second-rate power. Chirac has wanted to extend his
influence furtively against that of the United States and of the
UK, which he now hates. What is more, he has hoped to secure
influence in the Arab world and perhaps by keeping the Coalition of
the Willing out of Iraq to hide from the world the evidence of
French and German arms traffic with Saddam’s brutes. In so doing he
has seriously damaged the prestige and usefulness of the United
Nations and he has done the same for the European Union, a score or
more of whose members and prospective members stand with Washington
and London. There will now be an “agonizing reappraisal” of these
institutions, to lift a phrase coined in 1953 by Secretary of State
John Foster Dulles. Ironically he coined the phrase after another
French leader, Pierre Mendes-France, frustrated creation of the
European Defense Community or EDC as it was then called.
Some twenty years ago those who follow international affairs
started to hear about the Western Powers’ hopes to limit the spread
of nuclear weaponry to lesser nations. Soon a wider array of
weapons were to be controlled, chemical and biological weapons.
Surely the topic received much solemn oratory at the United
Nations. For my part, I always wondered about the prospects for
limiting weapons that were becoming easier to produce and to
traffic in. In 1981 and 1982 the serious nations in the
international power game began developing treaties to limit the
traffic in components that could be put to strategic use by
would-be nuclear powers. The Reagan Administration’s Missile
Technology Control Regime was an example, but putting the treaty
into practice was fraught with difficulty. Many pieces of
technological gadgetry could be used for peaceful and for lethal
purposes. How does one argue Brazil out of buying such gadgets?
Obviously the problem is even graver with a nation so lacking in
good faith as Iraq or North Korea.
The years of trying to deny Iraq such “dual-use” technology are
historic evidence of precisely how difficult it will be to stop the
proliferation of what we now call weapons of mass destruction. The
dithering of the United Nations over the last six months is more
dramatic evidence. The findings our troops will soon be making of
Saddam’s disregard for conventions against the spread of these
lethal weapons will reveal to the world in vivid detail just how
great the challenge peace-loving nations such as the United States
and the United Kingdom face in the years ahead. “Internationalism”
is finished, but what enforcement mechanism can the civilized count
on now?
