Bullies don’t like to see other bullies beaten up. The precedent
unsettles them. This largely explains China’s protest of the war in
Iraq. “Military action against Iraq is violating the norms of
international behavior,” says China. Since when has China cared
about norms of international behavior?
America has boldly tossed aside the U.N. security blanket to
which tyrants cling. It is no wonder that they feel uncomfortably
naked.
“We urge the relevant countries to stop using force, to stop
military action,” says China. “The Iraqi question must return to
the track of political settlement within the U.N. framework.”
We can expect other countries known for aggression to make
similar appeals. They know the United Nations exists to deliberate
for the purposes of inaction. They know the U.N. Security Council
only provides security for rogue regimes and no real security for
innocent peoples.
Russia is also protesting the war with characteristic
dishonesty. How seriously can we take its criticism of American
“unilateralism” when it practiced unilateralism in Chechnya? Russia
argued plausibly in that case that its self-defense required
aggression against radical Islamic aggressors. Why do they now deny
that right to America?
Many countries will not judge this war on its merits. They
decided long ago to judge it according to morally neutral
balance-of-power concerns. According to this analysis, any
reasonable defensive action America takes — from creating a
nuclear shield to fighting this war against a proven aggressor —
is “offensive.” The countries that opposed Ronald Reagan’s nuclear
shield — such as France, China, and Russia — also oppose this
war, because America’s strong defense is counted as a “gain.” A
secure America worries them. They would prefer that it remain
insecure so that they can make power grabs without having to look
over their shoulders.
Bad countries and bad people are assigning their own bad motives
to America. They assume America is as power-hungry and unscrupulous
as they are. When they twist Reagan’s nuclear shield into a scheme
to dominate the world and cast America’s war against a savage
dictator with weapons of mass destruction as a war for “oil” and
pure power, they reveal more about themselves than America.
“Killer Bush! Down! Down! This dictatorship won’t do!”
protesters cry from dictatorial countries run by killers.
Former Soviet Union functionary Mikhail Gorbachev says the U.S.
war “defies the existence of the United Nations and international
laws. The U.S. stance…means it regards other nations as subject
countries or states.” Kind of like you and your Soviet thug
friends viewed the Eastern Bloc? Gorbachev still doesn’t like that
the U.S. is targeting evil empires. He is not sure if evil even
exists, except maybe in the atmosphere. Like Hans Blix, he is more
worried about temperatures than terrorists: “The United States
seems to believe this military action shows its world leadership.
But that is its misconception. Real world leadership is to take
initiatives in promoting the Kyoto Protocol, nuclear disarmament,
and arms control, and solving environmental issues.”
The Vatican continues to call the war a “tragic initiative.”
Even as it admits that Hussein wasn’t traveling down the road to
peace — “it laments the fact that the Iraqi government did not
accept the resolutions of the United Nations,” said the pope’s
spokesman — it criticizes America for abandoning this road to
nowhere: the Vatican “deplores the interruption of the path of
negotiations, according to international law, for a peaceful
solution to the Iraqi drama.” Wouldn’t it be more honest if the
Vatican just said, “We knew Hussein wasn’t open to diplomacy. But
war is worse than Hussein flouting diplomacy. Let him keep his
weapons”? Cardinal Pio Laghi says war could have been averted.
True. You can always avoid war by surrendering, or by remaining
idle before a grave danger. But at least be honest about it. The
Vatican has pretended its quasi-pacifism is a good defense
strategy.
Mexico President Vicente Fox, meanwhile, used the start of the
war to pander to his largely antiwar domestic audience. Spared from
the embarrassment of having to vote against the U.S. at the U.N.,
Fox says his antiwar stance won’t hurt relations with America. But
it probably will. The television footage on Thursday of Mexican
protesters stamping on the American flag was outrageous. During the
Gulf War, one Mexican newspaper was so anti-American observers
began calling it “The Baghdad Daily.”
From Beijing to Moscow to Mexico City, the same Communists and
socialists who didn’t want America to fight the Cold War don’t want
America to fight this one.
