Washington — Have you seen the April 7 issue of Time magazine?
It appears that last week the Coalition of the Willing lost the war
— and to Iraq, not to the Red Army, not to the Wehrmacht, not
Napoleon’s Grand Army, but to Saddam Hussein’s Republican Guard.
After a more careful reading of the magazine’s coverage of the war
it appears that our forces had not by the end of the week
completely lost the war, but they had come very close. Consider
these headlines from Time. “BEST-LAID PLANS: The Iraqi
army has been neither shocked nor awed. What the allies missed and
how they missed it.” “GLOBAL AGENDA: Guerrilla warfare is a part of
America’s past — and its future.” And I especially like this
headline, “DIFFERENT EYES: Arab networks like al-Jazeera are giving
their viewers a look at the war that American TV doesn’t show.” At
least that headline is accurate.
How are we to explain Time’s defeatism just a few days
after the mightiest army on earth, having traveled half way around
the world, began decimating a force roughly equivalent to
Mussolini’s with some upgrades for the modern era? My conclusion is
that Time’s editors and reporters had suffered from too
much exposure to Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf. Surely you know who I
mean. Mr. al-Sahhaf is the bespectacled Iraqi minister of
information who, clad in a green military uniform and wearing a
black military beret, tirelessly appears before the Western press
corps to assure its members that Saddam has everything well in
hand.
The Coalition was in complete control of the skies. Its
soldiers, as the phrase has it, “owned the night.” Its armor was
rushing at top speed towards Baghdad. Yet, said the imperturbable
Mr. al-Sahhaf, “The infidels are committing suicide by the hundreds
on the gates of Baghdad.” A few days after Time had just
about given up on our fancy army with its “Shock and Awe” bluster,
the Coalition was announcing the capture of the Baghdad airport,
but Mr. al-Sahhaf said not to worry. Iraq, he cooed, had taken the
airport back with “a very innovative way of war.” If my memory
serves me well it was the same “way of war” that Saddam used in
1991, namely the Bull’s-Eye Strategy. According to the Bull’s-Eye
Strategy, Iraq’s army is to present itself as a bull’s eye to
invaders until the invaders give up from sheer boredom or from
having no more Iraqi targets to destroy.
Lately, Western viewers of Mr. al-Sahhaf’s press briefings have
begun to wonder about his grasp on reality. As American forces sped
on from the well-secured airport and into the streets of Baghdad,
the pompous know-it-all under the black beret was insisting, “We
have defeated them, in fact we have crushed them in the place of
Saddam International Airport,” which by then was no longer even
known as Saddam International Airport. And I do admire the sheer
poetry of this line, “As our leader Saddam Hussein said, ‘God is
grilling their stomachs in hell.’” Stomach might well be an Iraqi
adoption of one of M. Chirac’s haute cuisine dishes.
Obviously, Mr. al-Sahhaf is an intense partisan. His
partisanship drives him into fantasy, making him somewhat the joke
figure. By now even the editors of Time must be laughing.
As I listened to his poetizing this past week I thought to myself
of who might be the American equivalents of such a man? My
candidate is Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.).
He has said things in public that reveal a certain detachment
from terra firma. Just the other day columnist Lloyd Grove
described a Washington party given by Daschle for author David
Brock and the paperback edition of his book, Blinded by the
Right. In the book Brock admits to having lied about people
and blackmailed some. Beyond admitting to being a liar he has been
accused of being one, of writing a mendacious book, and of
betraying confidences. Yet he is a propounder of the theory that a
“conspiracy” has laid low the Democratic Party. Thus Daschle
co-hosts Brock’s party, and at it he said, “I really admire David
Brock.” “His book was given to me by President Clinton. He gave me
his own copy — which was underlined, circled, and dog-eared.”
Apparently the Boy President told Daschle, “You have got to read
this book.” Added Daschle, “It was the best advice he’s given me in
at least a couple of years. We thank David for his contribution and
hope to see more from him.” Equally important, “To any Republicans
out there: If you are willing to disavow your past and change your
ways we’ll throw a party for you as well.” I would have thought
that a joke; but the other co-host, Senate Minority Whip Harry Reid
(D-Nev.), chimed in emotively, “David, you’ve given us inspiration
to fight — and fighting we are. And I think you’ll see a new
Democratic Party in the future.” So maybe Mr. al-Sahhaf can skip a
career change back to the United Nations or to Harvard and go
directly to the Democratic National Committee, with the like-minded
rhetorician Senator Daschle and the aspiring Senator Reid, whom I
had once thought sane.
I have for decades wondered what might be the liberal equivalent
of the John Birch Society. With Senator Daschle’s emotional
efflorescence I have now found it complete with martyred patriot
and all-embracing conspiracy. The liberal equivalent of the John
Birch Society is Senator Daschle’s national Democratic Party
devoted to the resuscitation of Bill Clinton and David Brock. In
all of American history there is no precedent to such lunacy within
a national political party.
