WASHINGTON — I suppose it will be considered highly
outre for me to say it, but I shall say it anyway. The
President spoke quite well in his press conference yesterday, and
was very gentlemanly when he caught one of the journalists
interrogating him in an embarrassing malapropism. The hack asked
him to be “reflexive” about the war in Iraq when the word he meant
to use was “reflective.” Critics of the White House press corps
will understand the slip. Most of these hacks are reflexive even on
those rare occasions when they make an elementary effort at being
reflective. In fact, their thought processes are almost wholly
reflexive.
“Very impressive,” is how the British historian and journalist
Paul Johnson found this president a week ago when the president
conferred on him a “Presidential Medal of Freedom.” Yesterday in
his press conference Mr. Bush lived up to Johnson’s assessment.
One of the salient messages to be taken from this press
conference is that the White House is now engaged in a far-ranging
reevaluation of America’s military posture. That is all to the
good. However, I am not sure I would adopt the drastic measures
being suggested by some of the critics of this war, for instance
the bellicose Senator Edward (Teddy) Kennedy. Reevaluating our
tactics and strategy is appropriate, though we should resist the
drift of the Massachusetts senator’s taunts about the Iraq war
dragging on longer than our war with Germany and Japan. Yes,
senator, the United States could end this war as expeditiously as
we ended World War II, but the use of nuclear weapons on Iraqi
cities is not the way to do it. Really Senator Kennedy in old age
has become frighteningly hotheaded, and it is not reassuring to see
that other Democrats — for instance Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi —
are also recommending the brevity of World War II as more desirable
than our more moderate pace in Iraq. They are a reckless lot.
They are also impatient, which is one of the reasons that I too
have given thought to a revision in our military posture. The
strong consensus among Republicans and Democrats when we sent
troops into Afghanistan was apparently misleading. At first it
looked as though all Americans were going to stand with the
president to defeat the reemergence of right-wing aggressors, this
time in the form of Baathists in Iraq and Islamofascists in
Afghanistan. But apparently at least the Democrats do not have the
patience to pacify these conquered countries. For a certitude they
lack the stomach for Franklin Roosevelt’s goal of transforming Nazi
Germany and militaristic Japan into democracies.
The Democrats’ abandonment of this war makes it apparent that an
entirely new strategy is necessary if our military is to be used to
achieve our diplomatic goals. The military has demonstrated that it
is sufficiently powerful to smash any aggressor anywhere on earth,
but American public opinion is not sufficiently resolute to sustain
a commitment of American troops in hostile environs. Thus we must
adopt a strategy that recognizes the impatience of public opinion,
as well as public opinion’s enthusiasm during the initial stages of
combat.
My suggestion is that the Pentagon, the State Department, and
the White House adopt what might be called the Strategy of the Bar
Room Brawler (SBRB). According to SBRB, if a foreign government is
not amenable to our diplomatic requests we simply bust the joint
up. Photographs of what we accomplished in Serbia merely with
airpower and in Iraq with airpower and armor ought to persuade even
a stubborn fellow like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that if he continues to
displease us his office will be a wreck. And if he plans to drive
home or even take public transportation, forget about it. Tehran’s
infrastructure will be a mess overnight. Within a few months our
lightning-quick military could turn much of Iran into a ruin, and
according to the protocols of SBRB our troops would be home in no
time.
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton would still be in her cheering
stage as our troops headed home. And with our troops safely home
from Iran we would not even have to clean the place up. Leave that
thankless task to the French and the Germans. With the money we
save we could get on with busting up Syria.
The Cold War had the strategy of Containment. For a while
Washington talked up other strategies, “Brinkmanship” and “Roll
Back.” The demands of history change. The Cold War was not as
dominated by instant gratification as the present. The mentality of
many Americans and the enormous capacity for destruction of our
military can be wedded for a very effective and exciting strategic
doctrine. “Bust the place up and be gone” — that can be the slogan
for the Strategy of the Bar Room Brawler. After a few beers surely
Senator Kennedy will see the sense of it.
