E Pluribus Unum

Great article from Stanley Kurtz in the National Review. He does a great job of summarizing the opposing sides of the Iraq debate:

• We must take out Saddam before he secretly passes his weapons of mass destruction to al Qaeda, thus leading to a disastrous attack on America
• A war will stretch our military and domestic resources to the limit, dangerously weakening our ability to deal with future crises yet unseen.

He points out that the potential solution lies in expanding our military forces beyond their current levels; indeed the uniformed military at the Pentagon (Truman's "brass-hats") are already signalling that this is their desired objective through their currently stated reluctance to engage in a war at all. This might be, Kurtz points out, because they are concerned about the effects of a "successful WMD attack against U.S. forces."

But it also might be because they know they won't get the build-up, and they are just flat-out against putting their troops in harm's way under the circumstances. This is presumably a variation on the Powell Doctrine.

The (civilian) Pentagon hawks have an answer: a quick strike by a small force will reduce our vulnerability to such an attack. This presumably is the outlook of Rumsfeld, Cheney, et. al.

The frustrating part of this is that while we are arguing about this, Saddam wriggles off the hook. In other words: if the administration backs down now, and refuses to invade Iraq after all it has said, then Saddam will know that his weapons of mass destruction have succeeded in scaring us off. Bush understands this; but he can't say it because it plays into the hands of those who want no attack at all, i.e., the doves. Oddly enough, they are aligned in a bizarre way with the brass-hats at the Pentagon.

So Bush is in a box; indeed, Frank Rich of the NYT has said the same thing.

What to do? Kurtz says it's better to have our forces facing chemical and biological attack now, rather than to subject our troops, and the country itself, to WMD attacks when Saddam is even stronger. This would seem to mitigate for a quick strike by a smaller force. In other words, proceed with the Cheney/Rumsfeld plan; and put the long-term build-up on the back burner.

Kurtz believes that if the public saw the debate framed this way, they would side with the brass-hats in the Pentagon and fund the larger long-term build-up, including (presumably) re-institution of the draft. Personally, I'm not sure; a lot depends on POTUS' powers of persuasion. Speaking as someone who had a draft-lottery number in the early 70's I can attest to the range of emotions this option might engender.

Kurtz ends by saying this:

If we can't take action in Iraq, and keep sufficient troops on hand to deal with the consequences, we shall shortly enter a deeply dangerous new era in which proliferating weapons of mass destruction essentially neutralize America's military dominance, freeing up rogue regimes to act with impunity throughout the globe.

More than we know, this may already be happening.

I guess this is why POTUS gets the big bucks, eh?