The New Republic has an excellent editorial out today on the moving bar for war, as Bush has complied with each objection of the anti-war left (“Gotta get Congressional approval!” “Gotta get a Security Council resolution for inspections!”), only to have the bar ratcheted further up as Iraq still fails to comply (“Gotta get another resolution!” “Gotta have more inspections!” “Gotta give Saddam yet another last chance!” “Gotta get consensus from every country on Earth!” “Gotta do the Hokey-Pokey on the Balance Beam!”).
There are too many good passages in this article to quote all of them, but one stands out.
The most curious feature of moderate anti-war sentiment, at the Times and elsewhere, is its refusal to engage with the central question: Would Iraq, if permitted to rebuild its nuclear, biological, and chemical arsenal, pose a threat to the United States? We believe the answer is yes. The example of North Korea demonstrates that when a hostile, irrational state obtains nuclear weapons, it immediately intimidates its neighbors, opens the possibility of passing such weapons to terrorists or other enemy regimes, and leaves the United States with few diplomatic tools to work with other than appeasement. Saddam’s megalomaniacal aspirations and repeated pattern of aggression make him an even less attractive candidate to join the nuclear club than Kim Jong Il.
What continues to astonish me is all the folks arguing that the US shouldn’t tackle Iraq until after (since it now is conveniently popping up as a problem) the North Korean issue is resolved. After all, isn’t North Korea a bigger threat?
Well, maybe it is — but it also has a much greater capability to inflict harm on its neighbors, between it’s ability to simply shell Seoul into a flaming wreck (as it started to do back in the 90s) to its quite possible nuclear capability. And, as the quote above points out, once a Kim (or a Saddam) has nukes, it’s too late to do much of anything.
Good reading.
(via Volokh)