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 Recent commentary from National Journal: Media: His Finest Hour (September 24, 2002) Where Winston Churchill stands depends on where the newsies using him sit. By William Powers. Social Studies: Once Again, a President Bush Saves the U.N. From Its Friends (September 24, 2002) The genius of Bush's speech was to show that the U.N.'s credibility, far more than the U.S.'s, is at stake. By Jonathan Rauch. Legal Affairs: When Affirmative Action Is Nothing But Discrimination (September 24, 2002) Of the 43 people who had been hired or promoted, 42 were African-American or female. One was a white male. By Stuart Taylor Jr. The Devils and their Details (September 17, 2002) The New Yorker's piece on Ayman al-Zawahiri was particularly revealing. By William Powers. Legal Affairs: Invading Iraq Wouldn't Necessarily Make Us Safer (September 17, 2002) Bush should hold off on military action until it's clear that arms inspections are not the answer. By Stuart Taylor Jr. Political Pulse: Not Yet Written on the Wind (September 17, 2002) No sign a strong force will blow in either party's favor this year. By William Schneider. More from National Journal. |
Political Pulse 
A Question of TimingWhat's the reason that Bush waited until September to make his case against Iraq? by William Schneider .... One big question hangs over President Bush's Iraq policy: Why, nearly 12 years after the Persian Gulf War, is it suddenly so urgent for the United States to go after Saddam Hussein? Unless people see a new threat or provocation, many are left to conclude that politics is driving Bush's Iraq offensive. Here's what Vice President Cheney had to say about that idea on NBC News' Meet the Press: "The suggestion that I find reprehensible is the notion that somehow we saved this and now we've sprung it on [Congress] for political reasons." Nevertheless, some people in very high places are wondering whether political forces may be driving the United States to act unilaterally. For example, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said just before Bush addressed the General Assembly on September 12, "For any one state, large or small, choosing to follow or reject the multilateral path must not be a simple matter of political convenience." What's the political convenience? Clinton White House political strategist Dick Morris spelled it out in a recent column in the New York Post: "Polls show that only one issue works in Bush's favor: terrorism." Does Morris think the president is "wagging the dog" to divert attention from other issues? "He doesn't need to wag the dog," Morris wrote. "He just needs to talk about wagging it to make the impact to keep control of Congress." Even the White House has hinted at a political strategy, as long ago as last January, when Bush political strategist Karl Rove told the Republican National Committee, "We can go to the country on this issue, because they trust the Republican Party to do a better job of protecting and strengthening America's military might and thereby protecting America." Why did the administration wait until September to make its case against Iraq? White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. told The New York Times, "From a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in August" when many people are on vacation. Sounds like an "Iraq rollout" strategy. In his speech to the United Nations, Bush tried to shut down the political speculation. He insisted that there is a new threat. "Should Iraq acquire fissile material, it would be able to build a nuclear weapon within a year," he warned. But if the threat is truly imminent, why doesn't the United States act immediately? Why wait for the United Nations and Congress? For one thing, the evidence is not that clear-cut. "They haven't provided the evidence [Iraq] has that capability," House Democratic Whip Nancy Pelosi of California commented after the president's U.N. speech. To those who want more evidence, the White House response is that we can't afford to wait for a smoking gun to turn up. "We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud," National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice warned. Critics insist that a U.N. resolution is essential, even before Congress takes action. "Why in the world would the president of the United States or this country want to do this alone?" asked Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb. "This is an issue about the United Nations being against Iraq, not the United States against Iraq." The answer came from Senate Republican Leader Trent Lott of Mississippi, who demanded of Congress, "Are we going to wait for [the United Nations] to take action before we show that we agree with our own administration?" Many Democrats have been urging a postponement of the Iraq vote in Congress until after the midterm election. One of them is Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., who said, "I think it would be a much more thoughtful and constructive and nonpartisan debate if it takes place after the election." To which Lott replied, "I do think the Democratic leadership looks a little funny on this issue when, after saying, 'We must be on board, we must be informed, we must have a debate, we must vote,' now that it looks like we may be asked to vote, it's, 'Oh, oh, oh, oh, we didn't mean now.' Well, when?" Much of the discomfort in Congress and in the rest of the country has to do with the fact that the administration is talking about a pre-emptive strike—a policy that seems out of line with American tradition. The administration's argument is that the United States can't sit around and wait for the other side to commit an atrocity, that the United States made that mistake before—on September 11, 2001. Remember the argument a few weeks ago over whether the administration failed to "connect the dots" before the terrorists struck? Lott alluded to it when he said on this September 11, "I don't want us to be in a position weeks or months from now where we say, 'How come you didn't connect the dots? What did you know and when did you know it?' We know plenty right now." The politically loaded question "Why now?" comes with the new doctrine of pre-emptive strikes. Whenever a president threatens a pre-emptive strike, people will ask, "Why now? Could the president be doing this for political reasons?" To those who smell politics in this case, the administration has a ready response to throw them on the defensive. "Sure, a crisis over Iraq may benefit the president politically. So what? There's no reason an issue of this magnitude should not be the focus of a political campaign. What's wrong with that?"
What do you think? Discuss this article in the Politics & Society conference of Post & Riposte. More from National Journal. More on politics and society in Atlantic Unbound and The Atlantic Monthly. William Schneider is the Cable News Network's senior political analyst. He is also a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C., and a contributing editor for the Los Angeles Times, National Journal, and The Atlantic Monthly. His column appears every week in National Journal, a weekly magazine covering politics and government published in Washington, D.C. For information on National Journal Group publications, see NationalJournal.com. Copyright © 2002 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved. |
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