[FREE IRAN Project] In The Spirit Of Cyrus The Great

[stefania]

The Year America Stood Up

December 30, 2003
The Wall Street Journal
George Melloan



As we look back on the year 2003 in America, it is clear that many things remained the same. Broadway fell back on revivals, "Gypsy," "Wonderful Town," etc. (again) and Hollywood on blood and guts "Master and Commander," "Cold Mountain," etc. (again). The same names, Tom Clancy, Danielle Steel, etc. were on the fiction bestseller lists.

But if American culture seemed stuck in a time warp, the same could hardly be said for the American view of its role in the world. It was a time of self-assertion, effectively expressed in the pre-emptive conquest of Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Whereas the Clinton administration had tried to win friends through accommodation, the Bush administration put a higher value on winning world respect for American power.

Nothing is ever certain in politics, but that effort appears to have had positive results. By the end of the year, Libya's Moammar Gadhafi, who had specialized in trouble making for a quarter century, was promising the U.S. that he would, hereafter, be a good boy. Russia was promising to forgive Iraqi debts if the U.S. let it continue to pursue business interests in post-Saddam Iraq. China, heavily dependent on U.S. trade thanks to a forward-looking U.S. grant of normal trade relations, was quietly supplying some help in keeping North Korea's Kim Jong Il in line.

In Europe, the two guys who made things tough for President Bush in the weeks leading up to the Iraq war are in eclipse. Gerhard Schroeder, the German chancellor who won re-election by exploiting the antiwar sentiments of Germans, is now trying to win his way back into the good graces of Washington. In his recent visit to New York, he told Wall Street Journal editors that he too favored the forgiveness of Iraqi debts as a German contribution to reconstruction.

The dreams of France's Jacques Chirac to be the putative leader of all Europe came crashing down, in part because of his efforts to sabotage the U.S. Iraq campaign in the United Nations Security Council. Eight national leaders in Europe responded with a letter to this newspaper supporting the U.S., effectively repudiating Messrs. Chirac and Schroeder.

If this sounds like American triumphalism, it is unintended. Events, mainly the 9/11 terrorist attacks, conspired to awaken the U.S. out of its slumber. It fell to George W. Bush to respond to international terrorism in a way demanded by outraged Americans. The degree of success he has enjoyed is owed to the quality of his foreign-policy team, the effectiveness of the U.S. military and to those national leaders who chose, at some political cost, to remain allies of the U.S. Opponents like President Chirac, Chancellor Schroeder, and Vladimir Putin -- all three motivated in part by commercial relationships with the butcher of Baghdad -- didn't realize that they were not just facing an American president, but the anger of an entire nation.

As the U.S. moves into a presidential election year, the Bush administration will be under pressure to consolidate its foreign-policy gains. American politics no longer ends at the water's edge, if in fact it ever did. The Democratic Party, particularly if Howard Dean becomes its standard-bearer, will be trying to prove throughout the year that American ventures into such inhospitable precincts as Iraq and Afghanistan were fools errands.

And indeed, Mr. Bush and his team will now find themselves dealing with not only the politics of the U.S. but also of Iraq and Afghanistan. In Kabul, a "loya jirga" constitutional assembly is trying to shape the narrow ambitions of a collection of warlords into a political system that will be capable of peaceful economic and cultural development. In Iraq, a provisional government is attempting something similar.

The best thing the U.S. has going for it in both cases is the terrible memories of the peoples of both nations of how much suffering previous regimes have brought them. The secret of success in both places will be in empowering those people to protect themselves against future demagogues and tyrants by giving them the right to select their leaders in regular elections.

That effort will be aided by frequent demonstrations that democratic societies offer a better life. One such demonstration is under way right now in Iran, yet another country suffering under a benighted leadership, in the midst of the massive earthquake devastation in the city of Bam. Rescue workers from all over the world have flocked to Bam to help dig out survivors and supply them with food, water and medical treatment. The U.S. has been in the forefront of that effort, despite its differences with the traditionalist theocrats who are trying to maintain their iron grip on the country.

Sometimes people need food, shelter and medicine. Sometimes they need military intervention to save them from a tyrannical leadership. The U.S. interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan started out as defensive counterstrikes against terrorists and a Saddam bent on acquiring weapons of mass destruction. But in the doing, there proved to be a mission just as compelling, making it possible for millions of humans to lead decent lives. American soldiers have found that to be a mission worth risks, just as the relief workers in Bam know that saving lives is an ennobling pursuit.

With its soldiers spread throughout the world, America is often said to have become the greatest imperial power in history. Perhaps so. But the test of an empire is always whether it preserves its welcome. The challenge for America in successfully managing the new responsibilities it has shouldered in 2003 will lie in whether it can, despite formidable obstacles put up by defenders of the status quo, make life better for all those who have come under the protection of the stars and stripes.
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"I'm ready to die for you to be able to say your own opinions, even if i strongly disagree with you" (Voltaire)