Shock & Awe

Shock & Awe

the frisson of america's "shock and awe" phase of the iraqi war was felt by even the jaded, war-tested, ink-stained wretches "embedded" with the troops, reporters like peter arnett and john burns of the new york times who wrote of the "almost biblical power" inflicted on baghdad by american missiles.

so to avoid being awestruck we acknowledge reasons for caution: it is early in the war, murphy's law was invented for military operations, the fighting will probably get tougher in baghdad, we may yet face bio/chemo attacks and lose large numbers of men, and there are angry demonstrations against the u.s. throughout the arab and the larger world.

having acknowledged that, this war has been and will continue to be a spectacular success. it was not only the fearsomeness of the bombing that so impressed arnett and burns but its precision. as comically one-sided as the first gulf war was it is clear that gulf war part deux is not your grandfather's gulf war.

we are four generations more technologically advanced than we were in 1991. we can now read a newspaper headline from our space satellites (ana identify a wounded dictator on a stretcher), the target range of our smart bombs has been reduced from several meters to less than a meter, and we no longer have to destroy civilian infrastructure to destroy military command and control. burns spoke on cnn friday of watching the fusillade from a hotel balcony just a few hundred yards away and feeling perfectly safe. television images routinely show the incongrous site of street lights on in the east half of the city while the west, military, side burns.

the surprise opening salvo wednesday night against hussein personally and senior iraqi leadership was a spectacular preview of the power and concentration of american bombing. hussein is either dead or wounded. in that one brief, opportunistic foray we may have decapitated the iraqi regime.

it is now more true than it was a year ago when paul kennedy wrote in the aftermath of the afghan campaign that american military dominance is the greatest since at least the roman empire, perhaps the greatest the world has ever seen.

"from those to whom much is given, much is expected." we should use our power to make the world safe for ourselves and our values by (1) remaking the entire middle east. (2) reconfiguring the international diplomatic and alliance structure and (3) solidify the nascent bush doctrine of preemption into a grander framework such as the "international federalism" proposed on this site last june.

for fifty years the arab-israeli conflict has smoldered without resolution, causing the deaths of thousands. diplomacy, whether from the u.s. or the u.n. has failed. only the u.s. with it's military and economic power and trust by both sides can end this conflict once and for all. all sides, the palestinian, israeli, and american, have committed themselves to the establishment of a palestinian state. now one should be imposed. we should tell israel that a demilitarized palestinian state will be established on the entire west bank now. israel should be told to remove the settlers and we should offer to pay for some or all of the cost of the resettlement. we should tell israel that if they do not agree to this that we will immediately cease all military and economic aid.

we should tell the palestinians that they are to get their state but that it will be demilitarized, there will be seperation of church and state at least to the extent as in turkey and that will be no teaching or preaching of hatred of jews or other religions. we should tell the palestinians that if they do not agree, or if such a state becomes a staging ground for guerilla attacks on israel, that we shall permit and assist if necessary, israel in forcibly and permanently annexing the entire west bank and relocating the palestinians to jordan, or killing those who resist.

throughout the islamic world--for are at war with islam--from saudi arabia to egypt to jordan, libya, syria, iran yemen, pakistan and indonesia, we should tell governments that the teaching and preaching of hatred of jews and others will stop or we will topple their regimes. islam is going to have reformation forced upon it. we should tell pakistan and saudi arabia that if they cannot get control of the lawless regions in their countries and the terrorist training camps, that we will do it.

we should bomb any suspected sites of wmd facilities in the arab world, such as the nuclear site in iran.

we should withdraw from nato, a position long-advanced here and reconfigure our alliances to reflect the post-cold war realities. in our conflict with the islamic civilization for intance our permaent alliance would consist of the united states, great britain, and israel. we should negate our treaty obligations with taiwan and south korea and encourage japan to remilitarize.

we should withdraw from the united nations, another relic of the cold war. its failure to deal with the iraqi problem has made its league-of-nations impotence apparent.

there should be severe, temporary, symbolic diplomatic sanctions against the coalition of the unwilling--france, germany, russia, and china. they opposed u.s.-british military action simply as an attempt to increase their power and diminish america's. that attempt has failed. perhaps a temporary break of all diplomatic relations as a political "shock and awe" tactic, or at least the recall of our ambassadors should be done.

how radical. how unrealistic. how naive.

these things will happen, at least some of them and at least in some form. there will be a palestinian state established, our military involvement in the arab countries will not end with regime change in iraq. listening to the talking heads last night there is forming a critical mass of respected conservative opinion now calling for withdrawal from the united nations and on the, or to the, left, thomas friedman famously advocated france's eviction from nato last month.

morton kondracke, fred barnes and charles krathammer have advocated an aggressive remaking of the middle east. the administration has already adopted preemption as a principle of action and it is predicted here that they will use it against north korea, and should usse it against iran if that principle is to mean anything.

we have been hamstrung too long by geopolitical stare decisis. the rotten structures, alliances and thinking of the ancien regime should be kicked over by the one world power that can do it, the only nation that has ever been able to do it, not to establish a pax americana but to clear the world's landscape of dictators who threaten our security, of weapons of mass destruction that threaten humanity and to allow peoples the world over their right to self-determination.

-benjamin harris