Stardate 20021231.1633

(Captain's log): People who oppose an American operation in Iraq, no matter why, have been attempting to apply every weapon in the book, with notable lack of success. To some extent the kinds of antics in which they engage has indicated the moral failure of their position, because they have been trying to avoid the real issues.

One approach is to attempt to distract us. That's been tried at least three times by various groups. The first attempt was to try to claim that we couldn't even consider attacking Iraq until after we'd somehow straightened out the situation in Israel with the Palestinians. That was in part something pushed by Iraq itself, which has simultaneously been doing everything it can to try to keep the situation there stirred up. Other Arab nations pushed the same idea, and the hope that it could distract us was definitively crushed by Bush's milestone policy change towards the Palestinians last June, which declared that the US was through even attempting to negotiate with the Palestinians until after they implemented substantial reform, including booting Arafat. And since that time, the US has indeed refused to become bogged down in yet another round of completely futile negotiations to settle an issue which really can't be settled until events cause one side to make serious concessions.

Another is a common complaint that "attacking Iraq will distract us from fighting against terrorism". It's somewhat specious, for a couple of reasons. First, the shadow war against terrorism, which involves hunting for money and hunting for particular individuals, requires an entirely different set of resources than the operation in Iraq, and they won't conflict with each other. Second, the ultimate war is more than just "fighting terrorism" in the sense of "fighting al Qaeda". The real danger to us comes from something much deeper and more widespread and I believe that it can't ultimately be settled without conquest of Iraq. In any case, that particular argument hasn't had much political impact.

Now we've got a third one. With the sudden rise in tensions on the Korean peninsula, the new cry is that we must not attack Iraq until after we've figured out what to do about North Korea. Former Secretary of State Warren Christopher proposed this idea in an editorial in today's NYTimes, where he also tries to distract with rhetoric about "fighting terrorism". (The government of Iraq is also making similar arguments.)

To some extent what we're looking at is a diplomatic equivalent of "CalvinBall", where the rules change constantly and people try to manipulate the rules to their own advantage.

All of these people are attacking the strong side of the fortress. What they don't seem to have realized is that Bush is the anti-Clinton. Clinton was ephemeral; Clinton distracted easily. Clinton took the short view and was concerned with the day-to-day. One of the distinguishing features of foreign policy under the Bush administration has been its consistency and the extent to which it is inexorable. Once Bush seems to have picked a direction, it is very hard to make him veer off, and that is what all these people are trying to make him do. Christopher himself was Secretary of State under Clinton, and seems to be trying to advocate that Bush become as distractible as Clinton was. It's hard to believe that anyone in the White House gives a tinker's damn for what Christopher thinks. (And having it printed in the NYTimes probably didn't help any.)

Those opposing the war are also beginning to adopt the "big lie" stratagem. Reuters has definitely been doing something of that. For instance, as often as they reasonably can they've included comments to the effect that UNSC Res 1441 mandates a second UNSC resolution before we can actually attack, which is manifestly untrue. It was the position of the US Government from the very first, announced within the first few hours after 1441 was passed, that it did not require any further authorization. And once the Iraqi umpteen-thousand-page report was given to the UNSC and it turned out to mostly be recycled material from a previous report, with little new information and much known to be missing, Reuters began to declare that 1441 required an actual interference with inspections and that having the report be incomplete was not itself adequate. (Reuters has also tried to claim that either UNMOVIC or the IAEA had to declare that flaws in that report were adequate to be considered "material breaches".)

Reuters now strikes again. It reports on a press conference held by Bush in Texas with the following three paragraphs:

Confronted with a nuclear challenge from North Korea and the possibility of war with Iraq, President Bush resolved on Tuesday to try to find peaceful solutions to both in 2003.

His New Year's eve vow came even as the United States built up its military presence in the Gulf region and the communist regime in Pyongyang added a fresh twist to the Asian nuclear