THE BEST COALITION THAT MONEY CAN BUY

February 19, 2003 - In 1991 America went to war, fought a quick campaign, declared victory and came home. It was a righteous war, if unfinished, to repel aggression and was supported by a broad based coalition of nations and an overwhelmingly bi-partisan majority of the American people. It was costly – an estimated $60 Billion – but that cost was shared by America’s allies. In the aftermath the American economy slipped into recession and an Administration that had enjoyed a popularity unmatched since Franklin Roosevelt saw that popularity evaporate by election day.

Today America’s sons and daughters are again deployed in the desert along with their British cousins. No one can predict the cost of the new war and there are no allies in the “Coalition of the Willing” who are willing to contribute. The economic engine of the Ship of State is already choked for fuel and running only at half speed as a result. Turkey, who geography has made our most essential ally whose territory is that most necessary rallying point for a successful campaign is demanding two thirds of the cost of the First Iraqi War for its permission to use the ground. We will fight the Second Iraqi War with one flank protected by an ally whose loyalty we bought and who can be relied upon only so long as the check clears the bank.

It is reported today that Iran has sent its Shia surrogate army into Northern Iraq to “defend Iran” by grabbing territory in advance of an American invasion. The Mullahs are already on the march. We look to a battle field flanked on the east by another hostile pole of the President’s Axis of Evil with the west flank anchored in Syria’s shifting sand.

There is no doubt that the American Caesar has crossed his Rubicon. The dogs of war are straining at the leash waiting only the signal that they know is coming. This is not his father’s war. It will not be fought with his father’s strength or for his father’s cause. The Second Iraqi War will be only the opening campaign in that wider war already commenced and unfinished on the plains of Afghanistan.

It will be a war that America cannot afford to lose and to which it dare not commit all of its strength. Across the world another army is poised to strike and it, we believe, has the present capacity to use those weapons we most fear. America, we are assured, has the present capacity to fight that two theatre war that our fathers and grandfathers fought.

No doubt we can, but we must pay the cost. We must pay it in American blood to irrigate the sands of Iraq and the fields of the Korean peninsula. We must pay it in treasure to provide the resources that the campaigns will require. We cannot afford to shift the cost of this war to generations yet unborn. If the President can summon up the courage to send American boys and girls to die he must also find the guts to put America’s economy on a war footing at home.