Hope in war

At the beginning of the 20th century, Theodore Roosevelt implored Americans to assume gamely the new international responsibilities that went with increased power. "Warlike intervention by the civilized powers," he contended, "would contribute directly to the peace of the world."\nI cite these words with particular approval today, in an era with scant receptivity to the notion of global obligations. But the idea, long perpetuated by those who seek a "Department of Peace," that Roosevelt's contention no longer applies is fantasy. Americans must register their opposition to those in the "antiwar" movement who claim, even at this late date, that peace is the answer. It isn't.\nFew thoughtful people believe that America can afford to revert to a pre-Sept. 11, 2001, worldview. Fewer still believe that barbarous regimes can be cured bereft of American involvement -- and, yes, ultimately "warlike intervention." It is no coincidence that America has no "exit strategy" from its commitment to the transformation of the Middle East. Regime change, after all, was never intended to be the end of that commitment. It is the beginning.\nIt's a good thing that this is so, as President Bush insisted in his elegant second inaugural, because the security of our own liberty depends upon its export. Natan Sharansky, a key spokesman for Soviet immigrant Jews, has praised this "linkage" (that a foreign regime's external behavior cannot be detached from the internal degree of its human rights). His case rests on one simple superseding fact: Not only is coexistence with implacable regimes not desirable, it is, by definition, not possible. These regimes intend our destruction.\nThe war, at this stage, still involves grisly Iraqi Baathists, but it is increasingly against the foreign Bin-Ladenists. Lest we forget, wicked and violent enemies seek to engage us in battle. Self-respect obliges us to accommodate them. The experience acquired in Afghanistan and Iraq will be quite profitable in future combat with Islamic renegades, for the war on terror is poised to continue well beyond Kabul and Baghdad. There is a clear alternative to finishing this war, of course: surrender. \nAnd this is what prominent members of Congress wish us to do. Democrats focused on how President Bush took America to war in Iraq, and Republicans who worried about whether the war would exact a political price in next November's elections contend that American forces in Iraq are the problem instead of the solution. The debate over the war has thus taken a fateful turn. The key issue is no longer how best to succeed in Iraq but how best to abandon it. But power, like nature, abhors a vacuum. Those who seek to draw down our forces evidently will not lose sleep when al-Qaida's chief in Iraq, Mr. Zarqawi, fills the ensuing void -- and hence wish to prepare a firm date for him to do so. \nThese less coherent critics of the Bush administration chide it for its "warlike" intervention. The unarticulated premise of this is that the preceding era, when terrorists and a host of rogue regimes in charge of failed states went unmolested, was a benign status quo. If that period was one of peace, then it really was time, in the 11th hour, to give war a chance.