December 21, 2003
Jesus - could the Bush Doctrine actually work?
No bombs, no threats - just “unilateral” action by the Bush Administration, not lifting US sanctions when the rest of the world was ready, but continuing to hold a tough line with a guy who’s an evil bastard in anyone’s book.
More on why inspections worked here, as opposed to Iraq:
Intelligence officials said that after the October visit, the Libyans became convinced that much was known about the weapons programs. They said that made the December visit even more productive because the Libyans were more open. Libya revealed chemical weapon stockpiles, the existence of precursor materials used to develop other nerve agents and the fledgling nuclear weapons program, with centrifuges to enrich uranium for weapons fuel. The discoveries raised the question of what countries had supplied components like centrifuges, which intelligence officials said had not been assembled in the “cascade” necessary to begin weapons-grade fuel production. The officials said that Libya had obtained long-range Scud C-type missiles, with a range of 800 kilometers, or 500 miles, from North Korea.
Even NPR was pretty open to the idea that this might have been a direct result of the combination of ‘unilateral’ sanctions and the invasion of Iraq. (I shouldn’t do that - I honestly do think that NPR is above average as far as fairness and balance go - on a par with Fox News - because they, like Fox, make it clear the perspective the reporters and commentators bring to the table. The dying networks - CNN, NBC, CBS, ABC - fail to acknowledge that their reporters have any bias at all.)
In related news, I heard a Beeb commentator complaining that the Israelis weren’t sticking to the roadmap (Like the Palestinians were even pretending to…) when they announced a potential unilateral withdrawal from large parts of the West Bank.
It may not be pretty, but the Bush Doctrine (short form: “F’em, I’m going to do what I think is right”) seems to be working better than the UN model (short form: “Who’s got the next round of taxpayer financed drinks?”) has in 60 years.
Posted by jank at December 21, 2003 9:07 PM