Christopher piece is a reminder of how bad things would be under Democrats

Bill Kristol:

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Christopher's piece needs to be read to be believed. It needs to be read as an example of the fatuousness of liberal elite opinion about the world we live in. That opinion is dominant in the Democratic party--and, unfortunately, has penetrated the Bush State Department more than one would wish. Still, Christopher's op-ed is such a convenient reminder of how much worse things could be that one wonders whether he's on Karl Rove's payroll.

He's probably not. After all, this is the man who, as secretary of state, allowed ethnic cleansing to go on far too long in the Balkans, presided over humiliations in Somalia and Haiti, did nothing in the face of genocide in Rwanda, didn't respond to terror at Khobar Towers, and allowed Hafez al-Assad to treat him as a supplicant. He's back, basically articulating the line of the non-Lieberman wing--that is, 95 percent--of the Democratic party.

What's his line? That "we should focus our efforts on stopping the killing." How? Three recommendations. First, "an immediate cease-fire must take priority, with negotiations on longer-term arrangements to follow." In other words, the fact that one of the warring parties is a state that had withdrawn from occupied territory and was scrupulously complying with its obligations, and the other is a terror group that was arming itself to the teeth and killing and kidnapping citizens of a neighboring country, is irrelevant. And the notion that a terror group should be in any way disadvantaged by the "longer-term arrangements to follow," that the terrorists should pay any price for their actions, is nowhere suggested by Christopher. Indeed, he is so much the Compleat Diplomat that he never mentions the incident that caused the outbreak of hostilities: Hezbollah's attack across the Israel-Lebanon border.

Second: "If a cease-fire is the goal, the United States has an indispensable role to play." The highlighting of U.S. indispensability is a (moderately clever) way of disguising the fact that Christopher wants the United States to yield in its view of the Middle East conflict to the Europeans and the United Nations. What does U.S. indispensability mean to Warren Christopher? That only we can muscle the Israelis into an agreement, and that "the Europeans are unlikely to participate in a multinational enforcement action until the United States commits to putting its own troops on the ground." In other words, what is indispensable is not a distinctively American view of the situation or the exercise of American leadership. It is helping the international community to impose an evenhanded settlement on Israel and Hezbollah.

Third: The United States has to engage in "direct dialogue" with Syria, since Syria has "more leverage over Hezbollah's actions than any other country save Iran." And what about Iran? Christopher leaves unsaid what would undoubtedly be his recommendation: direct engagement without conditions with that regime as well. He does write, "as the situations with North Korea and Iran confirm, refusing to speak with those we dislike is a recipe for frustration and failure." It would, I suppose, be undiplomatic to mention North Korea's missile launches and Iran's nuclear weapons program. They just happen to be nations "we dislike."

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This is why they should not be trusted with national security. Their first impulse is to give away the store to get peace for a few hours, instead of achieving something that will endure. What endures from their efforts is war without end punctuated by new cease fire agreements every now and then.