NO HAMLET HE:

Sticking to his guns: For George Bush, war with Iraq is not just a matter of policy. It's a moral imperative (Kenneth T. Walsh, 3/10/03, US News)

It was supposed to be just a routine meeting. But the Oval Office tete-a-tete with the president of Latvia on February 17 had an enduring impact on George W. Bush. "Let me talk to you about the issue of Iraq," the president told Vaira Vike-Freiberga as he began his pitch for disarming or removing Saddam Hussein. But the Latvian leader interrupted him. "There's no need for that," Vike-Freiberga said; Latvia supports the need for regime change in Baghdad. "For 50 years, the democracies slept while we lived under repression and tyranny," she explained, referring to Soviet domination of the Baltics and Eastern Europe after World War II. The same fate, she added, should never befall another country.

As his policy comes under increasing attack, President Bush takes comfort in such moments. In private, he has told of his meeting with the Latvian president, contrasting it with the views of those who don't believe that ousting Saddam would also help the Iraqi people. Bush finally made that case forcefully in public last week and pressed two larger points. "Success in Iraq could also begin a new stage for Middle Eastern peace and set in motion progress towards a truly democratic Palestinian state," Bush said. "The passing of Saddam Hussein's regime will deprive terrorist networks of a wealthy patron that pays for terrorist training and offers rewards to families of suicide bombers."

Bush is as committed to removing the Iraqi despot as he is to any goal of his presidency. "He is in a zone," White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer told U.S. News. "He is comfortable. He is resolute. He knows what he wants to do. It's a question of whether Iraq will completely disarm and whether or not the U.N. will act."

"Take 'em out." This kind of certainty worries some of Bush's critics. "In many ways, he's an evangelist," historian Robert Dallek says. "He is not prone to deep thinking. He thinks he has all the right answers, that the Lord is on his side, and that he's doing God's work."

All this contrasts with the way Bush's father handled the run-up to the Persian Gulf War more than a decade ago. George H. W. Bush worked tirelessly to build and maintain an international coalition and was careful to use secular language in arguing his case. The elder Bush also did his share of soul-searching about the moral issues involved. At one point, after his Episcopal bishop opposed war with Iraq, the elder Bush ordered his staff to research various theories of "just war," going back to theologians like Augustine and Thomas Aquinas. In the end, he concluded his course was correct.

For George W. Bush, things seem a lot simpler. A family friend and former adviser to his father says Bush the candidate was largely ignorant about the Mideast but eager to find quick, easy answers. When he was asked in a Republican presidential debate Dec. 3, 1999, in New Hampshire what he would do if Saddam Hussein were found to be building weapons of mass destruction, he had a blunt reply: "I'll take 'em out." That's pretty much his policy today.

Building on Bush's instinct for action, the initial road map in the Mideast was provided by hawks like Vice President Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, and, more recently, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice. "What they believe," says the former White House adviser, "is, `We know best.' "

This culture of certitude fits perfectly with Bush's born-again Christian belief that there is good and evil in the world and that everyone must take sides. Saddam, in Bush's mind, is evil personified--made all the worse because the dictator once tried to assassinate Bush's father.

Here's a horrifying thought: imagine the arguments a Bill Clinton or a Mario Cuomo would be having with himself about this course of action. Then imagine someone that tormented trying to sell the policy and instill confidence in those who are expected to follow him. Special providence indeed. Posted by Orrin Judd at March 1, 2003 9:44 PM