perfidy

David Warren, after a month long absence, is back with a wonderful essay on where we stand in Iraq and the war on terrah. This article does a good job of explaining what the administration seems unable to do - why we are where we are.

It should be obvious to everyone why we are fighting the war on terror. That this is a necessary conflict should be clear to even the most blinkered of liberals. As I stated in the comments to one of Johno's earlier posts, the first steps of the war were the obvious ones. Al Qaida hits us. They are in Afghanistan. We hit Afghanistan. Straightforward.

After Afghanistan, we entered the area where reasonable people might differ on how to prosecute the war on terror. However, most of the opposition was predicated not on the basis of "Iraq is not the right target" but on "No war for oil" and similar idiocies. The protracted argument over the invasion of Iraq was fueled by the administration's lack of clarity and inability to articulate what is to be done, and why.

Part of this muddle was due to the decision to go to the United Nations. This forced the administration to lean its arguments in one direction - WMD - and slight the other arguments for moving on Iraq. This gave further ammunition to those who opposed the war on terror.

Steven den Beste has argued that the administration cannot tell us what the plan is, because revealing the plan would spoil it. This is true on the small scale, but not the large. We should not reveal the exact timetables and plans for an invasion. That is not only stupid but treasonous. But the larger plan, the geopolitical master scheme should be open and above board.

The more I think about this, the more I am convinced that the administration is making a serious error in not taking the larger case to the public here in the US, and to the rest of the world. Various people, including Clueless and Trent Telenko over at Winds of Change have analyzed the minutia of reports from around the world, and concluded that see the signs of the master plan. I agree, and have talked about that plan here.

The American public can be trusted with this information. In fact, it must be. If we reveal that the heart of our strategy in the War on Terror is to remake the Middle East and transform North Korea, to set a real precedent that any nation that supports terror is responsible for it, and will suffer the consequences at the hands of the civilized world, what have we given away? Nothing. If we make the case, clearly and repeatedly that those who support terrorism will be put up against the wall, it will not allow our enemies to resist our actions any better than currently.

There would be benefits for doing this. By clearly stating the our specific aims, and in broad terms our methods, we build support domestically, and co-opt or isolate opponents. The opponents of the war on terror have two choices - argue against specific decisions on grounds of whether or not that action would advance the cause (which could only help the effort, as constructive criticism is always useful) or continue as they are, and make clear that they are against the war on terror in general.

Internationally, we would not have to make the kind of tortured arguments that many have criticized. We would not need to justify an invasion on WMD, or any other single criteria. We need merely fall back on the original justification for the war on terror - and explain how whatever nation is in our crosshairs will serve the cause of peace by ceasing to exist.

The argument for Iraq is much stronger when you add in all the other reasons besides WMD. The coherence offered by stating our strategy would reassure our allies and make clear who are opponents are, while forcing our opponents to be clearer about their motives.

But the best reason for doing so is because we are a republic, and the citizens of this republic have a right to be informed and to participate in the decision making in an informed manner. The columnists and bloggers who are speculating on America's strategy are doing their best to justify the individual decisions in the war on terror, but properly, this isn't their job - it is the job of our leadership.