First I am not sure what you mean by surgical approach. Had we killed Saddam, his sons would have taken over. Had we been lucky enough to kill the top leadership of the Baathist party, civil war would have errupted. But that is an academic story, we didn’t have any agents in Iraq and we didn’t know where Saddam was at any one time. Bush, with CIA info, tried to take Saddam out on the eve of the war and it turns out the strike wasn’t even close.
The cost of 9/11 was mega billions, with all the industrial shut downs and other losses. The cost of yet another 9/11 would be horrendous in both dollars and lives. The threat from al-Qaeda, Saddam, and Iran are real. They mean to change our lives and they are willing to use mass murder to make us surrender to their will.
As you know, the arguement for preemption is to pay a price now to avoid a much larger price later.
- The cost of loosing our way of life, or Europe loosing its way of life is uncalculable.
- The loss to christendom if al-Qaeda and Saddam’s plans succeed are uncalculable.
However, preemption is not done in isolation. It is a part of a much larger plan that uses many other ways to protect us. Preemption is the last resort when nothing else will work. I would recommend everyone read the [
National Security Strategy (
http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss/2006/) released Wednesday.
From the report:
It is the policy of the United States to seek and support democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world. In the world today, the fundamental character of regimes matters as much as the distribution of power among them. The goal of our statecraft is to help create a world of democratic, well-governed states that can meet the needs of their citizens and conduct themselves responsibly in the international system. This is the best way to provide enduring security for the American people.
Achieving this goal is the work of generations. The United States is in the early years of a long struggle, similar to what our country faced in the early years of the Cold War. The 20th century witnessed the triumph of freedom over the threats of fascism and communism. Yet a new totalitarian ideology now threatens, an ideology grounded not in secular philosophy but in the perversion of a proud religion. Its content may be different from the ideologies of the last century, but its means are similar: intolerance, murder, terror, enslavement, and repression.
Like those who came before us, we must lay the foundations and build the institutions that our country needs to meet the challenges we face. The chapters that follow will focus on several essential tasks.
whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss/2006/sectionI.html
…
The security environment confronting the United States today is radically different from what we have faced before. Yet the first duty of the United States Government remains what it always has been: to protect the American people and American interests. It is an enduring American principle that this duty obligates the government to anticipate and counter threats, using all elements of national power, before the threats can do grave damage. The greater the threat, the greater is the risk of inaction – and the more compelling the case for taking anticipatory action to defend ourselves, even if uncertainty remains as to the time and place of the enemy’s attack. There are few greater threats than a terrorist attack with WMD.
To forestall or prevent such hostile acts by our adversaries, the United States will, if necessary, act preemptively in exercising our inherent right of self-defense. The United States will not resort to force in all cases to preempt emerging threats. Our preference is that nonmilitary actions succeed. And no country should ever use preemption as a pretext for aggression.
Countering proliferation of WMD requires a comprehensive strategy involving strengthened nonproliferation efforts to deny these weapons of terror and related expertise to those seeking them;
proactive counterproliferation efforts to defend against and defeat WMD and missile threats before they are unleashed; and
improved protection to mitigate the consequences of WMD use. We aim to convince our adversaries that they cannot achieve their goals with WMD, and thus deter and dissuade them from attempting to use or even acquire these weapons in the first place.
whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss/2006/sectionV.html
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