TheSkiffView
FAILURE
U.S. should not go at war alone

Any lingering questions have now been answered: Unless Saddam Hussein leaves Iraq, the United States will go to war with Iraq — without U.N. support — to remove him from power.

Diplomacy has failed. Whether President Bush’s stature among the American people will diminish is unclear. But his prestige in the court of worldwide public opinion will be irreparably damaged — and so might America’s.

By failing to win U.N. approval, President Bush managed to do the impossible — he lost a public relations battle with a sadistic dictator. Peace protesters have not marched against a man who starves and kills his own people, but instead have held demonstrations against the president of a nation that billions have immigrated to for its freedom and opportunity.

It’s not just a few stubborn countries that have refused to go along with war; much of the world is against us. And this comes just a little more than a year after goodwill toward America had reached new heights because of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

But that moral authority has been squandered by an air of arrogance that surrounds the administration.

From the beginning, this administration has shirked multilateralism. Bush rejected participation in treaties on global warming and biological weapons, withdrew from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty, increased steel tariffs and has shown disdain for the opinions of other nations.

And now the hen has come home to roost.

A war to disarm Iraq is just, making it all the more amazing Bush could not convince more nations to support such a war.

Hawks argue that if a war is justified, so is unilateralism. They’re right on that point, but they ignore what should be an important clause — only if every available alternative has been exhausted.

From the earliest stages of diplomacy, Bush made it clear he would act with or without the United Nation’s blessing. By doing so, he essentially said the concerns of other nations do not matter.

Diplomacy, most experts will tell you, is an art of give and take — something Bush has sneered by bullying and bribing dissenters for support. But in the end Bush couldn’t twist every arm.

The administration may soon discover something most of us learned on the playground: Even if you’re the biggest kid on the block, you still need to listen to the other kids because no matter how strong you are, you might need their help someday.

The United States will easily defeat Saddam but it cannot go it alone forever, especially if it wants to win a War on Terrorism. Should America ever stumble, nobody may be there to pick us up.