[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 23]
[House]
[Pages 32148-32152]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




             FACTORS TO CONSIDER CONCERNING FOREIGN POLICY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 7, 2003, the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Leach) is recognized for 
the balance of the time of approximately 30 minutes as the designee of 
the majority leader.
  Mr. LEACH. Mr. Speaker, 26 months after 9/11 and 7 months after the 
conclusion of major combat operations in Iraq, America is in a 
strategic pickle and Americans are in a judgmental quandary. The issue 
of our engagement in Iraq demands that we, as a society, probe the 
question of the limits of the superpower's power and the possible 
anomaly that there are severe liabilities to power, particularly for a 
superpower. Does, for instance, overwhelming military might protect us 
from terrorism or, if used unwisely, increase our vulnerability to 
terrorism? Likewise, does overwhelming economic power ensure loyalty or 
buy friendship from the countries most indebted to the United States? 
In other words, can military and economic might ever become a 
substitute for sensible and sensitive foreign policy? And given the 
dilemma of Iraq, could it, indeed, be that the most important 
``multibillion'' problem America faces is not deficits measured in 
dollars, fiscal, or trade, but the antagonism of billions of people 
around the world who object to our current foreign policy?
  Here let me say that I strongly believe the need for clarification of 
thought as it applies to policy, and anyone who wishes to review the 
reasoning I have applied to the Iraq issue, ranging from a floor 
explanation of a ``no'' vote on the congressional resolution 
authorizing war last year to calls for internationalizing the civil 
governance in Iraq several months ago, to a vote in favor of generosity 
in reconstruction efforts several weeks ago, can find explanatory 
statements on my congressional Web site.
  What I would like to do today is summarize the dilemma we face and 
make the following points about where we might go from here.
  Point number one: there are no certitudes. Anyone who was not 
conflicted on the original decision to intervene or who does not see a 
downside to all courses of action today is not approaching the problem 
with an open mind. In an era of anger, of divisions in the world based 
on economics, on color of skin, on ethnicity, on religious belief, on 
happenstance of family and place of birth; in a world made smaller by 
technological revolutions in communications and transportation, those 
who have causes, good or bad, have possibilities of being heard and 
felt around the globe that never existed before. Great leaders like 
Gandhi and Martin Luther King appealed to the higher angels of our 
nature and achieved revolutionary change with nonviolence. Mendacious 
leaders like Hitler, Saddam Hussein, and Osama bin Laden have sought to 
impose their wills on others through appeals to hate and reliance on 
increasingly wanton instruments of oppression.
  As the world's only superpower, the U.S. has no choice but to display 
firmness of purpose and resolve in deterring inhumane breaches of 
order. Yet, firmness and resolve must be matched by compassionate 
understanding of the reasons people of the world lash out. We have the 
world's greatest Armed Forces. But these forces cannot successfully be 
deployed to counter international misconduct if we do not also seek to 
undercut the causes of such conduct.
  Reviewing the causes of World War I, historians quickly concluded 
that there was not enough flexibility in the European alliance system, 
and that this rigidity allowed a rather minor event, the assassination 
of an Austrian archduke, to precipitate a cataclysmic war. With this 
example in mind, political leaders in the 1930s erred on the side of 
irresolution, which led them to Munich and the partition of 
Czechoslovakia. Too much inflexibility caused one war; too little spine 
led to an even greater one.
  The problem today is not whether we should meet problems with 
firmness or compassion. We often need both. The problem is determining 
whether and how to respond with firmness and when and how to express 
compassion. As in all human conduct, the challenge is wisdom.
  Point number two: we must listen as well as assert. Four decades ago, 
the British author Lawrence Durrell wrote a series of novels called the 
``Alexandria Quartet'' in which he describes a set of events in 
Alexandria, Egypt preceding World War II. An experiment in the 
relativity of human perception, each of the four books views the same 
events through the eyes of a different character. While the events 
described are the same in each book, the stories

[[Page 32149]]

as seen through the lens of each of the participants are surprisingly 
different. The reader comes to the realization that a broad 
understanding about events as they transpire can only be grasped by 
synthesizing the different perceptions of various protagonists.
  To understand the Middle East today, we need to listen to everyone's 
story.
  Point number three: to shape or to deter opponents' actions, we need 
to understand how they think.
  American policymakers, at their best, reason in a pragmatic, future-
oriented manner. In much of the rest of the world, on the other hand, 
people reason by historical analogy. Events dating centuries back, 
especially umbrages, dominate thinking about today. People in the 
Middle East, as in the Balkans, are oriented to the past and are driven 
by values and ideas of honor of a very different shape and emphasis 
than those we derive from American culture. When we assume the Iraqi 
populace should accept a prolonged American presence because of our 
goodwill and desire to establish a Western-style democracy, Muslims see 
our presence as compounding grievances originating in the Crusades and, 
in some ways, even earlier Biblical times.
  Point number four: no country can go it alone for long and expect to 
be respected as an international leader.
  Doctrines of American exceptionalism, the precept that we should not 
be bound by legal or procedural norms that bind others, which are now 
fashionable in certain Washington ideological circles, have led to 
intervention in Iraq without full U.N. sanction. Ironically, prior to 
9/11, these same notions led to rejection of a Comprehensive Test Ban 
Treaty and of upgraded verification provisions for the 1972 Biological 
Weapons Convention, agreements that would have stood in the way of 
weapons of mass destruction production in Iraq and provided a legal 
basis for possible armed intervention if violations occurred. The world 
is crying out for leadership in restraining weapons development. We are 
not providing it because Washington policymakers prefer that restraint 
on others not apply to ourselves.
  Point number five: be cautious of articulating policy doctrines.
  Given the events of 9/11, consideration of preemption must 
continuously be on the table in Washington, but there is a distinction 
between needing to consider an action and setting forth a definitive 
doctrine. Here Teddy Roosevelt may have had the right adage: ``speak 
softly and carry a big stick.'' Any American President, Democratic or 
Republican, socialist, liberal, conservative, or libertarian, would not 
think more than a millisecond before ordering the Marines to 
intervention if he or she were presented information that on some 
island, somewhere, a terrorist group had gotten control of a weapon of 
mass destruction which it was prepared to explode or infilter in an 
American city. The problem is that raising a commonsense concern to the 
order of a doctrine legitimizes such a doctrine for others: China, 
India, Russia, North Korea, for example, and undercuts the premises of 
much of post-World War II international law.
  Complicating the issue is the psychological assumption that once the 
leader articulates a doctrine, especially one that bears his name, it 
is difficult to advance a policy in a given circumstance which is not 
consistent with the doctrine. Not to do so would provide critics a 
chance to suggest that a doctrine like preemption is ethereal, lacking 
meatiness ness, unless it is made real.

                              {time}  1915

  Any leader who outlines such a doctrine but chooses not to intervene 
would be open to charges of lightness or worse. Hence, the simple 
articulation of a doctrine can have the effect of biasing decision-
making in complicated circumstances. The exception might be a doctrine 
of quietude; statesmanship often should be measured by what is not, 
rather than what is, said.
  Point number six. When Washington policymakers speak on foreign 
policy, they must understand that their audience is more than one 
party's political base. While Saddam Hussein is widely perceived to be 
the worst sort of tyrant, many people around the world view us as 
bullies for attacking a sovereign country without prior armed 
provocation. That is why it is so critical that a case for intervention 
should be based in concern for the well-being of others as well as the 
United States' national interest. For foreign policy to be effective, 
it must be clearly articulated and convincing in those parts of the 
world most affected by it.
  Point number seven. We must rededicate ourselves to building up an 
intelligence capacity that better understands the Middle East and 
Islamic world and is less susceptible to being politicized. Our 
inability to understand Islamic culture resulted in the greatest 
intelligence failure of our era. It is, however, not the sole 
intelligence failure. In one of the greatest judgmental errors of our 
time, we appear to have attempted to combat the ideological posturing 
of others by slanting our own intelligence. Based on what is known 
today, policymakers not only erred in assessing Saddam Hussein's WMD 
capacities but put too much faith in a narrow cadre of ideologues who 
suggested that the U.S. would be welcomed as a liberating, rather than 
conquering or worse yet, colonizing, force in Iraq. Estimates of the 
cost of war, the ramifications of involvement, of the expected reaction 
of the population, and of the likelihood of foreign support were dead 
wrong.
  Point number eight. It is the responsibility of public officials to 
ensure that no American soldier is deployed as a defenseless magnet for 
terrorist attack or in such a way as to incite foreign radicals to 
commit terrorist acts in America itself. American soldiers have been 
trained to withstand the heat of battle in defense of America and 
American values. For 2\1/4\ centuries, no country has been more 
effectively or more courageously served by a citizen soldiery than the 
United States. In Iraq, our Armed Forces could not have performed more 
professionally or valiantly than in the initial engagement.
  But the difference between service in combat and service in 
occupation of a foreign land, especially in Islamic society, is 
profound. In Iraq, which is fast becoming for us much like Algeria was 
for the French in 1950s, our men and women in uniform are increasingly 
facing hit-and-run terrorist assaults, which are much more difficult to 
defend against than traditional military confrontations. The challenge 
of policymakers has recognized that there is a distinction between 
three endeavors: warfare, reconstruction, and occupation. Our Armed 
Forces are trained to prevail in the first, they can be helped on the 
second, but in the Islamic world no outside power is ever going to be 
well received as an occupying force. Hence, strategies that emphasize 
the first two endeavors and do not lead to a long-term reliance on the 
third should be the goal of the U.S. policymakers today.
  Point number nine. Responses to terrorism often lead to escalating 
action-reaction cycles. When our armed services become subject to 
terrorist assault, and the perpetrators disappear into their 
neighborhoods, we, like Israel, will inevitably be tempted to retaliate 
in ways that may intensify, rather than restrain, future violence. 
Calls will be made not only to use air power in urban areas but to 
double or triple troop deployments perhaps without adequate assessments 
of what such troops would be assigned to do. In conventional warfare, 
the case for overwhelming superiority, sometimes referred to as the 
Powell Doctrine, is compelling. In a terrorist setting, as in modernist 
design, less can often be more. There may be cases where deploying a 
large force to combat terrorism is appropriate, there may also be 
cases, and I believe Iraq is one, where additional soldiers simply 
become additional targets; and a different mix of strategies is both 
preferable and more effective.
  Point number ten. To defend against terrorism, especially when it is 
fueled by an explosive mix of religious and national sentiment requires 
frank acknowledgment of the nature and depth

[[Page 32150]]

of the problem. For months, the administration has suggested that the 
problem in Iraq is limited to 5,000 dissidents. This is a five-digit 
miscalculation. At least half the Muslim world, over 500 million 
people, is outraged by the U.S. Government's attitudes and action. 
Long-simmering resentment of American policies in Muslim countries like 
Indonesia as in recent months metastasized into hatred. And in Europe, 
including what the Defense Department refers to as the ``new Europe'' 
as well as in south and east Asia, respect for American policy is in 
steep decline.
  In the Vietnam War, we gave a great deal of attention to the notion 
of winning the hearts and minds of the people. We did not succeed in 
convincing the Vietnamese or world opinion of our good intentions 
despite the horrendous tactics of the Viet Cong in the communist north. 
Today, Americans must understand that in the battle for the minds of 
men, particularly in the Muslim world, we are doing less well than even 
the most difficult days of the Vietnam War.
  In this context, we would be well advised to remember America's 
original revolutionary commitment to decent respect for the monies of 
mankind.
  Point number eleven. While for the time being security in Iraq must 
remain the responsibility of U.S. military commanders in the field, we 
would be wise to put an international face on civil governance in the 
country and ask Secretary General Kofi Annan to immediately appoint a 
top civilian administrator to whom Ambassador Bremer and his staff 
would report. Transfer of interim civil authority to the U.N. would 
provide greater legitimacy to the formation of a new Iraqi government 
and encourage other countries to help with economic reconstruction and 
security requirements.
  We should also work to transfer as soon as practicable responsibility 
for internal security to troops of other nations of the Iraqis 
themselves. Transferring the police function to others is a way to 
build up Iraq's own postwar internal security infrastructure and make 
evident that the U.S. does not desire long-term control.
  Point number twelve. We should also move forthwith to transfer more 
political control to the Iraqi Governing Council and press for 
immediate elections and constitution-writing. Some argue that stability 
is more likely to be achieved with a long-term U.S. occupation. I 
believe the reverse is true. The longer we are in Iraq, the greater the 
instability there and the greater the likelihood that terrorism will 
spread to other countries, including the United States.
  Point number thirteen. America cannot cut and run politically, 
economically, or militarily; but we would be wise to announce a 
timetable for troop withdrawal by the end of next year at the latest. 
Some experts in and out of government believe that American troops 
should stay in and control Iraq at least as long as we did in Japan and 
Germany after World War II. Such a timetable, a minimum of 5 years, is 
out of sync with the times and the mood of the Islamic world.
  The world is more impatient today and Muslims in particular are more 
history-sensitive than ever before. While we assume the Iraqi populace 
accepts the American presence because of our goodwill, the Muslim world 
sees our force as the compounding of grievances dating back to the 
Crusades and more recently to the American support of Israel. The 
imagery Al Jazeera projects of Baghdad is that of another West Bank. In 
this context American commitments to ``slog on'' interminably play into 
the hands of extremists. All extremists have to do is continue blowing 
up a vehicle or two every day, thereby eliciting a military action that 
we might view as reasonable but the Islamic world is likely to see as 
heavy handed, angering the populace and emboldening further dissent.
  The longer we stay, the greater the opportunity for al Qaeda and 
radical Baath Party supporters to claim that the war is continuing and 
that they are prevailing. To prevent this, and to keep control of 
events, we would be wise to announce a withdrawal timetable that we, 
not they, control. Setting such a timetable has the effect of asserting 
that the war itself is over and we prevailed and that Iraqis cannot 
dither in establishing a legitimate elected government.
  A drawn out occupation plays into the hands of radicals. It gives 
them a rallying cry to keep up resistance in Iraq and expand terrorist 
assaults around the world. It gives them the chance to suggest that 
America is bent on continuing the crusades and, when we eventually 
withdraw, the prospect of claiming that they won the war. On the other 
hand, if we set a firm schedule for drawing down our troops, we define 
the war as being over in its 3rd week, not its 6th year. An announced 
timetable can later be modified to allow, for instance, a small force 
to remain briefly in northern Iraq to maintain sovereign cohesion. 
Timetables can also be abbreviated. But the point is that they 
underscore our reluctance to become an imperial power and, perhaps more 
importantly, our determination to control our own destiny.
  Point number fourteen. Beware of partisan critiques. Some partisans 
are implying today ill motives in Presidential leadership and have 
suggested that American actions are constitutionally frail. Such 
criticisms miss the mark. This President is sincerely committed to his 
national security responsibilities, and his policies have received 
constitutional endorsement from the Congress. Other partisans are 
taking what some might perceive as an oxymoronic, liberal, neohawk 
perspective. They suggest the problem is the administration has not 
committed sufficient troops and sufficient time to do what we want to 
do in Iraq, whatever that might be.
  The assumption is that Iraq will be a much better place if we 
aggressively occupy the country for prolonged periods of time. This 
assumption deserves review from two perspectives: the situation within 
and the political environment outside Iraq. From the first, the 
question has to be raised whether an occupying force has the effect of 
an over-stayed house guest: understandable for a short period, 
increasingly irritable with each passing day. In a domestic setting, 
house guests can at some point be pointed to the door. In Iraq, many 
have concluded that the only effective way of getting the uninvited to 
leave is to submit young soldiers to terrorist strikes and their local 
supporters to anarchist attacks.
  A response to this dilemma cannot be developed in the simple 
linguistic context of resolving to stay the course, particularly when 
no clear course has been laid out. The language of intervention was 
couched in terms of concern for weapons of mass destruction and the 
need to retaliate against the forces that precipitated the events of 9/
11. Postmortem analysis of these rationalizations put our actions in a 
questionable light. On the other hand, we must proceed from where we 
are not, where we thought we would have been. Wisdom might indicate 
that the emphasis be placed on, A, the humanitarian advantage to Iraqis 
in the region of the overthrow of Saddam Hussein; B, U.S. assistance 
and rebuilding Iraq's social infrastructure and help in bringing the 
country back into the mainstream of international politics and country; 
and, C, the laying of the groundwork for new political institutions.
  None of these three emphases necessitates 5 to 10 years of 
occupation. Indeed, the longer we are there, the more likely a Saddam-
type demagogue, albeit probably less secular, will emerge. It is true 
that the development of new civil institutions will take time, but it 
is also the case that the U.S. role in shepherding their development 
can be quickened. The judgment call we must make is whether U.S. 
leadership for change should be swift or slow paced. My sense is that 
swift actions are more likely to lead to Iraq-centric responsibility-
taking. The U.S. will inevitably be dissatisfied with postwar 
circumstances in Iraq; but the longer the conflict continues, the more 
unstable the aftermath. Iraq will become more splintered and the U.S. 
more vulnerable to hateful reaction to others.
  Another approach might be to indicate that we would expect to take 
most of our troops from Iraq within 6

[[Page 32151]]

months of Saddam Hussein's capture or death. Such a pronouncement would 
underscore that our problem is with his dictatorial regime, not with 
the Iraqi people or their religious faith. It might also provide 
incentive for the populace to help in apprehending their former head of 
state.
  Point number fifteen. It is critical to the security of our troops as 
well as Iraqi security that we create an Iraqi police force as soon as 
possible. Responsibility for domestic security is an internal, not 
external, matter. We cannot be their policemen; and if we persist in 
trying, we will make it harder for stability to be established and 
maintained. Students of international politics have for the past 
generation questioned the capacity and moral authority of any country 
to be policemen for the world. But little academic attention has been 
devoted to the challenge of being policemen within a country after the 
conclusion of conflict. We have little experience with such 
responsibility. In Japan, MacArthur relied on indigenous Japanese 
police. In post-Hitler Germany, we quickly reconstituted a German 
constabulary at most levels.
  Common sense would indicate that trying to police a country the size 
of France with soldiers unfamiliar with the language and culture of the 
society, untrained in the art of policing and unwelcome and resented in 
critical cities and towns must be a nearly impossible task.

                              {time}  1930

  Hence, the need to expedite the training of an indigenous Iraqi 
police force.
  Point number sixteen. We should announce that we have no intention of 
establishing permanent military bases in Iraq.
  Some Washington policymakers want such bases but they would be a 
political burden for any new government in Baghdad and a constant 
struggle for the U.S. to defend. Defense of American bases in Iraq from 
terrorism in the 21st Century is likely to be far more difficult than 
the challenge we first saw of maintaining United State sovereignty over 
the Panama Canal in the 20th Century.
  The reason the Department of Defense concluded in the Carter 
Administration that it was wise to transfer control over the Panama 
Canal to the Panamanians was the estimation that the canal could be 
defended against traditional aggression but not sabotage or acts of 
terrorism. It seemed wiser to respect nationalist sentiment and provide 
for gradual transfer of the canal to local control than to insist in 
quasi-colonial assertions of power.
  There are many reasons which Europeans are so smugly opposed to our 
policy in Iraq. One is historic experience to colonialism. The French 
were chased out of Algeria, the Russians, and earlier the British, out 
of Afghanistan. U.S. intervention in Iraq is seen in Europe is not too 
dissimilar to the British and French effort to reestablish control over 
the Suez Canal in 1956. It is noteworthy that the Islamic world deeply 
appreciated President Eisenhower's refusal to back the British and 
French intervention in Egypt at that time.
  Europeans now think the shoe is on the other foot. We appear 
insensitive to history. In particular, those who call for multiyear 
occupation based on the World War II model seem not to comprehend that 
the Japanese understood that they attacked us and the Germans 
understood that our intervention was precipitated by their aggression. 
Iraqis, on the other hand, look at us as the aggressors, as imposers of 
alien values. They feel our presence is only justified at their behest.
  Of all forms of government, successful occupation depends on consent 
of the governed. If it is lacking, problems are inevitable, 
particularly when and if foreign presence is of a military nature.
  Point number seventeen. Credit will remain the dominant economic 
issue until Iraq's foreign debt is reduced or cancelled.
  Neither significant private nor large-scale public credit will be 
made available to Iraqis until the burden of old debt is lifted. 
Accordingly, we should press vigorously for Saddam-era debt, which went 
largely to build palaces for Saddam's family and to buy weapons of 
aggression to be written off. We should also press to establish 
community-centered banks and credit unions where micro-credit can be 
offered.
  Oil wealth has its advantages only if revenues are used for the 
benefit of society rather than political insiders. Increasing petroleum 
production is not enough. Oil is not a labor-intensive industry. Jobs 
matter and Iraq needs bankers and small business entrepreneurs far more 
than oil barrens. We have no choice except to help rebuild Iraq's oil 
infrastructure, but we must make clear that we have no intention of 
controlling the country's oil reserves. The natural resource of Iraq 
must be treated as the patrimony of the Iraqi people.
  Point number eighteen: Economic assistance to Iraq should be front-
loaded and generous.
  War has been a constant of history, but the concept of reconstruction 
is relatively new. The 20th century gave us two vastly different 
models. At the end of World War I, the victors imposed retributive 
terms on Germany, which so angered German society that it turned to 
fascism. World War II was the result.
  The allies took a different approach at the end of World War II. 
Generosity was the watchword. The Marshall Plan was adopted to rebuild 
Europe and General MacArthur directed the reform and modernization of 
Japan. Model democracies emerged. The world was made more secure.
  The economic plan for Iraq should be two-prong, debt forgiveness 
coupled with institution building. A better world is more likely to 
emerge if the American agenda places its emphasis on construction 
rather than destruction.
  Here a note about the other reconstruction model in American history 
is relevant. With his call for malice toward none in his second 
inaugural address, Lincoln set the most conciliatory tone in the 
history of war. His successor once removed, U.S. Grant, proved to be a 
more proficient soldier than President and countenanced carpetbagging 
conflicts of interest.
  Our government today would be well-advised to recognize that neither 
history, nor the American public, approves of war or postwar 
profiteering. Great care has to be taken to ensure transparency and 
integrity in government contracts. And common sense would indicate that 
the more Iraqis are involved in rebuilding their own society, the more 
lasting such efforts are likely would be to be.
  Point number nineteen: Terrorism effects world economics as well as 
politics.
  Markets depend on confidence and nothing undercuts confidence more 
than anarchist acts. Policies designed to deter terrorism can be 
counterproductive. International disapproval of our actions may 
jeopardize our economy and diminish the credibility of our political 
leadership in the world. Increased terrorism could well have the dual 
effect of precipitating new U.S. military engagements and, ironically, 
strengthening isolationist sentiment which in turn could degenerate 
into a disastrous spiral of protectionism.
  Point number twenty: The measure of success in reconstruction is not 
the sum of accomplishments.
  During the Viet Nam War, the Pentagon gave progress reports mainly in 
terms of body counts. One of the most liberal critics of that war, I.F. 
Stone, once commented that he accepted the validity of the body counts, 
but thought that they did not reveal the big picture.
  Suppose, Stone suggested, he was walking down a street and he bumped 
into a man running out of a bank, waving a gun and carrying a satchel 
full of money and were to ask the man, ``What are you doing?'' If the 
man responded, ``I am waiting for a car,'' he would be telling the 
truth but not revealing the big picture.
  Good things are being accomplished in Iraq, particularly in the north 
where an American General has won a measure of popularity through 
progressive stabilization initiatives. Yet, terrorism cannot credibly 
be contained in the

[[Page 32152]]

arms-infested Iraqi environment. American civilians, as well as Armed 
Services personnel who have been posted to Iraq, deserve to be 
commended for their commitment and sacrifices, but prudence suggests 
that brevity of service is preferable to a long-standing presence. 
Otherwise, in a world where terrorism is a growth industry, even 
extraordinary sacrifice and significant accomplishments could be for 
naught.
  Point number twenty-one: We must respect Iraqi culture and work to 
ensure that the art and artifacts of this cradle of civilization are 
preserved for the Iraqi people.
  There are few umbrages more long-lasting than cultural theft. 
Cultural looting must be stopped, and the market for stolen antiquities 
squelched. For our part, we should ensure that Iraqi cultural sites are 
protected and that our laws are upgraded. Any stolen antiquities 
brought to America must be returned.
  Point number twenty-two: The war in Iraq should not cause us to 
forget Afghanistan.
  While the center of our military attention may at the moment be 
Bagdad, we must remember that no Iraqi was involved in hijacking the 
planes that struck the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on 9/11.
  Few countries are more distant physically or culturally from the 
United States than Afghanistan; yet, it is there the plotting for the 
terrorist acts began. The Taliban have been removed and a new, more 
tolerant government has been established; but the world community has 
not fulfilled its commitments to raise the country out of poverty and 
warlordism. The U.S. cannot continue to be complacent about economic 
and social development in that country, where foreigners have never 
been welcome. Failure of the Karzai government and a return of the 
Taliban would be a major setback in the battle with terrorism.
  Point number twemty-three: Lastly and most importantly, U.S. 
policymakers should never lose sight of the fact that events in Israel 
and Iraq are intertwined and that no challenge is more important for 
regional and global security than resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian 
dilemma.
  Extraordinarily, from a priority perspective, administration after 
administration in Washington seems to pay only intermittent attention 
to the Palestinian issue. There should be no higher priority in our 
foreign policy than a resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict. 
Attention in Washington should be riveted at all times on this singular 
problem. The current status quo is good neither for Israel nor for the 
Palestinians. Now, for the first time lack of progress in establishing 
a mutually acceptable modus vivendi between the parties may be even 
more damaging to countries not directly involved in the conflict. The 
need for U.S. leadership in pressing for peace has never been more 
urgent. It would be a tragedy if, focused as we are upon making war in 
one part of the Middle East, we neglected to give sufficient prority to 
promoting peace in another.
  In conclusion, the world is noting that we are saying and what we are 
doing. Many are not convinced by our words; many are appalled by our 
actions. Yet nothing would be worse for the world than for us to fail. 
We must not. The key at this point is to recognize the limits as well 
as magnitude of our power and emphasize the most uplifting aspects of 
our heritage: democracy, opportunity, freedom of thought and worship. 
Motives matter; so do techniques to advance our values. The lesson of 
the past year is clear: America does better as a mediator and multi-
party peace maker than as a unilateral interventionist.

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