The Best Defense 

WILLIAM SAFIRE / NY Times 14apr03

WASHINGTON—"The best defense is a good offense." That favorite saying of heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey gets a half-million hits on Google, including George Washington in 1799: "Offensive operations, often times, is the surest, if not the only means of defence."

That's the essence of our new policy of pre-emption as a last resort. If threatened by a regime harboring terrorists or likely to provide them with mass-murder weaponry, the U.S. will not wait to gain world sympathy as the victim, but will defend itself by striking first.

That power to protect ourselves — and our will to use that power — was established in Afghanistan and driven home in Iraq. Dangerous dictators elsewhere as well as fair-weather friends no longer doubt America's seriousness of purpose.

First dividend of our new credibility can be seen in a sudden shift in attitude in and around North Korea. For six months we resisted paying another round of blackmail to Pyongyang for more of its nuclear duplicity. Instead, we called on its neighbors — Russia, China and South Korea — to join us in multilateral pressure to stop the North's nuclear buildup. They pretended it was solely America's problem, not their own.

While defeating Saddam, we let it be known that the U.S. was prepared to pull our 37,000 tripwire troops out of harm's way along the demilitarized zone, opening the possibility of an air assault on plutonium production. In addition, we hinted we would help Japan and Taiwan build their own missile shields, diminishing the strategic power of China and Russia.

Lo! Reminded by Under Secretary of State John Bolton that rogue states like North Korea should take Saddam's lesson to heart, our sunshine allies suddenly decided the U.S. meant business.

In return for our not pressing the feckless U.N. Security Council to condemn the North for tearing up its nonproliferation treaty (toothless U.N. resolutions have become mere publicity stunts), the Chinese finally agreed to put diplomatic and economic heat on their reckless neighbor across the Yalu River.

Then Vladimir Putin, rattled by Paul Wolfowitz's mild suggestion that Russia forgive the $8 billion arms bill run up by Saddam's Iraq, ordered his foreign ministry to state ominously that Pyongyang's nuclear threat "goes categorically against Russia's national interests."

Kim Jong Il may be crazy but he's not stupid. With one end of the axis down, his father's many heroic statues look a little shaky. His South Korean counterpart, Roh Moo Hyun, whose own attitude toward the U.S. has undergone an after-Saddam epiphany, says that Kim was "petrified" by the speedy U.S. victory.

Yesterday, a Washington Post headline read "North Korea Drops Its Demand for One-on-One Talks With U.S." Although derided as bellicose by Democrats, President Bush's insistence on Kim's dealing with a coalition of those concerned may be working out peacefully. Different strokes for different dictators.

Thus may the credible threat of pre-emptive war obviate its carrying-out. Bush officials say that Syria has chemical weapons, has been warehousing Iraqi weapons and — in what Defense Secretary Rumsfeld called "a hostile act" — was the conduit for the illegal shipment of Russian arms. Plain logic suggests Syria is probably now hosting Iraq's most wanted killer-scientists.

Do we threaten to invade Syria? No. Do we put the economic squeeze on the stumbling young Assad, now that he is no longer propped up by a lucrative smuggling trade with his fellow dictator in Baghdad? Yes. And after coughing up Saddam's mafia, Syria — in the aftermath of Saddam's downfall — might also be persuaded to end its occupation of Lebanon and support of Hezbollah terror.

If we steadily introduce free enterprise and the rule of law into a loose confederation; if we expect little gratitude from Iraqis exercising the freedom to complain loudly and a lot of carping from "the little three" in Paris, Berlin and Moscow — then Americans could possibly achieve what seems as far-fetched as defeating fascism in the 40's and Communism in the 90's.

We could give liberty a chance to take root in the land of Job. Then our children may be able to lay down the burden of a great offense because there will be less need for a best defense.