Bush's Freedom Doctrine.

In WHEN HAWKS RUN , John Podhoretz writes that

America's inability to secure a victory in Iraq against the insurgency suggests to many people of good will and good sense that it really can't be.

He argues that the hawks, those conservatives whom Richard Lowry calls the "to-hell-with-them hawks" because they are comfortable using force abroad, but have given up on the Muslim world

as well as defeatist Democrats offer no real possibility of an end to the war against Islamic radicalism. It will go on forever. And if it does, it seems certain that at some point in the next few decades, millions of people are going to die in a successful terrorist assault using weapons of mass destruction. Why? Because there is no way to stop the delivery of such a weapon if the delivery system is a single person willing to die to get it done. The only way to prevent it is to change the terms under which such people live, to offer them something to hope for besides virgins in paradise.

Seen in this light, the Bush freedom doctrine isn't simply a starry-eyed exercise in ludicrous optimism. It's a real-world solution to a real-world problem. The only real answer to the Bush freedom doctrine is the one posed by those who believe there is no real War on Terror. They range from the Michael Moore, Bush-may-have-been-involved types to ex-neocon Francis Fukuyama, who states plainly that Bush & Co. overestimated the threat from terrorism. Fukuyama basically believes 9/11 was a fluke, a lucky shot. It would be nice if he were right. But it would be reckless to the point of insanity for any American policymaker to count on it. Just as it would be for any American policymaker to adopt the view of the to-hell-with-them hawks.

[Hawks] [Iraq] [Muslims] [War on Terror] [Freedom Doctrine]