WASHINGTON — Dear Mr. President,
Please excuse the effrontery of an open letter. But these are extraordinary times that override custom and routine. That is in fact the essence of my message, written by one who has spent much of his life kicking around or thinking about the dusty precincts where Americans now wage combat.
The wish list your generals and diplomats seem to pursue is worthy of support and action: Osama bin Laden’s head on a pike; Afghanistan under a broad-based central government friendly to its neighbors; evidence that will convince even the faint-hearted that the international community must deal now with Iraq as the headquarters of Terror Inc.; a resumption of the Middle East peace process to placate Arab and Muslim anger over injuries real and imagined.
But cacophony and confusion begin to swirl after a few weeks of bombing abroad and battling sabotage by anthrax at home. The number of moving parts — and the often subterranean ways in which they are connected — of the deadly puzzle you confront is becoming evident, and initially discouraging, to the public at large.
The right response to these initial misgivings by chatterers and citizens alike is to simplify and clarify.
Do not renounce your broadest goals. History rewards audacity and persistence. Do define what your minimally acceptable goals are as measured against the means you use. Make sure that nothing you and your aides do precludes achieving those minimal goals. Communicate your progress in achieving them to the nation publicly at regular intervals.
This could help narrow the capabilities gap that emerges in your strategy: U.S. diplomatic efforts to draft a dream team to govern in Kabul are unrealistic and are unhitched from and competitive with the bombing checklist approach of the Pentagon.
Three achievable outcomes of this campaign that are within American means are now visible:
First, Afghanistan should have no central government that supports or permits international terrorism. If that means Afghanistan will have no central government at all, so be it. Russia’s decision last week to provide its client, the Northern Alliance, with 40 tanks and 100 armored vehicles by year’s end is indicator of and catalyst for Afghanistan’s fragmented future. U.N. administrators, U.S. economic aid given to Afghans who undertake anti-terrorist actions, and constant U.S. surveillance will tie a series of ethnic fiefdoms together into a self-absorbed, manageable mess.
An outcome more ambitious than that will require a change in strategy and a commitment of resources you do not seem to have yet envisioned.
Second, you may well not capture bin Laden in this first armed search. Too bad. Declare right now that the American nation will treat this war criminal as Israel treated Adolf Eichmann: Bin Laden will be tracked every day of his life, however long that is. If it takes 20 years to find him and his gang, America will spend 20 years doing that. You and your successors must think of New York’s Ground Zero and the Pentagon every day that you awake and learn that bin Laden and the other perpetrators have not yet been identified, captured and punished. So must the nation.
Third, the need to deal with Iraq’s continuing accumulation of biological and chemical weapons and the technology to build a nuclear bomb can in no way be lessened by the demands of the Afghan campaign. You must conduct that campaign so that you can pivot quickly from it to end the threat Saddam Hussein’s regime poses.
Russia, France, Saudi Arabia and other nations warning that you cannot strike Iraq and keep their support expect to benefit economically from the survival of a Saddam-type regime when sanctions are lifted. When they become convinced that they will in the near future confront a post-Saddam government in Baghdad that will punish them for having courted Saddam, these countries will cooperate to end global terror.
The conventional thinkers around you will argue you cannot afford such boldness and clarity just now. They are wrong. U.S. leverage is at its high point while American lives are at risk and American warplanes are in the skies. No nation should expect you to pursue diplomacy as usual or assume it will not face your wrath in some form if it does not cooperate with you now.
Can you imagine that guy, that general, Pervez Musharraf, saying to his people: I have thought it over, America is wrong and can’t use our bases? And surviving? I can’t.
You are in a position of strength, not weakness. Show that this is not a feel-good military campaign launched in anger but a strategic struggle based on clear, achievable goals that will make the world safer.
Dare to see the connections, dare to pursue them, dare to win, Mr. President.
Jim Hoagland can be reached at The Washington Post Writers Group, 1150 15th St. NW, Washington, DC 20071-9200 or hoaglandj@washpost.com.
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