Frank’s Case Book

Imagine a person armed with only knife alone in the woods with a dangerous bear, prone to attack, lurking somewhere nearby. This person’s wisest option would be to remain silent and hope for the best. Certainly, to go preemptively after the bear with only a knife entails an even greater risk. Imagine another person in a similar situation except armed with a high-powered rifle. It may prove to be less risky for this second individual to actually go after the bear to eliminate the threat. Waiting for a surprise attack may make the rifle less useful. Whatever decision either individual ultimately makes, it is clear that the level of personal power and armament affects the assessment of risk and strategy.

This metaphor is how Robert Kagan, of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, describes the central thesis of his short book Of Paradise and Power. The large and growing disparity between the United States and Europe in their ability to project military power drives the growing fracture between the American and European views of the world. What makes these differences more difficult is the fact that both views are also animated by a myth or story that persuades both Americans and Europeans that they are setting a moral example for the world.

The United States began over two hundred years ago as a consciously different state designed to avoid the tyranny and impoverishment of Europeans. American avoidance of European politics was rooted both in an abhorrence of power politics as conducted by the corrupt monarchies of Europe and the fact that America was so militarily impotent that its situation represented that of a lone person in a woods armed with only a knife. Nonetheless, the American political model has spread. Americans can justifiable claim that successful adoption of capitalistic constitutional democracies serves as a global model for freedom and affluence. In addition, over the past century, especially during World War I, World War II, and the Cold War, America saw its military power as necessary and decisive in the protection of freedom and democracy.

The recent European experience is quite different. Chastened by over a half a century of power politics and nationalism that resulted in the death of millions of Europeans, they have adopted an abiding belief that security can only be attained through multi-national agreements and negotiations. The way to deal with adversaries is to negotiate and negotiate, building larger agreements on the foundations of trust nurtured from previous smaller agreements. Europeans are justly proud of the application of this approach and the astonishing emergence of the European Union. Once implacable adversaries like France and Germany can now share a common currency. According to Kagan, the qualities that comprise the contemporary European strategic culture are an “emphasis on negotiation, diplomacy, on international law over the use of force, on seduction over coercion, on multilateralism over unilateralism.”

Europeans believe that they have mastered an important model for conflict resolution that might be applicable to other intractable conflicts like the one between the Israelis and Palestinian Arabs. This is why Europeans, from the American perspective, seem irrationally wedded to process and engagement. The European hope is that process and engagement substitute for military conflict and, in perhaps unforeseen ways, possibly decades in the future, will ultimately lead to some sort of reasonable resolution.

The situation is filled with ironies. In truth, Americans would also prefer a world governed by the rule of law between liberal democracies linked by the cordial bonds of free trade. However, because the United States is the dominant superpower, it has duties it believes requires the occasional application of force and doesn’t much like being overly criticized by those unwilling to make the economic and political commitment to a military large enough to deal with threats. “Americans, as good children of the Enlightenment … retain hope for the perfectibility of the World. But remain realists in the limited sense that they still believe in the necessity of power in a world that remains far from perfection.”

On the other side, the “paradise” of law, reason, agreements, and trade that exist in Europe was made possible during the Cold War because of the protection afforded by American power. Even after the Cold War, Europeans have embarrassingly realized that they needed American power to deal with the ethnic cleansing by Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic within the European continent. Europeans are hardly likely to project power around the world, when they cannot manage to do so even locally. Without US power, European negotiation would not have significantly abated the cruelty in the Balkans.

Moreover, it was nudging by the United States that persuaded England and France to acquiesce to German unification at the end of the Cold War, an event that contributed to the current success of the European Union.

The divergence of American and European perspectives is likely to grow larger. Given economic difficulties, Europe is not likely to significantly increase military spending. The US feels more threatened by international terrorism and will continue to increase military spending in real terms. Even more ominous for the Europeans, their populations are rapidly aging. According to Kagan, by the middle of this century the median age of a European with rise to 52.7 from 37.7 years, while immigration will keep the US’s median age in the mid 30’s, at 36.2 from its current 35.5 years. European economies will consequently be struggling under a much greater relative burden to care for their elderly. Also by mid century, disparate economic growth rates will result in an American economy twice as large as Europe’s. In the latter half of this century, the odds are Europe will unfortunately be economically, militarily and consequently politically far less relevant.

This is not a cause for smugness or joy, as tempting as the French sometimes make it to indulge in such emotions. The West including the US and Europe will face a much more populous and more powerful China later this century. If we are fortunate, economic liberalization will attenuate any Chinese threat, but this scenario is not a certainty. Kagan hopes that an understanding of the political, economic, and military dynamics that are driving America and Europe apart will serve to increase empathy on both sides. America may be getting large and powerful enough to “go it alone,” but it is not in its best interest to do so.

Kagan concludes that the United States should not be overly concerned with pulling Europeans into international decisions. “Rather than viewing the United States as a Gulliver tied down by Lilliputian threads, American leaders should realize that they are hardly constrained at all, that Europe is not really capable of constraining the United States.” This “generosity of spirit” would assuage European sentiment. Kagan, in essence, is arguing for international leadership through psychotherapy. Voluntarily engage Europeans so that they continue to feel good about themselves and will consequently be predisposed to think well of us.

“Hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue.” — Francois, duc de La Rochefoucauld. “For I delight in the law of God after the inward man. But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.” — Romans 7:22-23.

To the chagrin of some and the delight of others, Joshua Green recently revealed in the Washington Monthly that the compiler of The Book of Virtues, William Bennett, is a high-stakes gambler who has lost millions in casinos over the years. Since Bennett has spent much of the last decade stressing the importance of living up to ethical and moral responsibilities, this now conspicuous indulgence reeks of hypocrisy. Though Bennett spared us the specific moral condemnation of legal gambling and thus avoided direct insincerity, there can be no doubt that Bennett’s excessive gambling constituted hypocrisy. The very first virtue listed in The Book of Virtues, is “self-discipline.” Clearly, the extent of Bennett’s gambling fell far outside even generous boundaries of moderation. Moreover, Bennett is a director of the non-profit advocacy organization, Empower America. Empower America has argued against the extension of legal gambling.

However, some of Bennett’s critics, who have derived guilty pleasure at Bennett’s predicament, have revealed an obvious hypocrisy on their own part. Those who opposed Bennett in the past have argued that the private lives of public figures are not legitimate areas of inquiry lest a private problem spills into the public. However, we were not made aware of Bennett’s gambling problems because of illegal activity, a lawsuit, or a bankruptcy. They did not spill unbidden into the public. Bennett was outed by gleeful and zealous investigative reporting. The investigation of Bennett is reminiscent of the actions of those who believed that the best way to prevent Judge Robert Bork’s view of privacy rights from the Supreme Court was to acquire a list of Bork’s private video rentals hoping to find embarrassing titles.

Liberal columnist and television commentator Michael Kinsley argues that private issues become fair game when they reveal hypocrisy. Apparently, knowledge of the disconnect between private and public persona justifies private intrusion. It is unlikely that Kinsley would have subscribed to his own argument if someone had suggested that the contradiction between President Clinton’s private exploitation of women and his supposed support for the Liberal vision of women’s issues justified exposure of Clinton’s personal activities. By logical extension, Kinsley’s use of inconsistency dissolves the private in the solvent of human imperfection. Is it not true that we all publicly affirm ideals we aspire to but can never in reality completely achieve?

It is inevitable that those that demand the most from us are and ought to be judged by higher standards. Nonetheless, we must not confuse the message with the messenger. Intemperance by Bennett is not a refutation of temperance. The easiest way to steer clear of the flaw of hypocrisy is to affirm no values or standards against which one can be harshly judged. The more noble the aspirations, the more difficult it is to avoid hypocrisy.

One important measure of character and integrity is one’s response when confronted with a personal problem. Does one blame others for the fault or assume personal responsibility? Does one engage in denial or prevarication? Bennett has dealt with the charge of excessive gambling with a twinge of denial, not quite admitting to having a problem. Bennett at first excused his gambling by saying that he had not lost the “milk money.” However, having avoided bankruptcy is more a measure of the depth of Bennett’s resources then the shallowness of his problem. After greater consideration, Bennett has conceded that he has “done too much gambling” and promised that his “gambling days are over.” We hope for the sake of his family that he can keep his promise

Compare Bennett’s reactions to that of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s. Kennedy rants against the use of sports utility vehicles and high gas consumption by Americans, but considers inquiries as to what he drives and his use of private planes an invasion of privacy. While we ought not expect perfection from those in public, they must recognize that their persuasiveness, their moral authority, is proportional to the perception of their adherence to the values they profess.

Elie Wiesel was born in a small village in Romania on September 30, 1928. He had the traditional upbringing of an Eastern European Jew in pre-World War II Europe. His Jewish faith and his family were at the center of young Wiesel’s life. This life was lost forever in 1944, when 15-year old Wiesel and his family were deported by the Nazis to Auschwitz in Poland. His mother and a sister were gassed to death and his father died of starvation in detention. Wiesel was transferred to the Buchenwald concentration camp where, on April 11, 1945, he was finally liberated by American troops. For years he dealt with the trauma of this experience by maintaining a silence. After studying at the Sorbonne and working as a journalist, Wiesel broke this silence with the haunting book, The Night. Wiesel’s prose is poetic in describing he jolting experience of his brutal detention. Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed. Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the little faces of the children, whose bodies I saw turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky. Never shall I forget those flames which consumed my faith forever. Never shall I forget that nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all eternity, of the desire to live. Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust. Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never. Since then, Wiesel has acted as a moral sentry guarding the memory of those years. He has used his influence on behalf of Jews persecuted in the former Soviet Union and oppressed peoples elsewhere. He has always made clear that the victims of the Holocaust will win an ultimate victory only if we the living never forget the horrors of those years; if we never forget the depravity and evil to which a modern civilized nation can fall; and if we never forget that “…to remain silent and indifferent is the greatest sin of all…” For his work, Wiesel received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986. Wiesel is not the typical self-congratulatory moral nag à la Jimmy Carter, rather he is a quiet moral conscience. He is confident that if good people are presented directly with the proper moral choice, they will generally choose to do the right thing. This makes his moral authority that much more compelling. Unfortunately, this quiet moral force did not work in 1985, in what in retrospect remains a clear mistake by Ronald Reagan. In 1985, Ronald Reagan planned to visit Germany to celebrate the fact that since World War II the Germans and the Americans had managed to nurture a friendly and peaceful relationship, becoming steadfast allies. Sometime after the visit was planned, it became apparent that a German cemetery Reagan planned to visit contained not only the remains of typical German soldiers but also the graves of the notorious Waffen SS. A clearly pained Wiesel explained to Reagan “I am convinced … that you were not aware of the presence of SS graves in the Bitburg cemetery. Of course you didn’t know. But now we are all aware. May I … implore you to do something else, to find another way, another site. That place, Mr. President, is not your place.” An equally pained Reagan, was torn between his desire to assuage the feelings of an important ally, while at the same time avoiding the terrible symbolism of an American president paying respect at the graves of SS troops. Reagan unfortunately chose to visit Bitburg cemetery. According to the New York Times, “President Reagan’s regret at having promised such a cemetery tribute was palpable. He walked through it with dignity but little reverence. He gave the cameras no emotional angles. All day long he talked of Hell and Nazi evil, to submerge the event … Not even Mr. Reagan’s eloquent words before the mass graves of Bergen-Belsen could erase the fact that his visit there was an afterthought, to atone for the inadvertent salute to those SS graves.” We are now faced with a new and far more consequential moral choice. Do we allow a vicious Fascist dictator, who has used weapons of mass destruction and been responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths to use dilatory tactics and the natural reluctance of democracies for war to avoid disarmament? Recently, Elie Wiesel made the observation that “If there had been a united front and Saddam Hussein didn’t think he could win through public opinion, he would give in and there’d be no war.” Wiesel concluded, “Saddam Hussein is a murderer. He should be indicted for crimes against humanity for what he has done… I am behind the president totally in his fight against terrorism. If Iraq is seen in that context, I think [Bush] can make a case for military intervention.” Wiesel remembers the cost and has personally paid the price of not dealing with aggressive dictators soon enough. It is clear that France, Germany, and many of those protesting the potential for war with Iraq have forgotten such costs and seem to believe that freedom and safety are natural gifts requiring no special protection. It is clear that many who oppose the Bush efforts in Iraq are doing so out of constructive concern and genuinely positive motives. Nonetheless, one would hope that these people would also have sufficient self-awareness to be terribly torn and concerned by the obvious fact that their actions of protest and disunity remain the sole encouragement for an isolated, murderous, and Fascist dictator.

“In the skies today we saw destruction and tragedy. Yet farther than we can see there is comfort and hope. In the words of the prophet Isaiah, `Lift your eyes and look to the heavens. Who created all these? He who brings out the starry hosts one by one and calls them each by name. Because of His great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing.’ The same Creator who names the stars also knows the names of the seven souls we mourn today. The crew of the shuttle Columbia did not return safely to Earth; yet we can pray that all are safely home.” — President George Bush, February 1, 2003.

Not many people appreciate how close the Apollo 11 landing on the moon came to a national catastrophe in 1969. As Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were nearing the lunar surface, they were having difficulty finding an appropriate landing spot. The astronauts were running low on fuel. If they could not find a suitable place to land, they would have to eject the lower half of the lunar landing module and ignite the engines of the upper portion. This upper portion would return them to lunar orbit. There they could rendezvous with the lunar command module and return to the Earth without ever landing on the moon. Intent on landing on the surface, Armstrong and Aldrin continue to search for a place, pushing the envelope of safety. When they finally landed on the surface, they only had seconds of fuel remaining.

If the lunar module had run out a fuel causing the it to crash on the surface, it is hard to imagine the enormous sense of tragedy the nation would have suffered, the bitter recriminations that would have followed, and the deadly sense of inadequacy that would have suffocated future exploration. In the contentious 1960s, the man’s attempt to reach the moon was one of the few national endeavors that united rather than divided. All this might have been lost, if the lunar module had a few seconds less fuel.

The odds finally caught up with the space program in 1986, when an O-ring in a solid rocket booster was a little too brittle on a cold morning. If full view of television cameras, the shuttle Challenger exploded killing all on board. The event was a particular shock because it shattered the illusion of invincibility that the American manned space program had acquired.

As this is written, the space shuttle Columbia has just disintegrated over the middle of Texas, fifteen minutes from landing in Florida. No one can know with certainty what went wrong. There will not be the same recriminations that would have occurred if Apollo 11 had failed. Chastened by the Challenger accident, the public will be very saddened, but not disillusioned. NASA is no longer considered invincible.

There have been over 100 shuttle launches. The broad public no longer shares the joy of discovery and accomplishment, but does feel the burdens of sadness when things go very wrong. One real danger is that the public will no longer want to finance manned spaceflight, perhaps fearful of the inevitable future tragedy. Indeed, interest has already withered. Over the last decade, NASA’s budget has declined and its programs starved. At present, it represents, only 0.7% of the entire federal budget. The public pointedly did not respond to the Challenger accident with an invigorated manned space program. The Challenger and Columbia astronauts certainly have given their “last full measure devotion” to meet the challenges of space exploration. The public certainly has not matched the effort of these explorers with sufficient support.

The shuttle Columbia was built in the late 1970s and first flew in April 1981. By his time, a second-generation shuttle, a shuttle design that could incorporate the experience of the first shuttle system, should be coming online. There is no such system for want of funding. This lack of financial support is the inevitable consequence of a public that is no longer intrigued in spaceflight and there is precious little political leadership to nurture such interest. There is no shortage of brave and energetic explorers willing to take the risks. NASA regularly turns away many highly qualified astronaut candidates. The only real way to do honor to the fallen astronauts is to support an invigorated NASA. We did not meet this challenge with the loss of Challenger. It remains to be seen what our collective response to the loss of Columbia will be.

“But justice and generosity in a nation, as in an individual, count most when shown not by the weak but by the strong. While ever careful to refrain from wrongdoing others, we must be no less insistent that we are not wronged ourselves. We wish peace, but we wish the peace of justice, the peace of righteousness. We wish it because we think it is right and not because we are afraid. No weak nation that acts manfully and justly should ever have cause to fear us, and no strong power should ever be able to single us out as a subject for insolent aggression.” — Theodore Roosevelt.

Many Islamic countries have managed to hide their economic and political failures by blaming the more prosperous West, and especially the United States as Satanic. Of course, the supreme irony for these religious zealots is that Allah (within the narrow vision of these zealots) would seem to be economically rewarding these same blasphemous Western cultures. Even resource-wealthy countries like Saudi Arabia are having difficulty maintaining the extravagant lifestyle of the ruling families, so it permits a simmering militant strain of Islam to prosper.

Now Europe follows this sad example. For the last three decades, Europeans have chosen the path of growing government control of the economy. They, are now realizing that despite a greater population, they are being economically outpaced by Americans. The economic dynamism of the United States has resulted in 57 million new jobs here, while collectively the members of the European Union have managed to create an anemic 5 million since 1970.

European politicians sometimes exploit the consequent political unrest by diverting anger to the United States. Last year, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroder faced with a plummeting economy and popularity, ran for re-election on a patronizingly anti-American platform. It is easier to feel morally superior to Americans, than it is to come to grips with German economic inadequacy and self-imposed impotence.

Arrogant European condescension manifests itself in other petty little ways. Two years ago, Europeans voted secretly to replace the United States on the United Nations Human Rights Commission with the Sudan. It seems some of the European governments are willing to welcome a country where slavery still persists to a Human Rights Commission so long as it will poke a stick in America’s eye. Under different circumstances, this behavior would be a silly annoyance. We now live in serious times.

After the United States was attacked on September 11, a new sense of urgency to deal with terrorism and its sources has swept the United States, less so in Europe. Despite initial feelings of sympathy for the United States, a recent poll suggests that two-thirds of European elites smugly feel that it is “good for Americans to feel vulnerable.” Americans do not agree.

In a matter of weeks after September 11, the United States, with only 400 soldiers on the ground, managed to end the sanctuary that the Taliban government of Afghanistan was offering Al Qaeda terrorists. The Europeans managed to provide some marginal military aid in this response, but only at the cost of deliberately and demonstrably false accusations that the United States was causing massive civilian casualties and engaged in the wholesale torture of prisoners. In reality, the United States response in Afghanistan liberated the Afghans from a repressive regime and prevented winter starvation.

We now turn our attention to a long festering threat. Since their defeat at the end of the Gulf War in 1991, the Iraqis, by everyone’s admission, has been violating the terms of the cease-fire agreement. They are seeking to accumulate weapons of mass destruction, which they are willing to use against their own people. They are in league with the terrorist underworld, as they provide money and other support to the families of homicide bombers that deliberately kill innocents in Israel. These latter efforts are in clear violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 687, which required Iraq “not commit or support any act of international terrorism or allow any organization directed towards commission of such acts to operate within its territory.”

This fall, the United States managed to persuade a reluctant world and Europe that Iraq’s non-compliance with relevant UN resolutions undermined the effectiveness and authority of the UN. This same reluctance to act against Fascism doomed the League of Nations. Last fall the Security Council agree 15-0 that “Iraq has been and remains in material breach of its obligations.”

It now seems that at least France and Germany did not really mean what they said. They now lambaste the United States for not showing more patience with the UN inspectors in Iraq. This argument is particularly disingenuous because were it not for the United States willingness to use military force, there would be no inspectors in Iraq. It was not the appearance of the French Air Force or the German Army on the horizon that compelled Iraq to allow in the beloved inspectors.

It is clear now that the French and the Germans never meant to compel compliance. The UN resolutions were just a delaying tactic to buy time for Iraq in the hopes that American resolve would wither. The French and the Germans are not willing to face their clear obligations under the November resolution. They are willing to live with a rapidly re-arming Iraq, especially since the likely targets will not be Europeans, but Israelis or Americans. Or perhaps, in their jealous pique with Americans, they are willing to weigh in on the side of Isalmo-facists as long as they are anti-American. You might have thought that their collective experience living under Fascist regimes, they would harbor particular antipathy to such regimes.

In the November resolution, the UN agreed that, “false statements or omissions in the declarations submitted by Iraq pursuant to this resolution … shall constitute further material breach.” Even the softheaded UN inspector Hans Blix has admitted to the Security Council that Iraq has not accounted for 20,000 liters of anthrax, 1.5 tons of VX nerve gas, biological growth media, or Scud missiles Iraq is not allowed to possess.

It now seems likely that the United Nations Security Council under the veto of the French will not authorize the use of force against Iraq to enforce the November resolution. It also seems likely that the US will do so nonetheless. The result will be an ironically strengthened UN with its resolution enforced, but it would weaken France and Germany. They will sink into political irrelevance much as their collective economic importance continues its decades-old decline.

When Theodore Roosevelt delivered the words in the citation above, the American Century was just beginning. Roosevelt’s words reflected the American ethos of vigor and strength. The United States began the century as a modest economic and military power with enormous potential. Mighty European governments spent the century devouring each other, sapping each other of not only economic energy but spiritual vigor and confidence. Unlike its European counterparts save Great Britain, the United States begins this century with the same governmental institutions in began the last century with. This is an important measure of the resilience of these institutions.

The United States begins this new century the dominant economic engine of the world and certainly its strongest military power. It is impossible to know for certain where in the registry of countries the United States will find itself at the end of the century. Perhaps by the sheer size of its population will make the 21st century the Chinese century. Unfortunately, Europe is a dying echo of his previous grandeur, a pleasant land of pleasant, quiet, and irrelevant people. It declines into self-indulgent middle age, comfortably sitting on the sidelines. How sad.

Recently, an interesting question was been posed here:

“Is it ever justified for a President to lie? If so, when?”

The question is deceptively simple. However, it is complex and depends heavily on what one means by “justified” or “to lie.”

The American Heritage Dictionary defines a lie as “a false statement deliberately presented as being true; a falsehood.” Webster similarly defines a to lie as “to make an untrue statement with intent to deceive.” These are both consistent with St Augustine’s definition of a lie as a “false statement uttered with intent to deceive.”

However, these definitions are too narrow. They depend on a lie as being a false statement. It is possible to make technically true statements that taken together are used to convey a false impression, to make the listener have a false belief or understanding. The technical truth of a statement is not a sufficient defense against the charge of lying. Indeed, the statement need not have been uttered at all. It is possible to mislead someone with a wink, a nod or even a carefully selected silence.

Webster’s second definition of a lie is broader and better, “Something meant to deceive or give a wrong impression.” For our purposes here let us posit five necessary components of a lie:

1. The act involves communication, whether written, oral, or by some other act.
2. The act is a serious one, not simply a joke or part of a game.
3. The person acting intends the communication to be taken as the truth, while knowing it is false.
4. The person is not acting under duress.
5. The recipient of the information has a right to the truth.

Most would probably have little problem with accepting the first three components as being necessary for an act to be considered a lie. The fourth condition is meant to excuse the situation where a person has a gun to one’s head and is forced to utter false statements. For an act to be morally judged, the person must be acting freely. It could probably be argued that in such a situation there is no intent to deceive so there is no lie, but I want to make this exception explicit.

The final condition is a little more problematic. There are situations when silence is not sufficient to protect a trust and making a false statement is necessary to protect it. For example, John comes to his friend Joe and discusses medical problems in confidence. A third person, James, later comes to Joe and says, John is acting strangely and inquires as to whether John is having medical problems. James really has no right to the information. If Joe indicates that he is not free to speak about the issue, he will convey to James the impression that his initial guess is true. This is a situation where Joe’s silence is not sufficient to protect a trust. If Joe makes the false statement that he knows nothing of such problems, in this case, he protects a trust with John, without really breaking his trust to James. James had no right to the information to begin with.

What then about a president? A president has a broad moral trust with the public. In meeting this trust, his obligation is to act in the public interest and not necessarily in his own personal interests. Given the definitions of a lie given above, I can see no situations where a lie is justified. For most matters that involve national security, silence would seem to be sufficient most of the time.

However, it is possible to imagine in a national emergency where a president might release false information for the purpose of deceiving an enemy and indirectly also deceive Americans. Such an act would not be a lie because there is no intent to deceive anyone with a legitimate right to the information. It would be acting in fidelity to another higher trust. Ultimately, the truth would come out and it would be up to the people to decide if their trust had been violated.

The answer to the originally posited question is no. There is no reason for a president to lie, if the concept of a lie is properly understood

In the aftermath of World War II, the United States’s erstwhile ally Soviet Union was aggressively extending its sphere of control mostly through Eastern Europe by establishing totalitarian puppet regimes. While at the same time, the Soviet Union was seeking to destabilize other countries. The United States and the West were facing an important strategic challenge. The memory of Neville Chamberlain’s failed policy of appeasement against the Nazis was still fresh. Based on this analogy, it seemed that avoiding the confrontation with aggressive tyrannical regimes — appeasement — was short-sighted and counterproductive.

At the end of World War II, the United States also had a nuclear monopoly. Hence, there were some who argued that the United States should militarily overthrow the Soviet regime, while it still could. To pursue this policy would have been difficult. The Soviet Union was a large continental power. Either there would be massive American casualties like those experienced by the French and the Germans when invading Russia or nuclear weapons would have to devastate the Soviet Union with incredible numbers of civilian casualties.

Perhaps out of necessity, perhaps out of wisdom, in 1947 American diplomat George F. Kennan, in a famous article entitled, “The Sources of Soviet Conduct” in Foreign Affairs magazine outlined a long-term policy of “containment.”

Kennan argued that the Soviet Union was driven by a commitment to an ideology certain of its ultimate success. This ideology posited, “that capitalism contains the seeds of its own destruction.” Soviet leaders believed that “truth is on their side and they can therefore afford to wait.” Setbacks, even large ones, could be overlooked because victory would ultimately come. There was, therefore, less immediacy in Soviet aggression and expansionism.

“In these circumstances,” Kennan argued, “it is clear that the main element of any United States policy toward the Soviet Union must be that of long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies.” Kennan believed that the centralization of political power was the fatal flaw of the Soviet Empire. The brutal regime had destroyed any popular support and ultimately political instability would undermine the regime.

Which lesson of history do we apply to Hussein’s regime in Iraq? Is the regime more like the Soviet Union to which we apply an analogous policy of containment? Or, would containment in the case of Iraq resemble the failed policy of appeasement against Nazi aggression?

The argument for containment holds that even if Saddam Hussein manages to hold on to power indefinitely, eventually, he will die. Containment, it is argued, will keep Hussein in his box until time inevitably brings about regime change. Hussein is a rational player and the costs of aggression can be raised high enough to maintain the effectiveness of containment.

In Kennan’s original thesis outlining the intellectual case for containment, he was careful to draw a distinction between ideologically driven regimes with perhaps tyrannical rulers and tyrannical, self-centered rulers like Napoleon and Hitler for whom ideology is only a convenient fig leaf. For the latter, there is an immediacy and urgency to build an empire to serve the greater glory of the ruler. Moreover, in such cases the regimes will collapse when defeated. There is no underlining belief or ideology to maintain resistance once the leader is vanquished. As originally conceived, Kennan’s containment policy was specifically not directed toward regimes like Hussein’s.

In addition, depending on the rationality of Hussein to act in his own self-interest is not a strong or reliable foundation upon which to build a long-term foreign policy. If Hussein always acted in his rational self-interest, he would not have fought a war of attrition against Iran for so long. If he were truly rational in the conventional sense, he would not have attempted to assassinate President George Bush (41) when Bush visited Kuwait in 1993. Hussein had just suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of a superior American military force. If he had succeeded in killing Bush in a fit of pique, it is possible that the US would have initiated a massive response that would have toppled his regime. Over the last ten years, he has fanatically sought weapons of mass destruction in the face of international sanctions. As a consequence, Iraq has forgone an estimated $50 billion in oil revenue. This money could have both improved the life of Iraqis and cemented Hussein’s control of Iraq.

Those who urge containment minimize the associated risks. Even though containment was ultimately successful against the Soviet Union, it was just barely so. Containment certainly took much longer than the ten to fifteen years originally anticipated by Kennan. There were times when the containment policy nearly catastrophically failed in a nuclear holocaust. If a Joseph Stalin lead the Soviet Union, rather than a Nikita Khrushchev during the Cuban missile crisis, it is very possible that there might have been an horrific nuclear exchange. Moreover, a legacy of Cold War containment was stunted economic growth in Eastern Europe as well as a fractured and unstable Middle East.

Those who urge attacking Iraq before the threat grows worse, must acknowledge that in the short-term the risks to American security will be higher. However, a threat postponed is not a threat avoided or even diminished. It is unlikely that any policy of containment will keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of Hussein in the long run. A policy of containment will increase the probability of a long-term threat to the Middle East as Hussein continues his deliberate efforts to destabilize the region by subsidizing terrorism.

Ten years ago after the Gulf War, it was possible to conclude the Hussein’s regime might quickly collapse. Reasonable people could conclude that there was no need to use force to disarm him and his regime. In retrospect, it might have been wiser to push against the Iraqis a little longer. If we do not deal with Hussein’s regime shortly, ten years from now we may view today as a similar opportunity squandered.