Wall Street Journal
Rumsfeld and the Realists
By MICHAEL RUBIN
November 13, 2006; Page A16

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB116337245819521025.html?mod=opinion_main_comment\
aries

On Dec. 20, 1983, Donald Rumsfeld, then Ronald
Reagan's Middle East envoy, met Iraqi President Saddam
Hussein in Baghdad. According to declassified
documents, the Reagan administration sought to
re-establish long-severed relations with Baghdad amid
concern about growing Iranian influence. While U.S.
intelligence had earlier confirmed Saddam's use of
chemical weapons, Mr. Rumsfeld did not broach the
subject. His handshake with Saddam, caught on film by
Iraqi television, represented a triumph for diplomatic
realism.

Iran and Iraq would fight for five more years, leaving
hundreds of thousands dead on the battlefield. Then,
two years after a ceasefire ended the war, Saddam
invaded Kuwait. In subsequent years, he would
subsidize waves of Palestinian suicide-bombers,
effectively ending the Oslo peace process. Saddam's
career is a model of realist blowback.

On Sept. 23, 2002, as Saddam defied international
inspectors and U.N. sanctions crumbled under the greed
of Paris, Moscow and Iraq's neighbors, Newsweek
published a cover story, "How we Helped Create
Saddam," that once again thrust the forgotten
handshake into public consciousness. Across both the
U.S. and Britain, the story provoked press outrage.
NPR conducted interviews outlining how the Reagan
administration allowed Saddam to acquire dual-use
equipment. Mr. Rumsfeld "helped Iraq get chemical
weapons," headlined London's Daily Mail. British
columnist Robert Fisk concluded that the handshake was
evidence of Mr. Rumsfeld's disdain for human rights,
and Amy and David Goodman of "Democracy Now!"
condemned Mr. Rumsfeld for enabling Saddam's "lethal
shopping spree." While 20 years too late, progressives
decried the cold, realist calculations that sent
people across the third world to their graves in the
cause of U.S. national interest.

What a difference a war makes. Today, progressives and
liberals celebrate not only Mr. Rumsfeld's departure,
but the resurrection of realists like Secretary of
Defense-nominee Robert Gates and James Baker. Mr.
Gates was the CIA's deputy director for intelligence
at the time of Mr. Rumsfeld's infamous handshake,
deputy director of Central Intelligence when Saddam
gassed the Kurds, and deputy national security advisor
when Saddam crushed the Shiite uprising. Mr. Baker was
as central. He was White House chief of staff when
Reagan dispatched Mr. Rumsfeld to Baghdad and, as
secretary of state, ensured Saddam's grip on power
after Iraqis heeded President George H.W. Bush's Feb.
15, 1991, call for "the Iraqi people [to] take matters
into their own hands and force Saddam Hussein the
dictator to step aside." In the months that followed,
Saddam massacred tens of thousands of civilians.

While Mr. Rumsfeld worked to right past wrongs,
Messrs. Gates and Baker winked at the Iraqi dictator's
continuing grip on power. For progressives, this is
irrelevant. Today, progressivism places personal
vendetta above principle. Mr. Rumsfeld is bad, Mr.
Baker is good, and consistency irrelevant.
* * *

Progressive inconsistency will only increase with the
unveiling of the Baker-Hamilton commission
recommendations calling for reconciliation with both
Syria and Iran. In effect, Mr. Baker's proposals are
to have the White House replicate the Rumsfeld-Saddam
handshake with both Syrian President Bashar Assad and
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The parallels are striking. First, just as Saddam
denied Kuwait's right to exist, Mr. Assad refuses to
recognize Lebanese independence (Damascus has no
embassy in Beirut) and Mr. Ahmadinejad calls for
Israel's eradication. Washington realpolitik enabled
Saddam to act out his fantasies; evidence suggests
both Mr. Assad and Mr. Ahmadinejad aspire to do
likewise.

Second, just as the Reagan-era Rumsfeld turned a blind
eye toward Iraqi chemical weapons, so too does Mr.
Baker now counsel ignoring their embrace by the Syrian
and Iranian leadership. Tehran used chemical munitions
in its war against Iraq, and senior Iranian officials
have also threatened first-strike use of nuclear
weapons. Syria is just as dangerous: On April 20,
2004, Jordanian security intercepted Syrian-based
terrorists planning to target Amman with 20 tons of
chemical weapons. Mr. Assad has yet to explain the
incident.

And, third, there is the issue of detente enabling
armament. Following his rapprochement with Washington,
Saddam transformed investment into replenishment. The
cost of ejecting Iraqi forces from Kuwait was far
greater than any benefit borne of engagement.

Trade with Tehran has likewise backfired. Between 2000
and 2005, European Union trade with Iran almost
tripled. During this same period, Iranian authorities
used their hard currency windfall not to invest in
schools and hospitals, but rather in uranium
processing plants and anti-aircraft batteries.
Mohammad Khatami, Mr. Ahmadinejad's predecessor and a
man often labeled reformist by U.S. and European
realists, showed the Islamic Republic's priorities
when he spent two-thirds of his oil-boom windfall on
the military. Said Mr. Khatami on April 18, 2002:
"Today our army is one of the most powerful in the
world. . . . It has become self-sufficient, and is on
the road to further development." Subsequent discovery
of Iran's covert nuclear facilities later that year
clarified his boast. The Assad regime has shown its
willingness to spend its discretionary income on a
wide-range of weaponry and terror groups.

Realism promotes short-term gain, often at the expense
of long-term security. With hindsight, it is clear
that Mr. Rumsfeld's handshake with Saddam backfired.
While it may have constrained Iran in the short-term,
its blowback in terms of blood and treasure has been
immense.

Why then do so many progressives then celebrate the
return of realism? The reasons are multifold. First,
having allowed personal animosities to dominate their
ideology, they embrace change, regardless of how it
impacts stated principles. Hatred of Mr. Rumsfeld
became a principle in itself. Likewise, the same
progressives who disparage John Bolton seldom explain
why they feel forcing the U.N. to account for its
inefficiencies or stick to its founding principles is
bad. They complain not of his performance, but rather
of his pedigree.

Second is a tendency to conflate analysis with
advocacy. Progressives find themselves in a situation
where they both embrace realism but deny reality. An
Oct. 13 Chronicle of Higher Education article
regarding a Columbia University professor's attacks on
Azar Nafisi, author of "Reading Lolita in Tehran,"
highlighted the issue: "The conundrum, say these
[Middle East studies] scholars, is how to voice
opposition to the actions of the Islamic Republic
without being co-opted by those who seek external
regime change in Iran through a military attack." By
embracing a canard, intellectuals convinced themselves
of the nobility of ignoring evidence. Thus, Western
feminists march alongside Islamists who seek their
subjection while progressive labor activists join with
Republican realists to ignore Tehran's attacks on bus
drivers seeking an independent union, even as a
Gdansk-type movement offers the best hope for peaceful
change in Iran.

Both realism and progressivism have become misnomers.
Realists deny reality, and embrace an ideology where
talk is productive and governments are sincere. While
9/11 showed the consequences of chardonnay diplomacy,
deal-cutting with dictators and a band-aid approach to
national security, realists continue to discount the
importance of adversaries' ideologies and the need for
long-term strategies. And by embracing such realism,
progressives sacrifice their core liberalism. Both may
celebrate Mr. Rumsfeld's departure and the
Baker-Hamilton recommendations, but at some point, it
is fair to ask what are the lessons of history and
what is the cost of abandoning principle.

Mr. Rubin, a resident scholar at the American
Enterprise Institute, is editor of the Middle East Quarterly.



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