Gelernter on Iraq

The multi-faceted David Gelernter offers a rousing call to the Bush administration to defend their Iraqi policy on a moral rather than strategic basis in the October 6 edition of the Weekly Standard . He compares the debate over Iraq today with the debate between Chamberlain and Churchill in the period leading up to World War II. The party of appeasement, he points out, was not motivated by “laziness or indifference,” but “conviction,” specifically a (mistaken) Christian conviction that war was immoral. Gelernter says that

Churchill and his few supporters could have met these moral arguments head-on, but they chose not to. They could have said: You are wrong in your application of Christian principle. They could have said: Peace is sacred, but not when you pay for it out of other people’s suffering. Churchill was vividly aware of these issues but chose to base his campaign on security instead. He sought to bring his opponents to their senses, not (or only rarely) to prick the balloon of their moral presumptions. He talked strategy; they talked morality. Communications were doomed from the start.

A healthy reminder that moral and religious arguments are often politically wise.

Near the end of his piece, Gelernter has these choice comments about France’s presence on the UN Security Council:

Should we compromise our principles in order to appease France, or should we raise the embarrassing question of why France wields a veto to begin with? Why does France have a permanent Security Council seat whereas India (say) does not? If the administration can’t (for “diplomatic” reasons) tell the truth officially, let it explain unoficially, because the world no longer remembers — France was beaten, occupied, humiliated; the United States and Britain gave her a place at their sides as World War II ended, gave her an occupation zone in Germany (carved out of their own zones), gave her “big power” status at the emerging United Nations Organization — to stand her back on her feet; as an act of goodness and friendship . . . . For half a century France has repaid us the way recipients of highly public charity usually repay their benefactors.