What follows appeared in the Albuquerque Tribune Oct. 28, 2004:
Makes Me Wonder
President Bush and Co.’s war decisions would have even paranoid Nixon ask questions
By Arthur Alpert
Never, never did I think I would look back to the Nixon Administration with nostalgia.
After reporting on Watergate, I fell under its spell, reading countless books to grasp the who, what, where and when of that strange Presidency.
I never fully understood the "why," though, not until former Nixon aide John Ehrlichman told me over lunch in 1980, "We were paranoid."
So here I am watching an Administration that makes Nixon look brilliant and, again, I don’t understand why.
Having done the reading, though, I see this: The Bush team arrived at the White House fixated on Iraq, not terrorism. Maybe that’s why they failed to rush to battle stations when the CIA warned Osama bin Laden wanted to kill Americans on American soil.
Second, Administration neo-conservatives knew -knew!- that were the US to destroy the Iraqi regime, we could convert some Muslim nations to democracy and scare others into blessing an Israeli- Palestinian peace deal, while making sure the oil kept flowing That doctrine is why we invaded Iraq, Not the rumored ties between Saddam and Osama in Dick Cheney's dark mutterings. Not the weapons alarums. They were camouflage.
Unfortunately, the neo-cons were simple-minded. The first President Bush’s sophisticated notion that knocking off Saddam could destabilize the Mideast, maybe even create a quagmire in Iraq, was all wrong. They knew better. With one stroke, they would change history.
President Nixon, master of realpolitik, harbored no such Wilsonian delusions.
Apparently, the neo-cons also dismissed chances that:
warring on Iraq might unite religious and secular terrorists in unholy matrimony; free elections could put radical Islamists in power in Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia; or we’d be answering bin Laden's most fervent prayer - may infidels attack an Arab state.
But how did these ignorant imperial idealists recruit George W. Bush? His respect for dour Dick Cheney, maybe. Or his passion for defying Daddy Bush.
It’s clear that the White House seized upon 9/11, wrapped itself in the flag and set about exploiting the murders of almost 3,000 Americans. How George W. Bush’s psyche, Karl Rove’s political agenda and the neo-con fantasy dovetailed will be historians’ work, but dovetail they did.
The Administration set about erasing the space between al Qaeda and Iraq so as to create one enemy, one "war on terrorism."
That phrase is a political tool used to mobilize support. Like the "war on drugs." But it’s inane - as if it’s possible to war on a tactic; as if the terrorists are one; as if defeating terrorists doesn’t require politics as well as firepower.
But I succumb to rationality.
Not this Administration, though; it wanted a simple conflict with an evil enemy. Evil is a moral word. And the joy of moral judgement is that it makes thinking superfluous. If Osama was evil, why waste time wondering why he murdered or – because we are innocent - if we bear any responsibility?
This may reflect W’s dedication to a righteous-warrior version of Christianity. Or Karl Rove’s practical wisdom - you win elections by preaching fear of a deadly enemy.
Conservative it’s not, which is why George Will, Pat Buchanan and Chuck Hagel have expressed polite skepticism. Nixon would have had choice obscenities for today’s far-out idealists.
I am left with whys. Why did the Administration’s radicals get so far? Why the crusade? Ehrlichman said the Nixon crew was "paranoid." I fear that this White House harbors something darker still.
Email Alpert, a semi-retired Albuquerque newsman, at ArthurAlpert@swcp.com. His column runs the fourth Thursday of the month.