After Iraq, the Left Has a New Agenda

Contain America First

Jonathan Rauch | May 26, 2003

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Thus, again in The Nation, David Cortright, a founder of the Win Without War coalition, acknowledges the need for "an alternative vision, one that takes seriously the terrorism and proliferation threat but that provides a safer, less costly, and ultimately more successful strategy for countering these dangers." And that strategy is? "A global prohibition against all weapons of mass destruction," enforced by a hundredfold increase in the United Nations' weapons-inspection capability. If countries refused to cooperate, they could be hit with sanctions or even force.

Force? "This is not a pacifist vision that eschews all uses of military force. The threat of force is sometimes a necessary component of coercive diplomacy." The key, however, is that force should be used "only with the explicit authorization of the Security Council or regional security organizations. _In no circumstance_ would the United States or any other nation have the right to mount a military invasion to overthrow another government for the ostensible purpose of achieving disarmament" (italics added).

That makes it about as clear as it could be that the first priority is not to disarm rogues but to defang America. It also makes clear that the Left is on the brink of a historical and fateful, and possibly also fatal, choice. The Left's idealism and anti-Americanism blinded it to the realities of Soviet Communism and put it on the wrong side of the Cold War. Now the Left is poised to repeat its mistake, letting its egalitarianism and anti-Americanism put it on the wrong side of the fight against tyranny and terror.

Far-fetched though the notion of a leftist "second superpower" might seem to a Washington establishmentarian, it is not necessarily pie in the sky. The passage in 1993 of the North American Free Trade Agreement was a tactical defeat for the Left, but it brought into being a far-flung and effective leftist anti-trade constituency. With the Iraq war, something analogous may be happening.

But the Left will pay a crippling price. If its new rallying cry is going to be "Contain America first!" the Left had better pack its bags for a long, long stay in the political wilderness, at least in America; and if it is going to make excuses for Saddam as it once made excuses for Stalin, it can kiss its moral relevance goodbye. One only wonders whether the Left still has time to back away from the cliff.