European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - September 21, 1990, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Column Flora Lewis r7&Quot to i i v  a i a or to it a i ,. In is ,1 a Alltis of a h  m a i to it of i toil old to it lilt Tkv. S Liiv i Early Nufi Sinai clod in Siu or key place in the void  k m medieval systems when global winds of  Ion can no mete be shut out than desert storms. But there wont be time for them to adapt gradually. Anyway reaching the modern world was racking and violent Abr almost everybody and it is dubious that lessons of history can be Learned from other Peoples painful experiences. The United nations was founded in an attempt to apply the lessons Europe and its allies Learned in the hardest possible Way. But it was soon paralysed by the cold War which left Little More than a forum for hypocritical blather. The end of East West confrontation has removed that Block. So the world organization has a new Chance though not yet the executive authority to impose a reasonable order. That still depends on willingness of All the major players to cooperate. How Well it works in the Case of Iraq will be a critical precedent in future crises. Mikhail Gorbachev so new thinking has committed the soviets to use the United nations to the fullest extent. True it serves Moscow in a period of grave internal weakness maintaining its place on the International scene. But the new approach also serves the United states and All its partners. To some extent Washington has recognized this acting when others dithered but exerting much Effort to create a Broad International coalition. Yet old National thinking still determines . Reflexes defining leadership As follow  the soviet proposal for a . Force in the Gulf or at least a . Flag is getting a Cool reception in Washington. Secretary of defense Dick Cheney told the annual meeting of the International Institute for strategic studies that there was Quot no objection in principle a but that he  envisage a breaking the Chain of command Quot that leads directly to the president As commander in chief. We Haven to digested the idea of saluting the . Flag. More revealing about planning in old think is Secretary of slate James a. Baker Illus idea of a new regional Alliance More or less like nato. It implies a Long term american military presence with big bases and an enduring National commitment. That is Odd when Washington a main preoccupation seems to be convincing the american Public that it should support the Gulf Campaign lab b let i l to. Of feb at least Long enough to get iraqi forces out of Kuwait scarcely daring to add a and to get rid of Saddam  is the assessment that americans will agree Only to take Over or quit and nothing in Between Cheney evaded a question about the Pentagon a View of bakery a plan but he appeared to be thinking on similar lines. A we need new collective Security arrangements a he said a not nato As an exact Model. Its a different situation. We Are deployed in countries we be never been in before. Well emerge with new cooperative arrangements that will allow a bigger . Role than in the  in fact its a terrible idea deserving of my colleague William Safire a ridiculing name  for one thing the situation is dramatically different. The Atlantic Alliance is based on common values linking democracies against a threat that came from outside. There Isnit a single democracy in the Middle East a except Israel which in effect makes some citizens Sec Ond class and rules an occupied population. And the threat in the Region is not from outside but from among and within the local states. Any Alliance the United states might make there would be with fragile regimes unlikely to last and its very presence would be As Likely to undermine As to protect them. If there a a Model for such a plan it is John Foster Dulles a disastrous Cento pact which included Iraq Turkey and Pakistan As a barricade against the soviets. It blew up after the iraqi monarchy was overthrown by revolution. It was a Good example of How not to try to organize Security in the area. Something under the United nations with All its faults is a better bet and it must allow for change even violent change limiting its goal to protecting the rest of the world against the Impact of the Region s inevitably tumultuous Effort to modernize and harmonize its societies. That is a very Long haul far beyond . Capacity. The new York times William f. Buckley or. Buchanan Rosenthal both Lack understanding the hot talk among journalists and politics minded intellectuals is of Abe Rosenthals sept. 14 column in the new York times in which he reads Pat Buchanan out of civilized society. What he says flatly is that Buchanan a statements about the . Intervention in saudi Arabia combined with other positions he has taken dating Back to his defense of former president Reagan s visit to Pitburg West Germany Are the work of an anti semitic mind. Rosenthal goes so far As to suggest that the kinds of things Buchanan says can Lead to another Auschwitz. And Rosenthal indicates that he Isnit going to let Buchanan get away with it because he is guided by a famous moral injunction delivered by Jesus on the Cross on which Rosenthal improvises to reverse its meaning which becomes now a forgive them not father for they know what they did Quot. The charge is very serious and the accuser and the accused Are prominent members of the journalistic Community. I write As a Friend of both though i have experienced Rosenthal As it happens 10 times As frequently As Buchanan notwithstanding that Buchanan and i have occupied the same ideological foxhole since he became old enough to Bear arms. I need to say something about each gentleman. Rosenthal has always walked about in rooms in which customized trip wires wait confidently to ignite his footloose emotional gyrations and when he comes upon them the resulting explosion knows no conventional limits. I deem his attack on Buchanan to be an example of Rosenthal gone ballistic. And i deem Buchanan to be insensitive to those Fine lines that tend publicly to define racially or ethnically offensive analysis or rhetoric. This is Best described by illustration if scholar a spending a lifetime in psychometric anthropology concludes that Black americans weigh in 15 Points behind White americans in conventional in tests he runs a certain risk in publicizing his findings though Only the know nothings will denounce him As a racist for doing so. If however having done so he accepts an invitation to speak at a rally advocating an end to forced busing on the grounds that he is impelled by his findings to oppose the dilution of educational Quality sensitive moral calibrators Are Likely to suspect even if they cannot successfully reason to that conclusion that scholar a is actively engaged in advocating invidious racial policies. Each of Buchanan a positions touching on Israel weighted discretely is not difficult to defend a until his most recent one. It is unquestionably the Case that israelis political influence is out of proportion to israelis strategic importance to the United states. It is certainly arguable that Reagan a decision to visit Pitburg was in the circumstances prudent. And it is conceivable that the defendant Demjan Juk recently tried in Israel As a War criminal is actually the wrong Man. But these antecedent positions joined now with Buchanan a statement a there Are Only two groups that Are beating the Drums for War in the Middle East a the israeli defense ministry and its amen Comer in the United states a invite a cumulative judgment. One possible conclusion is that Buchanan reveals himself As an arrant anti semite Rosenthals verdict. The other the overwhelming favorite is that Buchanan is attracted to mischievous generalizations. It is simply a fact that Independent analysts who Are neither jewish nor israeli bonded enthusiastically endorse George Bush a policies. The same Day that Rosenthal wrote his scathing piece Buchanan wrote a column in which he recorded that a among those cheering loudest the a new International order is the conservative National review our old friends and new critics who dismiss us now As a Bug out America types for resisting their Call for air strikes and preemptive War against Iraq. Excuse me this is not conservatism it is trilateral list the foreign policy of David Rockefeller not Robert Taft. As editor in chief of National review i am required to comment that this is an insufficiently developed accusation. Robert Taft was a hero to american conservatives. But his foreign policy in a postwar world dominated by soviet policies was otherworldly. He voted against nato for instance. David Rockefeller is associated not quite justly with one world Glo baloney but Nelson Rockefeller was a High defense anti communist whose positions were a world away from the .-nothingness Buchanan seeks to associate with our policies in the Mideast. The Buchanan need to understand the nature of sensibilities in an age that coexisted with Auschwitz. And the Rosenthals need to understand that Clumsy forensic manners Are less than a genocidal offence and that when Christ pleaded for forgiveness for his executioners he Askea it on behalf of those who were cursed to do the wrong thing. No one asked for that kind of forgiveness for the nazis and Buchanan a trespasses Are Miles this Side of the awful genocidal Fine in the Sand. C Universal press Syndicate