European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - November 24, 1990, Darmstadt, Hesse Page 10 a the stars and stripes saturday november 24,1990 Andrew Glas Congress a the clerk of the House will a emr. Speaker on this vote the a ayes Are 215 and the a nays Are 220 and the Resolution to declare War against Iraq is not agreed sheer fantasy yes. But it places in a parliamentary context a longing by Congress during this crisis in the Gulf to reassert its constitutional War making role. Naturally such a vote wont occur. But looking at it that Way is useful because it unmasks the realities behind the debate. Whatever his inspirational limits president Bush is not dumb. He knows he cannot Settle matters with Saddam Hussein by Force of arms unless the american people overwhelmingly support him. In August he had it. Today he no longer does. Congress As usual reflects the popular will. A people thought this would be Over Between the end of the world series and the Start of monday night football a says Robert Strauss a Washington insider. A it did no to quite work out that Bush wants to move off the dime. The president in doubling the size of his bet sought to rattle Saddam a generals. Then just maybe they might Force Saddam to accept Early retirement. But the president wound up rattling Congress instead. The decision to scrap troop rotations since rescinded proved a or goof. But that decision reflects a message from the saudis you cannot stay indefinitely. Saudi ways Are out of sync with a Middle Eastern nato. Along with that word the saudi princes Tell the White House if you done tend it soon Well Deal with the iraqis in our own will reflects the will of the people persian <5l of a we can to allow the saudis to drive our policy a says sen. George Mitchell of Maine the democratic Leader. But what Choice do we have with Oil at an inflated $32 a barrel could Washington pay the saudis to let the troops remain bribery suits a plutocracy awash in Oil better than it does a democracy. Naked aggression Bush has said cannot be allowed to stand. But that idea has not gotten through to Saddam. The iraqis feel americans will fight for saudi Arabia but not for Kuwait. To shield the saudis 5,000 soldiers and a fighter Wing would have been overkill. A take Mem on and Well get you Good a was All Bush needed to say. The president also had the option just after the invasion to Send in the marines a guns blazing. That would have yielded a . Police action a a rerun of what president Harry Truman did in Korea 40 years ago. No congressional declarations there. Twice in this Century Congress declared War in 1917, after the German subs attacked . Ships and in 1941, after the japanese attacked bases in the Pacific. Congress May still declare War on Iraq. But if it does so that vote will be unanimous or nearly so because As in the two world wars hostilities will have already begun. Congressional critics do not persuade historians by citing Korea or Vietnam. Both times All but a handful of lawmakers cheered presidential action a until the fortunes of War turned sour. The current lineup Congress decidedly unenthusiastic. Likely to sour even More unless the iraqis do a bad thing. Saddam helps his cause by playing your Friendly neighbourhood tyrant bidding congressmen to go hostage shopping in Baghdad. The kuwaitis an abstraction they should have sent their Emir on a 30-City . Tour bearing pictures of dead babies and raped women. Bush he has mortgaged his presidency to the play of events in a volatile Middle East. He needs a Way out. That May prove the most difficult Challenge of All. Cox news service nationalist View from past still has future fifty Summers ago an austere French Soldier in his 50th year sat before a microphone in bbl studio 2b and told France that it had lost Only a Battle not the War. It was june 18, 1940, the Day of Churchill so finest hour Quot speech. And the 125th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo. History has recently been histrionic. The 200th anniversary of the French revolution coincided last year with the collapse of the husks of Europe a supposedly a revolution Aiyu tyrannies. This year while Europe experiences the rebirth of nations and while Britain a prime minister is punished politically for resisting the dilution of National sovereignty in the name of the abstraction a Europe Quot France commemorates the 100th anniversary of a prophetic nationalist Charles de Gaulle. Other than in their in playability Margaret Thatcher and de Gaulle Are radically dissimilar. She Rose through parliament he through his Noble broadcast was a Call to disobedience against Frances government which condemned him to death in absent a. Thatcher revels in party skirmishes. T e Gaulle disdained a the Ballet of parties Quot practising a Caes arism of Plebs scutary democracy claiming a the individual authority of the state a personally. Being Caesar is hazardous he was the target of at least 30 assassination plots Thatcher has the brusque hectoring manner of a National Nanny. De Gaulle had what a biographer Calls a baroque style of leadership suited de Gaulle thought to a nation a made by 40 Kings Over 1,000 de Gaulle who kept spiritual company with those Kings and Joan of arc was forever in flight from. From banality. Thatchers goal is to bang elementary arithmetic into British Heads a the costs of life the calculations of capitalism. De Gaulle was both Washington and Lincoln a founder and preserver a of the fifth Republic which three times 1958, 1960, 1962 was threatened with civil War. Thatchers More mundane aim has been to make Britain efficient. Thatcher wants the British to be better shopkeepers. De Gaulle used the myth of French grandeur therapeutically to purge disgrace a the collapse in 1940 that was followed by collaboration. He would a make use of dreams to Lead the French a to seduce them away from the passions of private interests to National glory. Intoxication by myth was his answer to a perennial dilemma of democracy How do you exercise the Art of leadership amid the brokering of interests that is the Basic business of government by consent de Gaulle wrote Henry Kissinger in his memoirs was a the son of a continent covered with ruins testifying to the fallibility of human but because he understood the political Primacy of nations he spoke of a the so called United nation she had foresight. He saw Over the horizon Germany becoming reunified and the soviet Union again being Russia. Because de Gaulle a mind had a retrospective cast and his rhetoric had a mystical tinge detractors dismissed him As an anachronism oblivious to the wave of the future. Spotters of such Waves were sure the next one would Wash away much of the sovereignty and distinctiveness of nations producing a fuzzy federalism of homogenized Peoples. Thatcher is similarly condescended to by advanced thinkers who stigmatize her As a a reluctant but her reluctance partakes of de Gaulle a farsightedness about the increasing rather than decreasing Saheny and Utility of nationalism. And in one particular she is de Gaulier a Superior she knows that the nub of the matter is parliamentary sovereignty meaning that great Good by which Mam kind s political Progress is measured representative government. De Gaulle understood that among All of Marx a failed prophecies the most failed was the most fundamental. It was the notion that industrialism made Man a merely economic creature and that All non eco nomic forces a religion race culture ethnicity and especially nationalism a had lost their history making Saliency. Today a rebirth of Europe a captive nations including those imparting centrifugal Force to the overdue disintegration of the soviet Union is refutation of Marx and confirmation of de Gaulle. Today socialism sold aspiration the thin Gruel of proletarian internationalism has been supplanted by liberalism a still More watery soup of Thatcher recoils from the drip by drip dilution of National sovereignty through the incremental Transfer of Power from National parliaments to the Supranational bureaucracy in Brussels. There is a steady attenuation of control of lawmakers by elections a weakening of the crucial criterion of legitimacy consent of the governed. As de Gaulle a nationalism was so thatchers is the face of the better future. And what has this to do with americans lives today today the threads connecting Public consent with the gravest governmental decisions touching life and death a War and peace a Are being tangled frayed perhaps severed. . Officials Are seeking ethiopians the Ivory coasts Zaire a forbearance a permission a for americans to sacrifice blood and treasure in an Enterprise supposedly swathed in special legitimacy because of 10 resolutions from the United nations a the so called United natio Sall to Advance an abstraction the new International America needs a More gaullist foreign policy More stabilizing Contact with concreteness . National sovereignty . National interests . National decisions. C Washington Post writers group
