European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - January 19, 1993, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Tuesday january 19,1993 commentary in t the stars and stripes a \ Pago i answer Leslie h. Gelb George Bush a policy toward Iraq was faulty because it always left Saddam Hussein with the initiative. Bill Glinton so a could be worse if he is seriously thinking about Hying to convert Saddam into a a Good Guy and revive the idea of Iraq As a counterweight to Iran. Iraqi diplomats Are peddling that idea again a to increasingly receptive audiences. But it is As flawed today As Ever even with mounting threats from Iran. Iraq cannot counterbalance Iran unless Baghdad once again arises As the monster that Chat in cd the world to War two years ago. Iran and Iraq hold swords Over . Access to per. Sian Gulf Oil. Both will remain hostile to . Interests. And. Neither is responsive to . Influence. So no president will find it easy to safeguard . Concerns in the Gulf. The Only promising . Strategy is to reduce Reh Ance on Gulf Oil through higher Gas taxes. And conservation and to convince Arab states to take More responsibility for their own Security. The occasion for this Sermonetti is the president elects interview last week with the new York times held Only hours after . Bombers had struck Southern Iraq. Under the circumstances Clinton should have restricted himself to blessings for president Bush and . Pilots. But no. Clinton is an exceedingly intelligent Man with a storehouse of knowledge who just cannot resist the tempt lion to show How much he has thought about almost every problem. It appears not to have dawned on him that it is often permissible and even Wise for presidents to be evasive and even Boring. Under prodding by times reporters he began thinking out loud something presidents should do Only with mute Best friends. He said he was not a obsessed Quot with Saddam implying Bush has been. A i believe in deathbed conversions Quot he continued. If Saddam a wants a different relationship Quot with the United states and the United nations he added a fall he has to do is change his behaviour Quot and live up to . Requirements. Predictably once Clinton saw his words in cold print the next Day he and his aides hopped around denying their Plain meaning. The Clinton administration would not normalize tics with Saddam nor change current . Policy they pleated. The denials were half True. Clinton and his team do plan to fashion a new policy one that will wrest the initiative from Saddam. Bui that policy will not include a fresh Start with Saddam. If for no other reason they know this would mean political suicide. But there Are others around the world who entertain notions of coaxing Addain into deals a his Good behaviour for their help in rebuilding a United Iraq under his authority. This idea can be heard once again among some arabists in the state department in West european foreign ministries and among political leaders in Egypt saudi Arabia Turkey and elsewhere. What binds them in thinking the unthinkable is their gathering dread of Iran and their belief that Only Baghdad can keep the More dangerous Teheran at Bay. It is scary to contemplate Iran a crowing military might and support of is Famico fundamentalists seeking to subvert moderate Arab regimes. But playing or. Frankenstein and pumping new juices into the Sadda mitc monster is not the solution. Iraq cannot balance off Tehran unless Baghdad regains its stranglehold Over kurd and snit is. That would mean new and More horrible repression which the West should not and would not tolerate. And Given Iran a manpower advantages Ana potentially greater military Arsenal Baghdad could compete Only by developing nuclear and chemical weapons. All of which would make Iraq yet again More predator than Savior. Arab and Western prayers for Sta Bibity in the Gulf cannot be answered in Baghdad. If the saudis egyptians and others fear fundamentalism the Best place to counter that problem is nor in Tehran but in their own countries a with better care for their own people. If the Gulf states fear attacks by raq and Iran the Best Way to respond is with collective Security arrangements a with the United slates still by their Side. If the United slates wants to free itself from having no Choice but to fight endless wars in the Zany and unfriendly persian Gulf the Only course is to reduce its dependence on Gulf Oil. C the new Portt Timet Battle Flag does t represent today s South a in Dixieland ill take my stand a on feb. 10, 1956, 21 months after the supreme court s school desegregation decision and less than three months after Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to yield her seat to a White male passenger on a bus in Montgomery ala., the Georgia legislature took a stand. It redesigned the state Flag that had been adopted by the 1879 legislature which included Many Confederate veterans. The 1956 legislature made a new Flag two thirds of which is the Confederate Battle Flag. Last week gov. Zell Miller asked the legislature to As it were furl the Battle Flag. He wants a slate Flag without that a Symbol of Defiance and  in his state of the state address he noted that for the first time since president Andrew Jackson from Tennessee and vice president John c. Calhoun from South Carolina took office in 1829, the nation is to be Ted by a two sons of the  the time has come Miller said to repudiate the Flag that is the last remnant of a political stance Long since repudiated throughout the South. The 1956 Flag was a imposed Quot Miller s acerbic. Right of Quot a  the governor in 1956, Marvin Griffin was say word during what Miller rightly Calls a a segregationist ing a Georgia will have separate Public schools or no Public schools Quot and the legislature was stampeding to vote just that a either to defy the supremacy clause of the . Constitution by maintaining segregation or to abolish Public education. Polls today prove that Millers position on the Flag is intensely unpopular. And his argument is especially admirable because it is optional. He could Couch his argument in Mushy rhetoric about a sensitivity Quot for a feel  instead he cuts to the Quick of Southern history. A former professor of history at Young Harris College Emory University and the University of Georgia he knows that the shape of the future is influenced by interpretations of the past and in his interpretation he does not mince words. The confederacy he notes with Nice astringency represents just 1.5 percent of Georgia s 260-year history. A yet it is the confederacy a most inflammatory Symbol that dominates our Flag  the 1956 Flag identifies Georgia a with the dark Side of the confederacy a the determination to destroy the United states if necessary in order to deny some americans the equal rights that Are every americans Birthright. He finds a infuriating Quot the notion that the 1956 Flag is necessary lest georgians forget the sacrifices of Confederate soldiers. He Lias standing to be furious. He is the great grandson of a Soldier wounded while serving with Stonewall Jackson at Chancellorsville and wounded again at Gettysburg where his brother died. Georgia a memory is kept alive by graveyards monuments literature and family histories not to mention the name of Sherman who arguably made Georgia the first Arena of modern warfare. Miller will not traffic in the cloying sentimentality about a the lost cause Quot a a sentimentality often George will inversely proportional to the historical knowledge of the person waxing sentimental. When Miller says the 1956 Flag a exhibits Pride in the enslavement of Many of our ancestors Quot he is saying the confederacy was not the pretty swirl of crinoline painted by Atlanta s Margaret Mitchell in gone with the wind. In a new Book loyalty George Fletcher professor of Law at Columbia University notes that the idea of respect for a Community s sense of decency is rarely inserted into Public discourse nowadays but we Quot should express certain wrongs not As offensive conduct to individuals but As a violation our collective sense of what is permissible in our Public  Liberal individualism he says Clouds our recognition that not All relevant harm occurs to individuals. The Issue of what values should be affirmed by Public space is a fit subject for political debate and a requires a commitment to the life of the Community As Well As the welfare of  a Flag should be a symbolic summation of Community values. Georgia a 1956 Flag no longer is which Speaks Well of Georgia in 1993. Today that Flag flies Over a stale Capitol near the Headquarters of coca cola and can enterprises emblematic of the common preferences and communication to help make and define a National Community. It is for the Bert values of that Community which modern georgians share that Miller like his great Grandfather but in a better cause has taken a stand like a Stone Wall. C the Washington Post