Introduction to The Future of American Intelligence

Read the Introduction to The Future of American Intelligence, ed. Peter Berkowitz, Hoover Institution Press, 2005.

Liberty First, Democracy Later

This essay originally appeared in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz and was reprinted in The Hoover Digest.

Sometimes President George Bush and those who side with his post-9/11 refocusing of American foreign policy speak of promoting democracy. On other occasions, the president and those who stand with him talk about spreading liberty. In the United States, we tend to hear these missions as synonymous. In the long run they no doubt converge. But in the here and now, in dealing with allies and adversaries, they point to different priorities, and distinguishing between them can contribute to a more effective foreign policy.

Liberalism and Power

This essay originally appeared in Beyond Paradise and Power, ed. Tod Lindberg, Routledge, 2004.

I. The Human Rights Era and the Persistence of National Interest

The American led coalition’s achievements in Operation Iraqi Freedom proved, in a variety of ways, unprecedented.  Never before had a military force moved so much armor and so many troops so far so fast, or bombed from the air with such precision, or surgically excised a totalitarian regime while largely sparing the civilian population and preserving intact the country’s material and commercial infrastructure.  The humanitarian achievement also proved unprecedented.  For not only were civilian casualties and damage to non-military targets minimized to a hitherto unmatched extent.  Never before had a complex and massive military operation so effectively prepared for the swift delivery of food and water and other basics in order to relieve civilian suffering.  But perhaps the most remarkable achievement of Operation Iraqi Freedom was the unprecedented weaving of military might and humanitarian assistance.

Political Paradoxes

This essay originally appeared in The New York Sun.

Let’s hope that the Iraqis, to whom sovereignty was transferred yesterday, can, along with coalition forces that have stayed behind, finish the work of bringing stability, democracy, and prosperity to their long suffering country.

The Case for the War in Iraq

This essay originally appeared in the Stanford Daily News.

A year after the elimination of Saddam Hussein’s murderous dictatorship, a few months before the Coalition Provisional Authority hands over power to the Iraqi people and with violence in Iraq on the upswing, how do the Bush administration’s arguments in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom hold up?

Hypocrisy at the U.N.

This essay originally appeared in The Weekly Standard.

LAST DECEMBER, in his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, former President Jimmy Carter linked the United States’ responsibility to lead the world in implementing U.N. Security Council Resolution 1441, passed last November, more than a decade after Iraq’s unlawful invasion and annexation of Kuwait, to its responsibility to implement U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, passed in November 1967, five months after the Six Day War.

A Call to Arms

Read the entire symposium of the same title at NRO.

It was no small challenge that George W. Bush faced on Thursday night: to honor the innocent victims; to celebrate the heroic passengers who rushed the hijackers in the sky over Pennsylvania as well as the courageous firefighters and police officers and rescue workers in New York and Washington; to express gratitude to the nations that have rallied behind us; to articulate in plain and memorable terms what is at stake in, and the purpose of, the war that the president, with our support, has committed our country to waging; to issue a public and uncompromising ultimatum to the Taliban regime in Afghanistan who harbor bin Laden; and to reaffirm our devotion to the principles of freedom and equality. With gravity and resolve, the president met the challenge. And then some.