![]() With An End to Evil, the two authors, both now affiliated with the American Enterprise Institute, step forth from whatever shadows they have been suspected of inhabiting to place their agenda front and center. Depending on your point of view, this could be just the kind of tonic the country needs or one of the worst developments since Frum, in an earlier incarnation as a White House speech-writer, helped to coin the phrase “axis of evil.” At any rate, the book is bound to help clarify the debate.īoth Frum and Perle have been accused by Bush’s critics of belonging to a shadowy neoconservative “cabal,” manipulating the administration behind the scenes-though Frum left the White House two years ago and Perle, a former assistant secretary of defense under Ronald Reagan, serves these days solely in an advisory capacity as a member of the Defense Policy Board. Into this climate, David Frum and Richard Perle have pitched, as if from another planet, a book that in no uncertain terms spells out exactly where they think we are and what we must now do. So where are we going, and what should be the plan? In a private memo, obtained by USA Today last fall, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld noted that “we lack metrics to know if we are winning or losing.” In his State of the Union address, the President reaffirmed his commitment to the war but listed no specific new steps, and the word is that any bold new moves are basically on hold for the rest of this election year. Osama bin Laden is still out there making audiotapes.įrom the Bush administration have come reports of progress, of course, but as we advance the terrain seems less certain, the strategy less clear. The conflict between Israel and the Palestinians remains unresolved. Meanwhile, North Korea and Iran are growing threats. ![]() We hear that Iraq was the wrong target, that Saddam Hussein may have had no weapons of mass destruction, that reconstruction is going badly. Democratic candidates tell us the center cannot hold, that we are over-extended and globally unloved, that the Bush policies have failed. In the war on terror, we have reached a winter of discontent. An End to Evil: How to Win the War on Terror
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |