Pat Buchanan, Prisoner of War?
by Glenn R. Jackson
Pat Buchanan’s latest entry “The prisoner of Sharon” continues the war of the pundits in the larger context of the Terror War. In his rush to interdict the Neo-Cons latest salvo to ignite a war fever among this Republican administration, he has ignored the first principle for convincing the American people. You must make sense.
The Williams, both Kristol and Bennett, along with a score of other “New American Century” advocates, as they continue a Clinton-like push for an American dominated global worldview are indeed wrong. They are wrong because their first love is global influence and pacification, and has nothing to do with the founding principles of this nation. Foreign entanglements, against the historic advice of our Founders, have indeed produced the world of woes that were predicted.
That said, America’s national interests are not served by abandoning a clear-eyed view of 21st Century civilizational realities. Contrary to President Bush’s pronouncement, Chairman Arafat is a terrorist and an obstacle to peace. Like Chamberlain during the gathering storm leading to World War Two, President Bush is ignoring the use of peace negotiations by a weaker party to buy more time for positioning for war. In a war against “evil” you cannot assume that evil pursues peace for its intrinsic “good”, but only for its good uses for bad intent.
Mr. Buchanan may be correct that Sharon is not the man to help bring peace to this seriously troubled region, but in urging an opposite set of actions from our confused President he is adopting an American interventionist position as misguided as the “Williams’ ” is bad. While arguing for America as an honest broker, he has assumed a position without a clearly spelled out evenhandedness.
While painting the picture of America as a “once respected” nation in the Arab world, he has forgotten his role as a respected “Cold Warrior” and the Arab nation’s alignment with the Soviet Union during the conflicts of that era. Totalitarians do not make friends with democracies; fear of a good idea rubbing off on the wrong people is always paramount.
No, American self-interest dictates a clear-eyed view of the 21st Century landscape, and that landscape holds this as the briefest of moments to correct American errors of the past and resolve the Terror War in America’s favor. To do that an honest assessment of Islam and the domination of that faith by an evil vision is necessary.
Follow the funding of this Terror War, all roads lead to the Oil Princes. Neither bin Laden nor Arafat has the wherewithal to conduct their war without help. Inconvenient has it may be, as the administration cracks down on the financing of terror the various paper trails led to the Saudi’s. The Oil Princes are in this up to their eyes. It is time for the President to stop trying to preserve the oil leg of his decentralized New World Order and to realize that this war is deadly earnest.
Sharon may not be the man to lead Israel to peace, but that is an easily corrected situation in a democracy. What Mr. Buchanan has failed to do is convey a solution for the unchanging truth of the Arab world, evil self-serving regimes dominate the hearts and minds of their countrymen. American foreign aid and oil revenues prop up those regimes. And the American people do not trust any group that pays behind the back “child support” for an Oil Prince’s son to convince captives of his mind to fly planes into skyscrapers.
Pat Buchanan has the strongest voice today for the return to a nation-saving America First national policy, but he weakens his arguments by pursuing a position that goes against the common sense of the American people. Fighting for the heart and soul of conservatism is a worthy fight, but winning that war comes with winning the heart and soul of the American people.
No one can articulate a true America First worldview like Pat Buchanan, but first he must understand the good sense and instincts of the American people. The Terror War has its source in more than a grievance with Israel. To overlook the deep problems in the Arab world while fashioning an American solution and extraction from the region is self-defeating.
Today’s environment is the best chance yet to articulate a new American vision. Now is not the time to come up captive in a war with the Neo-Cons.
Glenn R. Jackson is Chairman of the American Reformation Project, former State Chairman for Buchanan Reform and former state Chairman of the Georgia Freedom Party. Glenn also served on the Executive Committee of the Reform Party USA. Glenn holds an MA in Philosophy from Georgia State University in Atlanta.
© Glenn R. Jackson