September 25, 2001

MEMORANDUM TO: OPINION LEADERS

FROM: WILLIAM KRISTOL

SUBJECT: War on terrorism

Since the Project’s September 20 letter urging President Bush to adopt a broad strategy for victory in the war on terrorism, the struggle to define the terms of victory has intensified. The scope of our war aims is at issue, pitting the Pentagon, which favors decisive actions throughout the Middle East, against the State Department, which advocates a far more limited approach.

The president’s fine speech to Congress last Thursday night should have settled the internal debate. He made it clear that, though the war might begin by striking Osama bin Laden, his Al Qaeda network and the Taliban government in Afghanistan, “it does not end there.” Bush declared that the war on terror was global in scope and included “every government that supports” terrorist groups.

Yet some of the president’s lieutenants -- and in particular, Secretary of State Colin Powell -- have tried to mute Bush’s ringing call to arms. For example, Powell has downplayed the importance of regime change, both in Afghanistan and Iraq. The need to remove the Taliban, he said, “is not uppermost on our minds right now.” What appears to be uppermost in Powell’s mind is assembling the largest possible coalition behind the United States, even to the point of “working with” Syria and Iran, both of which the State Department reported to be among the most active state sponsors of terrorism last year. And now it appears that working with such states will exempt their terrorist surrogates, the Hezbollah and Hamas organizations, from accountability.

The price of such a coalition is too high, both morally and strategically. Hezbollah has American blood on its hands, and Hamas has dedicated itself to wrecking hopes for peace in Israel. It is one thing to conduct the war against terrorists by phases and by making tactical judgements of priorities. It is quite another thing to preemptively constrain fundamental war aims. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is right to say that the mission should determine the coalition, not the coalition the mission.

That was the mistake made during the Gulf War when, in deference to “the coalition,” the first Bush Administration decided not to remove Saddam Hussein from power. Will we repeat this mistake? President Bush has set the right goals for the war: he has promised a war against terrorism “root and branch.” But unless the administration devises means that fully meet the president’s ends, we may again find ourselves with only a hollow victory.