TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/101590/1015010.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 5.4 KB | 117 lines

                                                                                THE GULF, Page 56

AMERICA ABROAD

Resisting the Gangbusters Option


By Strobe Talbott


    In the late 1930s, millions of Americans tuned their radio
dials one evening a week to the latest adventure of Gang
Busters. Each episode opened with a cacophony of sound effects
-- marching feet, a burst of machine-gun fire, sirens wailing.
The din itself told a story: the mobilization of the forces of
good against those of evil; a climactic conflict; finally, the
removal of the dead and wounded. Then a stentorian voice blared
an all-points bulletin: "Calling the G-men! Calling all
Americans to war on the underworld!"

    Each installment was a morality play. Villains got what they
deserved; violence in the service of the good guys was an
arbiter of justice, enforcer of safety and guarantor of a
crisp, satisfying, often bloody ending, all within half an
hour.

    The stories were based on what the narrator, H. Norman
Schwarzkopf, called "authentic case histories." He was the real
thing himself -- a West Point grad who had been superintendent
of the New Jersey state police and an investigator in the
kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby.

    There are echoes of that old show in both the idiom and the
cast of the drama dominating the airtoday. Saddam Hussein made
himself Public Enemy No. 1 with his armed robbery of an entire
country. As the U.S. rushed to battle stations, an aide to
Defense Secretary Dick Cheney exulted, "We're coming on like
gangbusters!" And as it turns out, the commander of Operation
Desert Shield, General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, is the son of the
cop turned radio star.

    With every passing week, someone with credentials in
international law enforcement joins the chorus calling for a
raid to finish off the thief of Baghdad. Last month Richard
Perle, a former Pentagon official, wrote in the New York Times
that a shield to defend Saudi Arabia is not enough. What's
needed, he said, is a "desert sword" -- an offensive operation
to decapitate Iraq's leadership and destroy its military
capacity. Last week, in a syndicated column, Henry Kissinger
said he would be "very uneasy" if the U.S. waited beyond the end
of the year to take "military measures." Otherwise, he warned,
domestic and international support will begin to unravel. The
world, he predicts, would welcome and support a "decisive
American move."

    Nor is such advice confined to the op-ed pages. General
Michael Dugan was fired as Air Force chief of staff three weeks
ago because he said publicly what many government officials,
by no means all of them in uniform, are still arguing behind
closed doors: the only way to dislodge Saddam from Kuwait is
to defeat him inside Iraq. Like Kissinger, Dugan and others
have more faith in the staying power of the enemy than in that
of the U.S.-led alliance -- and more faith in firepower than
in politics, economics and diplomacy combined.

    So far, however, the gulf crisis has been a standoff not
only between Saddam and the legions arrayed against him but
also between two sides of the political personality of the
President of the U. S.

    There is the George Bush who hates more than anything being
called a wimp. As an understudy for the post of Commander in
Chief, he watched as Ronald Reagan evoked applause on the home
front by bombing Tripoli and invading Grenada. Last December
Bush tried his own hand at such stuff. He busted a drug lord
holed up in Panama. As a result, Manuel Noriega is now awaiting
trial in a prison cell in the Miami Metropolitan Correctional
Center.

    The fancy word for this approach to a mean, messy world is
"unilateralism" -- Uncle Sam as global G-man.

    But there is another George Bush, one whose favorite word
is "prudence." He is less sanguine than Dugan about the
efficacy of "surgical" strikes and less confident than
Kissinger that the U.S. can both lead a posse and play the Lone
Ranger. This Bush is also the Great Schmoozer. He prefers
consensus to confrontation. He not only values his relationships
with foreign leaders but actually listens to them. Most are
counseling patience. An aide says that the President has been
especially impressed by the cautions of Margaret Thatcher, the
Iron Lady of the Falklands. She believes the embargo should be
given more of a chance.

    Since Bush also cherishes his popularity at home, he pays
close attention to the polls. A TIME/CNN survey last month
found 59% support for the proposition that the U.S. should wait
for sanctions to work rather than launch a pre-emptive attack.
The White House is picking up the same message in its own
soundings of public opinion.

    As Week 9 came to a close, war was still a distinct danger
-- and a definite option for the U.S. -- but the President who
addressed the United Nations Monday was Bush the
multilateralist. He seemed to realize that he has earned such
widespread praise, both at home and abroad, precisely because
he has resisted a very American temptation: instead of coming
on like gangbusters, he has shown the restraint necessary to
lead an international effort that cuts across both East-West
and North-South divides. If sustained, his accomplishment may
establish a precedent for collective-security arrangements more
enduring than the consequences of Saddam's villainy.