Wednesday, April 30, 2003

Vladimir Lenin, who ushered in the age of 20th century communism, once said, "You probe with a bayonet. If you encounter mush, proceed. If you encounter steel, withdraw." Lenin's quote would serve as an apt description of the Bush Administration's efforts to rid the world of groups and nations that sponsor the development of weapons of mass destruction.

Prior to the U.S.-led effort to topple Saddam Hussein's regime, critics argued that bellicose rhetoric and aggressive actions would promote international instability. These critics pointed to Iran and North Koreathe other members of the "axis of evil," as evidence that these regimes would grow emboldened by American military action.

In reality, North Korea's Kim Jong Il recently signaled a new willingness to enter into multilateral negotiations with the United States and its allies. And, a former leader of Iran's government urged his country's leaders to foster closer relations with the U.S. as well. The dire predictions that these nations would become more aggressive as a consequence of our actions have proven false. We should not be surprised, however, because history has taught us that peace is best maintained through strength rather than through appeasement.

In the 1930s, western nations pursued appeasement of the Hitler regime to promote international stability. Neville Chamberlain, a leading architect of this policy and prime minister of Great Britain, proudly proclaimed to his countrymen in 1938 that England and France's decision to surrender Czechoslovakia to Hitler had produced "peace in our time." Winston Churchill, a critic of the British government who would succeed Chamberlain two years later as prime minister, replied, "The British government was confronted with a choice between shame and war. It choose shame and it will have its war as well." History proved Churchill's interpretation of events to be the correct one.

In the mid-1990s, the United States pursued a policy of containment in Iraq and engagement in North Korea. In both instances, dictators concluded that the United States lacked the necessary resolve to pursue peace through strength. In the case of Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi dictator expelled the United Nations weapons inspectors. Having done so successfully, he concluded that his regime could begin to safely reconstitute its weapons of mass destruction programs. In the case of Kim Jong Il, the United States provided economic assistance in the form of food, nonnuclear energy supplies, and increased access to international financial aid. Like his counterpart in Iraq, Kim concluded that he could restart his nuclear program since the U.S. had no stomach for a military confrontation.

In both instances, critics of the current administration heralded containment in Iraq and engagement in North Korea as evidence that the United States was pursuing a reasonable and rational approach to dealing with global threats to peace and security. Regrettably, as in the case of previous tyrants, what some of our leaders perceived as a reasonable and rational response, opponents of free institutions and democratic values saw as weaknesses to be exploited.

That we would not choose to label containment in Iraq or engagement in North Korea as appeasement is irrelevant. What is relevant is how these policies were perceived by our potential adversaries that ultimately mattered most in their dangerous calculations. We must avoid the temptation to always assume that others will see the world as we do. If, indeed, they did then why would their regimes be based on fear and repression?

Aldous Huxley once wisely noted, "That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all lessons that history has to teach." In an age in which nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons are proliferating around the globe, we no longer have the luxury of failing to learn from the lessons of the past. As George Bernard Shaw once said, "The golden rule is that there are no golden rules." We must therefore apply this lesson in all of our dealings with current and future adversaries. To do otherwise would be to invite aggression and potential disaster in an age in which, as John F. Kennedy so eloquently stated during the Cuban Missile Crisis, "the price of victory would be ashes in our mouths."

Tony Pattiz

Peachtree City