Fly with Republican doves

At least we agree with the GOP-ers in Congress and elsewhere who are voicing powerful opposition to President Bush’s advertised plan to invade Iraq in an attempt to topple Saddam Hussein.

Our jaws literally dropped when we read the recent Wall Street Journal essay by Brent Scowcroft—infamous national security advisor to President Bush, Sr.—warning against the rush into a pre-emptive war in Iraq. Scowcroft wrote, and rightfully, that he didn’t like the idea of America becoming the aggressor nation in a war when there is no evidence linking Iraq to Al Qaeda or the 9/11 attacks.

Another fellow we’re surprised to agree with these days: Dick Armey. The GOP house majority leader has also gone on record with the opinion that an unprovoked attack against Iraq would violate international law. And many others in the divided GOP are talking about how U.S. intervention would produce chaos in the Middle East and lead to a costly, dangerous long-term occupation of Iraq that could last ten years.

We also find ourselves in harmony these days with—surprise!—the princes of Saudi Arabia. They adamantly oppose a U.S. invasion of Iraq and won’t allow their country to become a staging area. The vice premier of China is calling for restraint as is Germany.

This growing opposition to an invasion—even in the most unexpected sources—begs one to consider who actually supports it. Turns out, it’s the so-called superhawks—the far right wing of the Republican Party—led by Vice President Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and, finally, Richard Perle (known as the Prince Of Darkness during the Reagan era for his stand against arms control.) Cheney’s “we’re running out of time” speech to the Veterans for Foreign Wars meeting last week was nothing less than alarming. In fact, he didn’t leave much room for doubt about the eventuality of such a war, though he says the president is now “consulting widely” on it.

We hope so.

Polls indicate that the American public remains gung-ho for a war—as of last week 67 percent favor an invasion. But the polls mean little. Watch those numbers flip around the minute Americans start coming home in body bags and pictures of dead Iraqi children emerge.

Cheney told the Veterans we shouldn’t give in to “willful blindness” about Iraq’s supposed role in terrorism and other wrongdoing. But that just brings to mind the famous Gandhi quote: “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.”