Groucho Diplomacy

by Howard Altman

Tuesday night, during his State of the Union speech, George Bush was not nearly as animated as Rufus T. Firefly, the character made famous by Groucho Marx in Duck Soup.

But his message was the same as the manic Marx's musical masterpiece in that movie.

To war. To war. The country's going to war

Even though Bush did not mention Iraq until more than 40 minutes into his speech -- which, until that point, focused on taxes and Medicare, AIDS, abortion and the environment -- the president definitively framed his goals, both tactical and strategic, for dealing with Baghdad.

He will listen to the U.N., but he will not be subservient to it. He will seek the world body's advice, but will ignore it if it is not to his liking.

Bush may have been singing Groucho's "To War" tune, but he swaggered like John Wayne, going Full Metal Texan in the House chamber.

"Put it this way," he said, leaning into the podium, smiling like he was the Duke and bragging about enemies of the nation being swiftly and quietly dispatched in Afghanistan and elsewhere. "They are no longer a problem to the United States."

To be fair, Bush was dead-on in many respects Tuesday night.

The president is right that Iraq poses a danger to the world.

While U.N. and International Atomic Energy Commission inspectors have yet to produce any "smoking gun" -- clear evidence that Saddam Hussein possesses nuclear, chemical or biological weapons -- the onus is on Hussein to either cough up the weapons or provide evidence that they have been destroyed.

Bush pointed out several Hussein violations of the spirit, if not the letter, of his agreements with the U.N.

Hussein is playing a giant shell game with weapons of mass destruction. It is nearly impossible, the president said, to accurately and safely account for weapons stockpiles in a country the size of California. U.S. intelligence has satellite evidence that Iraqi troops are loading up trucks at inspection sites just hours before inspectors show up. Iraqi scientists have clearly been intimidated into not talking candidly with inspectors. Iraqis have long been the subject of horrible torture. Saddam Hussein has thumbed his nose at the world ever since the end of the Gulf War. And there is little doubt that al-Qaeda would not hesitate to use any nuclear, chemical or biological weapons Hussein could supply.

It is the outline of a very compelling case.

One that Secretary of State Colin Powell will have to argue Feb. 5 before the U.N.

It will be the most historic speech since Adlai Stevenson made the case against Fidel Castro and his Soviet missiles in 1962.

It was a lot easier back then. The U.S. knew exactly where Fidel's weapons were and we knew where to find them in a hurry. Powell won't have it so easy next Wednesday. It's been 18 months since Sept. 11. Causus belli, in this instance, is much harder to prove.

Yet the future of the world will rest in his words and his boss' actions.

Bush, whether he realized it or not, was even more dead-on when talking about another isolated dictator with a penchant for peddling mayhem.

"Our nation and the world must learn the lessons of the Korean penin-shula," Bush said, "and not allow an even greater threat to rise up in Iraq. A brutal dictator, with a history of reckless aggression with ties to terrorism and great potential wealth, will not be permitted to dominate a vital region and threaten the United States."

How right he was about Korea being a lesson plan for Iraq.

In 1950, we went to war with North Korea, a war that was never officially ended. It cost the lives of tens of thousands of U.S. and allied soldiers and nearly led to a nuclear conflagration with China.

Fast-forward 53 years and what do we have in North Korea?

Kim Jong Il, a brutal dictator, with a history of reckless aggression with ties to terrorism, who is beginning to dominate a vital region and threaten the United States.

The lesson is that despite the U.S. sacrificing tens of thousands of young lives to contain the evil emanating from Pyongyang, North Korea is today run by a vicious, belligerent dictator who starves his own people and who sells 10 times the amount of weaponry that Iraq does.

Opposition to war against Iraq now is not a matter of impotence, as Powell so gently put it last week before the U.N. It is not a matter of appeasement.

It is the way of those who understand the awesome responsibility of power and know that we don't have to bully the world to change it.

Hail, hail, Freedonia, land of the brave and free.