Is There a Doctrine in the House?

Is There a Doctrine in the House?
It may take another attack for Bush to get serious about terror.
BY CLAUDIA ROSETT
Thursday, April 18, 2002 12:01 a.m. EDT

Watching the ever more Kafkaesque news out of the Middle East, I've reached an opinion about what's going to put an end to the furor over Israel and the Palestinians, and possibly even stop the fighting. It won't be President Bush insisting that he wants peace in that part of the world, and how this time he really means it. It won't be Colin Powell reaching titanium status on his frequent-flier and armored-car mileage in order to announce, as he did Tuesday, such "progress" as: "The specific term cease-fire has not quite the same significance as what actually happens."

It won't be six European nations that might as well all be summed up by the word "France" voting for a United Nations resolution endorsing Palestinian terrorism. It won't even be pro-Israel rallies in Washington, though I was glad to see tens of thousands of people gather there Monday to support a friendly nation under terrorist attack. And it certainly won't be any deal the U.S. forces Israel to strike with Yasser Arafat, who in the time-tested way of murderous dictators survives in power by promoting conflict. And who, if he ever achieved his obvious goal of destroying Israel, would probably be deposed the next day by his own people, unless he could quickly conjure up fresh enemies to war against.

Quite simply, what will change this whole equation will be the next big terrorist attack on the United States.

I certainly don't wish it. I dread it. Yet after the muddle issuing from the White House these past few weeks, I think it is far more likely that something of the sort is coming. For almost six months after Sept. 11, Mr. Bush held to a policy that was quite clear, and on the evidence was effective. He laid down the rules that the U.S. would not tolerate terrorism, would not negotiate with terrorists, and would go after them and anyone who harbored them. Over the doubts of the quagmire crowd, he went to war in Afghanistan, removed the Taliban from power and got al Qaeda on the run. In case anyone had any doubts about where he stood, Mr. Bush spelled it out again in January, in his State of the Union address. He enumerated three members of the "axis of evil"--Iraq, Iran and North Korea--and left room to add more.

To be sure, he grumbled about Israel, an approach that was--to borrow a word from Mr. Bush himself--unhelpful. At the very least, it probably emboldened Arafat and the murderers whom some policy makers and TV anchors are, finally, accurately referring to not as "suicide" but as "homicide bombers." But the big trouble began when Israel on Passover came under such ferocious terrorist assault that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, following Mr. Bush's own principles, felt compelled to act.

And in every effort the U.S. has made since then to impose an Israel-Palestinian "peace"--and there have been so many statements, shuttlings and commands that I have lost track--the message has been that terrorism works. It brings you visits from U.S. envoys; it brings pressure on your victims to back away and not defend themselves, and it sure buys you a lot of airtime to explain to the world just how justified you think your terrorism is. Small wonder Osama bin Laden tapes have begun turning up again. TV's recent festival of Arafatanalia has paved the way.

That doesn't square with U.S. behavior in Afghanistan, of course, where the Bush rules of last fall still apply. There, we are operating on our own timetable, we are taking the time to do it right, and we are killing or capturing terrorists, not trying to arrange "peace plans." But the effect of U.S. pressure on Israel, and of all the "peace" processing in the Middle East is that the Bush administration is turning Afghanistan into a special case, an exception. The lesson of Ramallah is that in the rest of the world, U.S. policy on terrorism is reverting to the Clinton era, in which it doesn't matter if the words don't fit the reality--as long as the words sound good. It's enough to fire a missile at a tent, hit a camel in the butt, and call it a day.

And that is really dangerous. It invites fresh attacks on the U.S. itself--because we're making it clear that unless you're a terrorist with an Afghanistan address, America may not come after you. Or if it does, what you'll get is not a visit from U.S. special forces, but teatime with Colin Powell. Or maybe a chance, in the case of Iraq's Saddam Hussein, to dicker over fresh arms "inspections"--while you send checks to the families of Palestinian terrorists and ponder the increasingly obvious weak points of an American administration that seems to be forgetting so very quickly the lessons of Sept. 11.

That may prove to be a miscalculation. The American people have backed the war against terror since the moment that second plane hit the second tower and it became clear we were under attack. It is a good bet that another terrorist attack would refocus Mr. Bush's attention on the real priorities he so precisely summed up last fall after seeing the smoking hell that was the World Trade Center. I doubt he would still deem it so interesting to have Mr. Powell tooling around the Middle East, waiting for Arafat to speak another round or two of meaningless words in exchange for Israeli capitulation to terrorism.

I suspect that any attack on America resembling even remotely the horror of the attacks on Israel would lead to a big rethink in the White House. Israel could deal with its terrorist attackers. We could deal with ours. The message to the world would again be clear. And that would be the beginning of genuine peace. But this detour is already proving to be, for all of us--for Americans, for Israelis and for those among the Palestinians who truly desire peace--a very costly and terrible way to get there.

Ms. Rosett is a member of The Wall Street Journal's editorial board. Her column appears Thursdays on OpinionJournal.com and in The Wall Street Journal Europe as "Letter From America."