The Big Test For The Democratic Contenders

The results of the Iowa caucuses are being hailed as a victory for the tough-minded wing of the Democratic Party. But how tough really are the Iowa winners? Senators John Kerry and John Edwards, the top two finishers, may have shunned the wild rhetoric of Howard Dean. But they share their party's general unwillingness to think hard or realistically about the war on terrorism.

In a December speech to the Council on Foreign Relations, Senator Kerry promised to treat the United Nations as a "full partner" in the war on terrorism -- despite that organization's inability even to define terrorism, let alone fight it.

The lamentable truth about the United Nations is that with a panzer-led blitzkrieg fresh in the minds of its founders, it was set up to organize a collective response to aggression across national borders. But that is not the threat we face six decades later. Today the threat is terrorism, possibly carried out with weapons that could kill hundreds of thousands in a single attack. The United Nations is more likely to restrain us than help us in our war against terrorism.

Senator Edwards, for his part, has said some reassuring things about increasing domestic security. But as a free society, we can't win this war by building ourselves a better Maginot Line. We have to be prepared to take the war to the enemy -- and when it comes to offense, too many of today's Democrats are hesitant and vague. They hide behind excuses about "international good will" -- the approbation we earn by subsiding into innocuousness -- or offer unrealistic promises to mobilize our often reluctant allies to do our fighting for us.

When President Bush said on 9/11 that we would not distinguish between the terrorists and the states that harbor them, he changed a longstanding American policy of treating terrorism as a criminal act best dealt with by the institutions of law enforcement. This is a point Mr. Bush has held steadfastly to from that awful September day through last night's State of the Union address. And he is right: no longer can we afford to hunt down individual terrorists while leaving the states that sheltered them unmolested.

We should ask the would-be presidents this: Why did the Taliban regime invite Osama bin Laden to bring his terrorist organization to Afghanistan? At the time, the United States was Afghanistan's single largest contributor of humanitarian aid; harboring terrorists could only put the Taliban regime itself in harm's way. Or could it? In the end, the Taliban was emboldened by the fact that the Clinton administration never did challenge it, never forced it to pay a substantial price for harboring terrorists.

Would a new Democratic administration revert to the policy of the last one? Senators Kerry and Edwards should be asked whether they support the policy of taking the war against terrorism to the terrorists, whether they agree with President Bush that we cannot win unless we can deny them sanctuary and drive them into spider holes and distant caves.

Cutting the terrorists off from the states that shelter them -- that facilitate their recruitment, training, planning and arming is essential. But doing so will embroil us in diplomatic disputes. Are the Democratic candidates ready for that?

The involvement of Saudi citizens in 9/11 and revelations about Saudi financing of extremist groups has made policy toward the kingdom a campaign issue. Both Senator Kerry and Senator Edwards acknowledge that the Saudi government has condoned -- or perhaps worse -- extremist activities against the United States. Both senators have said in speeches that they want to rethink the relationship with the Saudis. But that's where they stop. They have given us no inkling of what a new relationship with the Saudis would look like.

Among the other leading contenders, Gen. Wesley Clark has actually proposed creating a joint Saudi-American military unit -- in other words, treating the Saudis as the kind of allies that the other Democrats correctly note they are not. Howard Dean emphasizes energy conservation as the answer to the problem. But, useful as energy conservation would be to a prosperous America, it is no answer to our Saudi problem.

Saudi Arabia provides about 10 percent of the 80 million barrels of oil the world burns every day, and earns about $63 billion a year. If we were to cut our oil consumption by some heroic amount, say 10 percent, it would be a drop in the barrel. Assuming everything else remained equal, the Saudis would still take in $57 billion a year. That can pay for a lot more of the extremist ideology they have been buying.

Rather, we must prevail on the Saudis to stop financing the extremism that breeds holy warriors, young men willing to die in order to realize their vision of an Islamist universe. The United States is the main obstacle to this extremist vision, which is why we are engaged in a war on terrorism.

If the Democrats are serious about their stated analyses of the terrorist threat, then they need to tell America their plan to destroy the terrorists and change the policies -- or, if necessary, the regimes -- of the states that support them. In addition, they need to propose a policy toward Saudi Arabia equal to the magnitude of the Saudi problem. Such a policy would be based on this direct challenge: either the Saudis put an end to the direct flow of money from the kingdom to extremist organizations or else the United States will no longer have an interest in the continued tenure of the present regime.

Can the Democrats credibly convey this message to the Saudis? Will they fight terrorism rather than chase terrorists? These are tests that they have thus far refused to take.