What did you think of Colin Powell’s U.N. presentation?
It was a very good start for the endgame. For too long, the administration just hasn’t sold this to the American people. But in some ways the international community is the most important audience. We really want to have them all on board, mainly for the day after. Then it will be the international community rebuilding and not the U.S. colonizing.
Is there any situation where containment could work?
It should always be an arrow in your quiver. But Iraq is an exceptional case. Once Saddam Hussein gets a nuclear weapon, he believes he can do whatever he wants in the region, because we’ll be terrified to intervene… He’s a congenital optimist. He’s done incredibly bizarre and foolish things, thinking it’s going to work out for him.
I’d like to see the Bush administration making that point, that Saddam Hussein is a unique threat who requires an extraordinary response. What I’ve experienced in talking to foreign diplomats is a tremendous trepidation that this is just the first in a series of pre-emptive wars.
What’s the Arab response?
The rulers of the Arab world are very nervous that we won’t go through with this. I think it’s now or never. If we don’t go this year I don’t think the Gulf states are ever going to let us come back. I’ve talked to Arab diplomats who’ve said, “Come May, we plan on opening an embassy in Baghdad. It’s just a question of who’s there to meet us.”
