What If . . .

THE EUROPEANS would be thrilled with America, but the war in Afghanistan against al Qaeda and the Taliban would take longer. Defense spending would be increased, though not as much as hawks want, while foreign aid would get a big boost. Iraq would be under pressure to accept United Nations arms inspectors again, but probably wouldn't have to fear a unilateral American attack. The United States would be seeking rapprochement with Iran's president Mohammad Khatami and trying to pay North Korea to curtail its program to build weapons of mass destruction. The president would show no favoritism for Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon, instead pressing to revive the "peace process" between Sharon and Yasser Arafat. The Russians would be relieved to have the ABM Treaty intact and America's development of missile defense shaved back, if not cancelled. And the president would talk about an "axis of hope" to produce a peaceful world. All this would be the upshot if Democrats were in charge of America's foreign policy today. At least that's the best one can deduce based on the speeches and comments of Democratic leaders and their past performance, plus a small amount of educated guesswork. Broadly speaking, there would be two overriding changes from President Bush's conduct of foreign affairs. Unlike Bush, Democrats are force-averse. They don't like to threaten the use of military force, much less actually use it. And they are strongly opposed to acting unilaterally in the world arena, again unlike Bush and Republicans. Democrats retain a Vietnam era distrust of American power applied militarily and unilaterally. The events of September 11 would have galvanized a Democratic White House. And no doubt the president would have decided to strike back at al Qaeda terrorists and the Taliban by pursuing the war in Afghanistan with the full use of America's military strength. After that, things would soon change. Pleas to stop bombing during Ramadan likely would be heeded, putting the war on hold for a month or more and allowing enemy forces to regroup. Months later, Afghanistan having been brought under control, the search for new terrorist targets would continue, only not for military targets. Why not? The simple answer is the allies wouldn't go along with widening and prolonging the war. This matters because Democrats are partial to multilateral action, a point Senate majority leader Tom Daschle made as recently as last Sunday. President Clinton, of course, was the model of an American leader who insists on consulting allies to devise a plan to be carried out as a group, probably under U.N. sponsorship. With Democrats, allies get a veto. This contrasts with Bush's tendency to decide on a plan of action on his own, declare his intention of pursuing it, and only afterwards ask allies if they'd like to join. In short, no allied veto. In the case of Iraq, Democrats would balk at an America-only assault, or even one with England involved. "We've got to be willing . . . to do all we can to ensure this isn't a unilateral effort," Daschle told Tim Russert on "Meet the Press." Only if "our own national security is involved" would unilateral action be "necessary." Since Saddam Hussein's missiles can't yet reach the United States, thus not posing an imminent threat to our national security, there's a built-in excuse for Democrats not to attack him. Instead, a Democratic administration would become locked in negotiations over new inspectors. There's one exception: a Joe Lieberman presidency. On Iraq, the Connecticut senator seems to agree with Bush. Iraq's neighbor, Iran, is also developing long-range missiles and weapons of mass destruction, but Democrats would take a different tack. Iran's supposedly open-minded president wants ties with the United States, and the prospect of this would be catnip for a Democratic president desirous of "opening Iran." Just the faint possibility Bush had jeopardized this "reconciliation" prompted former President Jimmy Carter, a Democrat, to fault Bush for including Iran in the "axis of evil." Of course, President Khatami is powerless and the mullahs who run Iran still regard America as the Great Satan and sponsor terrorism against us. Bush would rather foment peaceful revolution among the captive Iranian people, who want democracy back, rather than deal with the implacable mullahs. Bad as things are for Israel today, they would be more perilous still if a Democrat were president. Sharon's coalition government is backed by Bush, while Arafat is continually leaned on to stop terrorism against Israel. A Democrat would be "even-handed," treating Arafat as Sharon's equal, though it's clear he won't be a player in any peace deal Israel might accept. The highest priority in a Democratic administration would be preserving some semblance of the peace process. It would be a higher priority, for instance, than Israel's security--that is, unless Lieberman were the Democratic president. Defense spending down, at least down from what the Pentagon wants? Democrats always want that. Foreign aid up? That, too. The holy grail for Democratic arms controllers is the ABM Treaty with Russia. They would sacrifice missile defense--potentially crucial to deterring rogue nations from missile attacks on the United States at some later date--to maintain the treaty. In fact, Sen. Joe Biden was eager to fight Bush's decision to sack the treaty and spur development of missile defense. But when Russian President Vladimir Putin reacted mildly and kept up his friendship with Bush, Biden's position was untenable. So where would this leave us? The United States would be a lot more loved and a lot less respected. There would be less projection of raw military power, more attention to the social work aspects of foreign policy. The country would be less secure because fewer sponsors of terrorism would be terrified and fewer weapons to fight them would be produced. Whenever a new threat arose, the president would be ready to go, just as soon as he checked with allies to find a solution everyone agreed on. Who knows? That approach might work. It did in the Balkans in the late 1990s. But against radical Islamic terrorists and countries that both sponsor terrorists and are developing weapons of mass destruction? Not a chance. Fred Barnes is executive editor of The Weekly Standard.

Daily Standard EXTRA: Read William Kristol and Jeremy Rifken's piece, "First Test of the Biotech Age: Human Cloning," in the March 6, 2002 Los Angeles Times.