Center Debunks Claims Of New ‘World Order’; Lauds Cuomo View Of Soviet Agenda In Mideast

The Center for Security Policy today strongly disputed claims made in recent days by senior Bush Administration officials and other foreign policy experts concerning the security benefits of an incipient new "world order." This concept presumes that the foreign policy agendas of the United States and the Soviet Union are becoming sufficiently convergent to allow the U.N. Security Council to become an effective mechanism for preserving international security.

The Center urged the President to endorse instead a far-sighted speech delivered on 12 June 1990 by New York Governor Mario Cuomo in which he observed:

…In the Mid-East, [Mr. Gorbachev] continues to play the same deadly game the Soviets have played for decades. Here, we cannot share their goals. In the Mid-East, they continue to build a web of diplomatic, economic, political, military and intelligence alliances with the most dangerous actors in the region, people who intend to damage and, ultimately, destroy Israel and her people. (Emphasis added.)

 

"There is a real danger in the Iraq crisis of missing the forest of a still pernicious Soviet foreign policy for the trees of helpful rhetoric and a handful of votes on U.N. resolutions," said Frank J. Gaffney, Jr., the Center’s director. "Unfortunately, the Bush Administration appears so determined to vindicate its overinvestment in Mikhail Gorbachev that it persists in minimizing Moscow’s actions which could contribute significantly to the loss of American lives."

Such Soviet actions — and their implications for the present crisis and the future "world order" are discussed in an analysis released today by the Center entitled, Caveat Emptor: A Consumer’s Guide to the Post-Iraq ‘World Order’. It urges President Bush to eschew the "safe" course of policy paralysis and military inertia being urged upon him — a course for which the term new "world order" is merely a euphemism. The Center believes that such an approach will neither spare lives nor reduce the cost of thwarting aggression; it will simply postpone and increase the sacrifice entailed in doing so subsequently.

Instead, the Center calls upon the President to issue an ultimatum to Saddam Hussein requiring within 48 hours: (1) the immediate withdrawal of all Iraqi forces from Kuwait; (2) agreement to destroy within thirty days all chemical, biological and nuclear weapons-related facilities and stockpiles and (3) the immediate release of all Western nationals now being held hostage. If he refuses to comply, the United States should move swiftly and with deadly effect against the Saddam Hussein regime.