IRVINE, CA--President Bush had two unexpected victories in the past week--but one victory threatens to wipe out the other, said a senior writer for the Ayn Rand Institute. Robert W. Tracinski was a senior writer for the Ayn Rand Institute between 1997 and 2004.
Robert Tracinski, also a columnist for Creators Syndicate, noted that Bush's apparent "hard-nosed" stance against Iraq was the main reason for the Republicans' unprecedented mid-term congressional sweep. But Bush's other victory, the unanimous United Nations Security Council vote approving his revised resolution on Iraq, said Tracinski, has trapped the United States in the Security Council's delaying tactics. "If World War II had the 'sitzkrieg,' when French and British armies sat behind their fortifications for six months and did nothing," noted Tracinski, "the War on Terrorism will now have a 'Blix-krieg'-- as American diplomats and a Swedish bureaucrat, chief weapons inspector Hans Blix, wrangle for months over inspections in Iraq."
"Bush," said Tracinski, "now finds himself in a difficult dilemma." He must choose between the American electorate's desire for decisive action against Iraq and the U.N. Security Council's desire to delay and thus prevent action against Iraq.
"President Bush," Tracinski said, "can escape this trap by choosing to listen to the spirit that won him the election victory, not the dispiriting counsels that brought him a false victory at the United Nations."