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BUCHANAN'S POLICY IS
ESTABLISHED ON PRINCIPLE
Date: April 30, 1999
To: Wall Street Journal
In Paul Gigot's April 30 column (To Spite Clinton, GOP Smites Itself), Gigot implied that Pat Buchanan's stand against full military deployment in Kosovo is motivated simply by a desire to negate Clinton's policy. Gigot is wrong. I and a few others were at Mr. Buchanan's home last December at the very moment the news came over his den's TV that Mr. Clinton had suddenly ordered bombers over Iraq. In light of how this sudden order came the night prior to the scheduled impeachment vote, all of us vigorously urged the vote to go ahead anyway, without delay. The sole dissenter was Mr. Buchanan, who said: "No, while our troops are in harms way, whatever the President's motivation, we must support the mission and temporarily delay the impeachment vote until we see how the battle unfolds." That doesn't sound like a man who bases policy on how to "spite Clinton." And remember, Buchanan advocated impeachment.
Buchanan, like myself, is not an isolationist. He supported every war and deployment throughout the over 40 years such deployment was used to stop the spread of communism. Thought an interventionist, when necessary, he is wise enough to suggest we pick our battles.
His criteria for the use of military involvement is: is it a strategic U.S. interest. Our effort in Kosovo is not strategic but humanitarian, and he points out, our policy in humanitarian terms is failing miserably - as evidenced by the hundreds of thousands of refugees our daily and brutal bombing is causing.
Unfortunately, Mr. Gigot like other pundits as well as Republican legislators, is urging Republicans to decide positions more so on how it will help Republicans defeat Democrats, how it will play with the electorate. Such policy befits campaign managers, though recent elections show that it certainly does not inspire the Republican base and usually ends up to be flawed fortune telling. Refreshingly, Buchanan is one Republican finally establishing policy on principle. That's leadership, something lacking in our party since Reagan. In Buchanan, we have a man of conviction, for a change.
Rabbi Aryeh Spero
Great Neck, New York
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