The right tool for the job

The Fax is Mightier Than the Cruise

By Rick Horowitz

You know how it is. Your life gets a little too humdrum, you've had it up to here with the same old same old. What you need is a change, a chance to spread your wings and try something totally different.

If you're like most people, you've probably said to yourself: Why not become a rogue state?

And now you can. Iraq has shown you the way.

Just think of it: poking at the world's deepest fears, threatening havoc whenever the mood strikes, making the planet an altogether nastier place -- what could be more fun? Deep in your gut, you've known it for years: Rogue is where it's at.

Yet you've always held back. Not because you wouldn't enjoy toying with the rule of law. (You know you'd love it.) But because -- let's be honest here -- you thought it was simply out of reach for a malcontent of modest means.

Not any more. Iraq has set a new standard.

It was almost ironic, the last time you tried to work it out. Brewing up the various poisons -- chemical, biological -- wouldn't be that big a stretch, you figured. A bathtub and a few good vats and you could be up and running in no time. "Poor man's nukes" -- isn't that what they call that stuff? A way for the little guy to level the playing field. Perfectly affordable. You might need to do a bit of belt-tightening here and there, but you could certainly manage it if you had to.

The problem, though, was trying to protect it all -- trying, that is, to keep the rest of the world from blowing your little bathroom paradise to smithereens. That would cost money.

The rest of the world, you understood, wasn't about to sit still while you built up your stocks and rattled your sabres. First chance they got, they'd try to take you out. So you wouldn't need just the bathtub and the vats and the germs and the chemicals; you'd need a whole air-defense system to keep it all up and running. Special radar emplacements. Laser tracking beams. Truckloads of Scuds and Scud launchers and --

Suddenly you were talking big bucks. Maybe Iraq could afford a setup like that, but could you? No way. You figured you were out of the running.

You figured wrong. It doesn't take a top-of-the-line air-defense system after all. All it takes is a little creative writing and an inexpensive piece of office equipment.

A fax machine.

There they were just last weekend -- Iraq defiant, the United States determined -- arguing over weapons inspections and moving ever closer to the brink. The president had already given the order to attack. American warships in the Gulf had hundreds of cruise missiles ready to go. Dozens of F-14s and F-18s were itching to launch follow-up raids. There was rubble in Baghdad's future, and it wouldn't take long.

And then? Iraq sent a fax.

On Saturday, with the first wave only minutes away, Iraq sent a four-page fax to U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan. Iraq was promising to be nice -- to let the weapons inspectors back into the country to do their jobs. It wasn't as if Saddam Hussein hadn't made the very same promises over and over again in the past; they hadn't meant a thing. And these latest verbal gyrations? Not worth the paper they were faxed on, probably.

But enough to stop the attack.

The president gave the order to wait while his people looked for assurances that this time, Iraq wasn't trying to pull a fast one. Another clarifying letter, and then another, arrived later that day from Iraq's U.N. delegate. Unequivocal? Sure. Unconditional? Anything you say -- just call off the bombs. And finally the president, with his missiles poised and his planes straining at the leash, said, "Never mind."

All because of a fax machine.

Your dream is still alive.

Posted 11/17/98. Fresh stuff right here twice weekly!

Rick Horowitz is a syndicated columnist, TV commentator and public speaker.

Search the Web Search Rick's!