Dean’s defense views are drawing fire

Criticism of Howard Dean’s views on Iraq, North Korea and other defense issues is coming from corners of the liberal establishment, with analysts saying many of his campaign positions are confused, dangerous and border on appeasement.

The Democratic presidential front-runner’s opposition to the war that toppled Saddam Hussein’s regime, and his present view that Saddam’s capture will have no effect on U.S. national security, has infuriated his chief rivals for the nomination, who have been attacking his national security views with increasing ferocity in recent weeks.

But a new and broader line of attack on Mr. Dean’s defense and foreign policy views is coming from top national security analysts, even from liberal Democratic centers such as the Brookings Institution, where the former Vermont governor has recruited many of his national security advisers.

“His lack of commitment on Iraq, given where we now find ourselves, is unacceptable and also politically suicidal next year if he is the Democratic nominee,” said Michael E. O’Hanlon, senior fellow in foreign policy studies at Brookings.

Mr. O’Hanlon, a lecturer at Princeton and an adjunct professor at Columbia University who describes himself as a political “centrist” on Iraq, said he had no problem with Mr. Dean’s original position against going to war in Iraq, “but it is not acceptable now to reduce our commitment to success in post-Saddam Iraq.”

“At different times Dean has called for reduced funding in Iraq. Other times, he said our troops should be brought home and that Arab troops should be sent there. More recently, he said the world is no safer after Saddam’s capture,” Mr. O’Hanlon said.

“I think all these points are simply indefensible,” he said.

On the administration’s program to build a missile defense system, Mr. O’Hanlon said that Mr. Dean has sent mixed signals about ending it “that makes him sound confused.”

In preparation for a major foreign policy address in Los Angeles on Monday, Mr. Dean met with reporters to explain how he would deal with North Korea’s nuclear weapons buildup, missile defense and other national security matters.

In the interviews, he said he would enter into immediate bilateral negotiations with North Korea and offer them a major economic and energy assistance package and a nonaggression treaty in exchange for ending their nuclear weapons program.

Mr. O’Hanlon and other foreign policy analysts reject such an approach as naive, noting that it had been tried before under the Clinton administration, only to see North Korea ignore its pledges to halt weapons development.

“It comes too close to buying the same horse. We already gave North Korea incentives in 1994 to eliminate its nuclear weapons capabilities and then they violated that commitment,” the Brookings scholar said.

“And now Dean wants to offer them even more benefits to comply with an agreement that they already promised to comply with. It almost verges on appeasement,” he said. “It would be seen at best as throwing money down a rat hole and appeasing a Stalinist dictator at worst.”

Mr. Dean’s Los Angeles speech drew a harsh reaction from The Washington Post.

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