SOMETHING INTERESTING: The recently released national strategy paper has been treated like some sort of Protocols of American Imperialism, prepared under cover of darkness by power-hungry neocons. But here’s what Leon Fuerth, Al Gore’s former national security adviser, says:

I was rereading the newly issued statement of national strategy. In many ways, it reads as if we had written it.

Fuerth goes on to say: “And in a way, it’s a pity that this whole question of pre-emption has been allowed to distort the reception of it.” Fuerth is skeptical about an Iraq invasion but because he’s not an idiot (in fact, based on having known him somewhat for many years, I’d say he’s pretty damned smart), he’s skeptical for actual reasons — not simply because it represents an exercise of American power.

I think he’s wrong about the risks of invading Iraq — or, more accurately, I think he’s wrong in the way he weighs the risks of acting against the risks of not acting. But if you read his comments in this transcript, they show that (1) he’s not that far from the Administration, really; and (2) he’s living in the world of reality, not fantasy. Here’s another excerpt, discussing preemption — which, you’ll notice, Fuerth is against as a doctrine, but not necessarily as an occasional practice:

In many ways, I think Dick and I are agreed about this. The point is that it is a commonsense matter, for the most part, and, therefore, regrettable that somebody has decided to make it into a doctrine for the administration. And specifically where Iraq is concerned, they are exactly where you say they are. They are in breach. But what they’re in breach of is a resolution that also said something about restoring security to the area.

We could do anything we like about resuming combat against Iraq underneath that resolution. We don’t need this new wrinkle. Where this new wrinkle gets really interesting is after Iraq, how about Iran? What about Iran’s ballistic missile program? What about their nuclear weapons program? Would a president decide that he’s not going to wait until there is a ballistic missile rolled out with a nuclear warhead on it, but is going instead to attack the first surface elements of this thing years before anything really hard materializes? That’s pre-emption. Where do we stand on this matter? Does the president trigger an attack against another country on suspicion of where it’s going or on imminent display of threat?

(Richard Perle answers “probably not,” by the way.) So why am I mentioning this? Because it’s a useful example of actual, substantive discussion on the merits of going to war, in which someone — for rational and expressed reasons — is against it. There aren’t a lot of those.