History made of ifs (April 2003)
They say that history isn’t made of ifs, but since everybody seems to be telling their version of how things would have been, I’ve decided to add a couple of my own to the collection.
Recently “hands off my Oriana Fallaci” pronounced one regarding “hands off my Bill Clinton” in an editorial in the Wall Street Journal that was reprinted in the Corriere della Sera: “If Clinton had spent less time with prosperous young girls and if he’d used the Oval Office in a more responsible manner, maybe September 11th would never have happened.” Sorry, Oriana, but if Clinton did the little that he did with that young girl in the Oval Office, instead of taking a break and going to some luxury hotel, it’s because he was too busy being the President to allow himself to have a proper love affair.
If anyone is to blame, it’s the Republicans for having tried in every manner to distract Clinton from his work by attempting to nail him in every way possible from the moment he put his foot in the White House. When it didn’t work with Whitewater, they tried with Travelgate. And when Travelgate failed, they invented Sexgate.
The “if” regarding Clinton is another one. If Clinton hadn’t won the presidential elections the first time around, I think we would have gotten rid of Saddam Hussein a long time ago, because I doubt Bush Senior would have allowed the Iraqi president to take him and the United Nations for a ride, 16 resolutions long!
My other “if” regards Bush Junior and Clinton’s vice president. If Gore had won the elections two years ago, I believe this war would have been behind us in January and democracy building would already be under way in Iraq. Not only because the rest of the world would probably have put up less resistance and would have had less suspicion about the oil motives for the war, but also because he wouldn’t have had to waste so much precious time in pointless diplomatic efforts to prove that he wasn’t a warmonger.
Sandra Giovanna Giacomazzi writes for the Roman daily, L'Opinione della Libertà. She is also the first prize recipient of the Mario Soldati Prize for Journalism and Criticism for 2002.
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