An Anachronism--but It Works : Panama: The invasion is beginning to look like George Bush’s Grenada: a successful, low-cost strike to rid our neighborhood of a pest.

A week after the U.S. invasion of Panama, everything is going smoothly. Twenty-four thousand U.S. troops obliterated the Panamanian Defense Forces within a few days, and scattered resistance is subsiding now that Manuel Noriega has sought asylum in the Vatican Embassy. American casualties were relatively low, and although the cost in Panamanian lives and property was substantial, animosity toward the United States for invading seems balanced by Panama’s relief that Noriega’s corrupt and brutal reign is over.

At home, President Bush basks in the light of political triumph. His bold stroke in Panama silenced critics who had accused him of timidity in his foreign policy. Enthusiasm for the invasion has been bipartisan. Democratic congressional leaders spoke out immediately in support of Bush’s decision, and all but a handful of their colleagues echoed them.

Democrats were in no position to raise major objections. In October, when Bush did nothing to aid an abortive coup attempt against Noriega, conservative Democrats blasted him for missing an opportunity to get rid of the pesky dictator. At the time, most liberal Democrats thought that Bush’s caution was well-founded; they agreed that the risks of military intervention outweighed the advantages. But few of the liberals spoke up in defense of Bush when he was castigated by their conservative colleagues. After enduring years of Republican attacks for being soft on Nicaragua, the liberals relished seeing Bush get a dose of the same medicine. Indeed, some liberals had themselves railed against Noriega to demonstrate that they, too, could be tough on foreign adversaries.

The Democrats’ instinct to support Bush was reinforced by initial polls that showed an 80% public-approval rating for the invasion. In addition to the normal public reflex to rally ‘round the flag whenever U.S. forces go to war, support for the operation was bolstered by Noriega’s reputed drug-running and his theft of the presidential election last May. Finally, the pattern of assaults on U.S. personnelthat precipitated the invasion was a politically unassailable rationale. Ever since President Thomas Jefferson sent the Navy against the pirates of the Barbary Coast, attacks on American citizens have been a casus belli.

In short, Panama is shaping up to be George Bush’s Grenada--a quick, low-cost, successful military action that replaced an anti-American government with a pro-American one and proved to be a domestic political boon for the President. And like Grenada, the only apparent shortcoming of the Panama invasion was its dubious grounding in international law.

Not surprisingly, therefore, objections have come mostly from abroad. At the United Nations and in the Organization of American States, only Washington’s closest allies defended the intervention. But the Bush Administration was prepared to weather the inevitable protests, since the complainants were either unable or unwilling to make Washington pay any tangible price for ignoring international proscriptions against invading a sovereign country to overthrow its government.

In Latin America, where the historical memory of past U.S. interventions is very much alive, opposition to the invasion was virtually unanimous. But Latin America is weak and economically dependent on the United States, so the Bush Administration reckons that the region’s sensibilities can safely be ignored. When the OAS passed a resolution criticizing the invasion, the Department of State professed to be “outraged” and called on the OAS to “get beyond its narrow traditional concern over intervention.” In other words, Latin Americans should stop being so obsessed about their national sovereignty.

The State Department response to the OAS sums up Washington’s contemporary attitude toward Latin America. As in the era of gunboat diplomacy, the United States arrogates to itself the role of hemispheric policeman. If a Latin American regime offends Washington--whether it be in Grenada, Nicaragua or Panama--the United States asserts the right of unilateral military intervention to overthrow the government and replace it with a more congenial one, treaty obligations notwithstanding. We are able get away with such arrogance because our power in the Western Hemisphere is unrivalled.

When the Soviet Union claimed a similar mandate in its own sphere of influence, the United States rightly denounced it as incompatible with international law. Now that the Soviet Union has repudiated the Brezhnev Doctrine, Washington’s aggressive pursuit of the Monroe Doctrine is all the more anachronistic. As the world’s major powers search for a new international order to replace the division between East and West, the United States ought to be contributing something more constructive than the precept that might makes right.