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Tuesday, Nov 24, 2009
Yes, leaving Saddam in power is risky. But Bush's neo-imperalist war plans carry even more dangers for the U.S.
Oct 7, 2002 | President George W. Bush is presiding over the most radical change in American policy since the end of World War II. Bush's determination to invade Iraq represents a gigantic gamble. It is the riskiest military intervention America has undertaken since the end of World War II. Yet cavalierly disregarding those risks, the White House is pushing for regime change in Iraq as part of an aggressive new global strategy, one that represents a decisive -- and extremely dangerous -- break with the thinking that has guided American policy since the Cold War.
Prodded by hard-line ex-Cold Warriors and crusading neoconservatives, President Bush -- who ran for office promising a "humble" America -- has embraced an arrogant new doctrine of American supremacy that threatens not just to destabilize the Middle East and breed more terror, but to unravel the carefully constructed international order that has safely guided the world through the Cold War and into the new millennium. By word and deed -- breaking treaties, disdaining allies, declaring America exempt from international law, announcing a new doctrine of preemptive force -- the Bush administration has shown its desire to establish the United States as, in effect, an imperial power, the new Rome. After Sept. 11, an angry and triumphalist America is to be answerable to no one. Flaunting our 3,000 dead like a crusader's banner, we will march against foes wherever we may find them, our unchallengeable military and invincible rectitude giving us the right and might to do whatever we want. Deus lo volt!
Bush's new imperial doctrine is just the opposite of what the historical moment calls for. It gives other nations an imprimatur to take "preemptive" military action. It allows oppressive regimes to crack down on insurgents, claiming they are "fighting terrorism." And it represents a viscerally attractive but ill-thought-out response to terrorism. Yes, military might is needed to fight terror -- but it is only half of what is required. Jolted by Sept. 11 back into his most primal right-wing instincts, sacrificing farsighted foreign policy for short-term political advantage, Bush has completely failed to grasp that the Cold War paradigm is inadequate and inappropriate in an age when America has no rivals. Addressing global inequality, promoting democracy, consolidating relations with allies, sharing intelligence, respecting and working with international organizations, and generally doing the slow, painstaking work of winning hearts and minds -- "draining the swamp" of terrorism -- pay no immediate dividends, but in the long run they are a far better guarantor of American security than might alone.
In fact, Sept. 11 should have made clear that military force, unless used surgically, will make the United States a more dangerous place, not less. Before the terrorist attacks, the unintended consequences of war -- destabilized regions, enraged populations -- could be written off by strategists. No longer. As the twin towers collapsed, the lesson we should have learned is that there is a paradoxical correlation between domination and vulnerability. Terrorism is the weapon of the powerless, and in an age when the powerless can wreak havoc, an all-powerful nation must be extremely careful not to use its power recklessly.
As Robert Wright noted in a perceptive essay in Slate, in an age of instant communications, terrorism spreads almost literally like a virus. "We have to understand that terrorism is fundamentally a meme -- a kind of virus of the mind, a set of beliefs and attitudes that spread from person to person," Wright observed. "The ultimate target is memes; killing or arresting people is useful only to the extent that it leads to a net reduction in terrorism memes." And it is not just speeded-up communications, but the individual's absolute feeling of impotence in the face of omnipotent, abstract force that breeds the terrorism meme -- which is why the unreflective use of American force can be a cure that is worse than the disease.
To put it bluntly: America needs to make friends more than it needs to make enemies. Of course, some enemies will inevitably choose us, in which case we may have no choice but to attack them: This is why the war on al-Qaida and their Taliban sponsors was necessary and justified. But an endless and undefined "war on terror" -- one also fought in pursuit of strategic ends that are not quite so high-minded -- risks making more enemies than it eliminates. Bush almost certainly does not intend Iraq to be the first battle in an endless war, but it is hard to imagine choosing a riskier place to launch a grand strategy for changing the world.
Apparently, the Bush administration no longer believes in risks. Intoxicated by America's unprecedented position as the world's first hyperpower, believing they can redraw the map in the Middle East without consequences and running roughshod over an opposition party too ideologically bankrupt and feeble to offer any resistance, Bush's war hawks have seized the ring of power. It is difficult to have confidence that they will have the wisdom to use it properly -- or to let it go.
Having said that, a caveat is in order. If the Bush administration's loud saber-rattling, and its clumsier lobbying at the U.N., succeeds in convincing the Security Council to sign off on full, unrestricted inspections and Saddam to agree to them, if Bush accepts this outcome and Iraq is disarmed without war, Bush will deserve credit for an important achievement. At this point, however, all indications are that Bush intends to go to war no matter what Saddam does.
Saddam Hussein's Iraq does indeed present a serious problem. And the problem is more complex than many on either the left or the right are willing to acknowledge.
Those on the left correctly point out that a major strategic motivation for invading Iraq is securing access to its vast oil reserves -- which would also make us less beholden to the Saudis, with whom we have become disenchanted after 9/11. They also point to the gross hypocrisy of America suddenly demonizing a regional strongman whom we embraced just a few years ago as a secular bulwark against the supposedly greater threat posed by Islamist Iran. But the left often acts as if such Machiavellian strategic goals are our only motivation. This is too simplistic and fails to address the actual threat that Saddam poses.
Those on the right, for their part, disingenuously overemphasize the "Saddam is evil" justification for invasion. And they are unwilling to admit that military adventuring in the Middle East is about the most uncertain activity a state can engage in.
The administration has two motivations for invading Iraq. The stated motivation is that Saddam represents a clear and present danger to America and the world and must be removed. The strategic motivation, which is rarely articulated, is to fundamentally alter the balance of power in the Middle East -- and beyond that, to establish a precedent for "preventive" military action, carried out unilaterally if necessary. The debate about invasion has focused almost exclusively on the danger posed by Saddam and his efforts to build a doomsday arsenal. But the strategic dimension is actually more significant. And without considering the risks it holds, trying to decide whether the threat posed by Saddam justifies an invasion is a pointless exercise.
First, let us examine the threat posed by Saddam. According to advocates of regime change, Saddam is the post-Hiroshima world's worst nightmare: an erratic tyrant of singular brutality, filled with hatred and a desire for revenge against his enemies, who sooner or later will use weapons of mass destruction (WMD) against America and its allies, in particular Israel and/or Saudi Arabia. Saddam has not made trouble since the Gulf War (aside from a few genocidal rampages against his own people) because sanctions and an inspection regime have hemmed him in, but both have collapsed, and soon he will acquire a nuclear bomb. The world simply cannot afford to gamble on the rationality of a nuclear Saddam.
Contrary to the views of some on the left, this argument cannot simply be dismissed. It's true that Bush's campaign to whip up popular support for an invasion of Iraq by linking Baghdad to Sept. 11 was opportunism of so cheap a hue (the Arabs are coming! the Arabs are coming!) that it aroused suspicions that the administration's case for regime change was completely specious. But it is not. Ousting Saddam carries undeniable risks -- but so does leaving him in power.
The strongest argument that Saddam would not use WMD is that he is neither mad nor suicidal, and would never do anything that would bring about his own destruction. In the end, I believe that this argument still carries the day. But Kenneth M. Pollack's "The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq" mounts a powerful attack on it. Pollack, a former CIA analyst, makes a compelling if not finally convincing case that Saddam, although not a madman or suicidal, is so obsessive, arrogant, lacking in information about the outside world and unpredictable in his behavior that conventional notions of deterrence simply don't apply to him and we can't afford to leave him in power. Specifically, Pollack conjectures that if Saddam managed to get a nuclear bomb, he might invade Kuwait or Saudi Arabia, gambling that the United States would not be willing to sacrifice Tel Aviv or the Saudi oil fields to stop him. (The destruction of the Saudi oil fields, Pollack asserts, could send the world into a 1930s-type depression.) Pollack also raises the frightening specter of Saddam on his deathbed, taking a final revenge on his hated enemy and establishing his eternal bona fides as the new Saladin by firing a nuclear-armed missile at Israel.
Simply denouncing American hegemonism or heaping contempt on Bush as a swaggering cowboy ("the toxic Texan," as one European editorial writer called him) cannot make these fears go away. According to Pollack, we have three options in dealing with Saddam: containment (the current policy), deterrence (cheaper than containment) and regime change. Pollack argues convincingly that the current policy of containment has failed. Just how many weapons of mass destruction Saddam now possesses is unclear, but he is known to be building up his arsenal as quickly as possible and seeking enriched uranium, the final ingredient it is thought he needs to build a hydrogen bomb. The draconian sanctions the U.S. imposed on Saddam -- which have resulted in the deaths of thousands of Iraqis and enraged the Arab world -- failed to achieve their purpose: Illegal smuggling brings in billions of dollars a year that he can use to build his nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. Therefore, if containment is to work, it can only be through inspections, which last took place in 1998.
But Pollack argues that even if we could get Saddam to agree to meaningful inspections, which he doubts, "we cannot hold the gun to Saddam's head for as long as it would take to actually disarm Iraq." The problem is that Saddam never yields until troops are actually on his doorstep, but for logistical reasons we cannot maintain an invasion force in the Persian Gulf longer than six months or at most a year -- a period of time Pollack calls "laughably inadequate to disarm Iraq."
If Pollack is right, or if the Bush administration accepts this argument, war seems inevitable regardless of the minuet currently being danced by the Security Council, Washington and Baghdad. But it is hard to fathom why, if unconditional inspections are imposed and fully backed up by the U.N., Saddam could not be disarmed within a year. Pollack, who has years of painful experience dealing with Saddam's evasions and lies, is understandably skeptical -- but the inspections regime proposed now goes far beyond earlier ones, which did keep Saddam in a box.
The problem with containment is that it is expensive, forces us to commit too many of our resources to Iraq and never ends. Deterrence is cheaper, but as noted, Pollack rejects it as a viable option. Deterrence is based on the calculation that Saddam is a Stalin-type survivor who would never use WMD because he knows that if he did he would immediately be vaporized. But in perhaps the most valuable part of his book, Pollack draws on a long history of bizarre and arrogant miscalculations by Saddam to assert that we cannot have sufficient faith that it would work with him.
Pollack does concede that Saddam is not crazy enough to have hooked up with Osama bin Laden. Contrary to the vague claims being made lately by the administration that Saddam has ties to al-Qaida, Pollack is highly skeptical that Saddam had anything to do with Sept. 11, has ever assisted al-Qaida or will ever do so. Saddam, a secularist, detests and has butchered hundreds of Islamists like bin Laden, and bin Laden regards godless leaders like Saddam as satanic figures against whom jihad is a holy duty. Moreover, Saddam is far too cautious ever to give WMD to a group not under his control.
Pollack rules out covert action and an Afghan-style alliance with Iraqi exiles as impractical. That leaves one choice: invasion.
A major objection to invasion is that it would cause the Arab masses -- the so-called street -- to topple their regimes. Pollack regards this as unlikely. (It should be noted, however, that he assumes that the only motivation the U.S. would have for invading Iraq is our stated one of preemptive self-defense; he never explores the consequences of other strategic or tactical moves we might make in the region. This makes his optimistic conclusions less convincing.) He rightly points out in his book that "every time commentators have warned that the Arab 'street' would rise up and overthrow their governments -- specifically during the Gulf War and the recent Afghan campaign -- the reaction has not lived up to the predictions." He also points out that Arab leaders themselves seem to believe they can survive a U.S. invasion -- he says that contrary to their public position, the Saudis support it -- and there is no reason for us to be more pessimistic than they are. He acknowledges, however, that there could always be a first time for the appearance of the "street." And he notes that even if the "moderate" Arab regimes survive the invasion, their populations may be increasingly alienated and their rule less secure.
Pollack strenuously argues that to avoid enraging the Arab and Muslim world unnecessarily and inciting regional chaos, the invasion must be as multilateral as possible, should be accompanied by a major American effort to broker an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and must be followed by a long-term, expensive commitment to rebuilding Iraq. Under optimal circumstances, Pollack asserts that a relatively democratic and relatively prosperous Iraq that was not an American puppet could be a beacon of hope and progress in the Middle East. The price? Anywhere from a few hundred American combat deaths to 10,000, with Pollack estimating the most likely figure being 500 to 1,000 American deaths during a war that would last four to eight weeks. Iraqi casualties, of course, would be much greater.
It is a high price. But if it was the entire cost the United States would have to pay to be rid of Saddam, the American people would probably judge it worth paying. And if the invasion also changed the Middle East for the better -- if it promoted a just peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians, opened the region to democracy, resulted in a more equitable distribution of wealth and diminished the number of future Mohammad Attas -- they would probably be willing to pay an even higher price.
But will it? Or will it have the opposite effect? What if the shaky autocracies in Saudi Arabia and Egypt are faced with popular uprisings and are forced to suppress their people with a heavy hand? What if the Mubarak government falls and Egypt is taken over by the moderate Islamists who now dominate its educated classes? What if Saddam manages to hit Israel with a biological weapon and Israel decides it has to retaliate? What if an American outpost in Baghdad gives Ariel Sharon a free hand to grind the Palestinians down even further, exacerbating the semi-war? What if witnessing the most blatant Muslim defeat yet in the "clash of civilizations" -- Baghdad apartment houses being blown up by American jets, broadcast live on al-Jazeera into every Arab household in the Middle East -- increases the number of angry, disaffected, culturally humiliated young men who may someday seek revenge on America?
It is impossible to know what will happen. But deciding whether or not to invade Iraq requires making a judgment about the possibility that the Middle East may go up in flames as a result, or that the attack will breed future terrorists in the region and around the world, or that other nations will emulate us and launch invasions of their own, or that our allies will turn away from an out-of-control America -- and balancing those possibilities against the chance that Saddam will use WMD at some point in the future. Confining ourselves only to one possible negative consequence, dangerous instability in the Middle East, the answer is clear: It is much more likely that an invasion of Iraq will inflame the Middle East than that Saddam will use WMD against the United States or its allies. Even if al-Qaida never existed and there had never been a Sept. 11, invading a major sovereign Arab nation would be an extremely risky undertaking, one likely to spin out of our control. And the Cold War/pro-Israeli fervor the Bush administration brings to the Middle East is not reassuring.
Pollack makes a strong case that Saddam is too great a threat to ignore, but in the end it isn't strong enough. Since he is trying to show that Saddam will do something he has never done before, the burden of proof remains on him. Nor does Pollack fully address the impact that the catastrophic Gulf War defeat may have had on Saddam: He presents him as basically unchanged, as malevolent and prone to delusions of grandeur as he ever was. It seems unlikely that a man as cunning as Saddam would not have learned that any further serious aggression would result in his doom. This does not mean that he is harmless. In a different context, removing him might be justifiable -- and this possibility poses moral ambiguities that many on the left have not come to grips with. But Iraq is in the middle of the Middle East.
