Finally, regime change in Iraq offers the opportunity to attack radical Islamism at its roots: the dismal prevalence of political repression and economic stagnation throughout the Muslim world. The establishment of a reasonably liberal and democratic Iraq could serve as a model for positive change throughout the region. Of course, the successful rebuilding of Iraq will not be easy, but we cannot shrink from necessary tasks simply because they are hard. And we cannot simply assume that "nature" will bring freedom to a region that has never known it on a time scale consistent with safeguarding American lives.
Mueller's "What, me worry?" attitude captures perfectly the prevailing opinion about Afghanistan circa September 10, 2001. The Taliban were more a punch line than a serious foreign policy issue; only the most fevered imagination could see any threat to us in that miserable, dilapidated country. The next day, 3,000 Americans were dead.
We can't let that happen again.
Suicide Watch
Betting on Saddam's recklessness
John Mueller
It may be useful to parse the argument for a preventive war against Iraq as developed by Brink Lindsey into two considerations: the military threat Iraq presents or is likely to present, and the regime's connection to international terrorism.
The notion that Iraq presents an international military threat seems to be based on three propositions:
1) Iraq will have a small supply of atomic weapons in a few years.
2) Once it gets these arms, Saddam Hussein won't be able to stop himself from engaging in extremely provocative acts such as ordering the military invasion of a neighbor or lobbing missiles at nuclear-armed Israel -- acts that are likely to trigger a concerted multilateral military attack upon him and his regime.
3) If Saddam issues such a patently suicidal order, his military -- which he himself distrusts -- will dutifully carry it out, presumably with more efficiency, effectiveness, and élan than it demonstrated in the Persian Gulf War.
I will leave it to those more expert in the field to assess the first proposition. At worst we have a window of a few years before the regime is able to acquire atomic arms. Some experts seem to think it could be much longer, while others question whether Saddam's regime will ever be able to gather or make the required fissile material. Effective weapons inspections, of course, would reduce this concern.
The second proposition rests on an enormous respect for what I have called Saddam's "daffiness" in decision making. I share at least part of this respect. Saddam does sometimes act on caprice, and he often appears to be out of touch -- messengers bringing him bad news rarely, it seems, get the opportunity to do so twice. At the same time, however, he has shown himself capable of pragmatism. When his invasion of Iran went awry, he called for retreat to the prewar status quo; it was the Iranian regime that kept the war going. After he invaded Kuwait in 1990, he quickly moved to settle residual issues left over from the Iran-Iraq War so that he had only one enemy to deal with.
Above all, Saddam seems to be entirely nonsuicidal and is primarily devoted to preserving his regime and his own personal existence. His brutal killing (and gassing) of Kurds was carried out because they were in open rebellion against him and in effective or actual complicity with invading Iranians during the Iran-Iraq War. Much of his obstruction of arms inspectors seems to arise from his fear that agents among them will be used fatally to triangulate his whereabouts -- a suspicion that press reports suggest was not exaggerated. If Saddam does acquire nuclear arms, accordingly, it seems most likely that he will use them as all other leaders possessing such weapons have since 1945: to deter an invasion.
The third proposition is rarely considered in discussions of the war, but it is important. One can't simultaneously maintain that Iraq's military forces will readily defect and can easily be walked over -- a common assumption among our war makers -- and also that this same pathetic military presents a serious international threat.
The argument connecting Iraq to terrorism is mostly based on arm waving. As Lindsey notes, international terrorists are based all over the world -- in fact, just about everywhere except Iraq. Their efforts are hardly likely to be deflated if Iraq's regime is defeated. Indeed, it seems likely that an attack will supply them with new recruits, inspire them to more effort, and provide them with inviting new targets in the foreign military and civilian forces that occupy a defeated, chaotic Iraq. Lindsey suggests that a war is required to make it "clear that the United States means business in dealing with terrorism." I would have thought this was already extremely clear.
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Eric H|12.19.09 @ 6:08AM|#
Should We Invade Iraq?
No
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