Kamm on Iraq: Despite It All, The Right Decision Was Made
Here’s the always intriguing Oliver Kamm, writing in the Guardian (guess this is British newspaper day here at D’08):
The failures of the occupation are legion: delayed elections, inadequate security, eroding infrastructure, complacency over the tortures at Abu Ghraib, and a heavy death toll among Iraqi civilians and our troops. But had we allowed Saddam’s regime to persist, in defiance of its obligations under 17 UN security council resolutions, the consequences would have been an unalloyed catastrophe. The Uday-Qusay dynasty would have ensured further extreme oppression, unless and until the regime collapsed in chaos. It is a fine judgment whether a rogue state or a failed state, prey to the barbarities that jihadists are trying to inflict on Iraq now but without hindrance, would have been the worse prospect. The notion that terrorism has been brought to Iraq uniquely by the west’s overthrow of Saddam, who bankrolled it and was the most likely conduit for Islamist groups to obtain WMD, is astonishingly ahistorical.
Against those disastrous scenarios, there are clear advances. We no longer have to bear one major risk: a psychopathic despot overcoming a porous sanctions regime, and using oil sales to pay for resumed WMD production. The absence of WMD was a huge intelligence failure; so it is fortunate that we are no longer reliant on Saddam’s word. As Professor Graham Pearson, of the Bradford University school of peace studies, has written, focusing on stockpiles is misconceived: “In an aggressor state, there is no requirement to have such stockpiles as the national strategy is not one of having an ability to retaliate in kind but rather … to use chemical and biological weapons at a time of its choosing.” Saddam did possess dual-use facilities that, according to Charles Duelfer of the Iraq Survey Group, could quickly have produced chemical and biological weapons.
It’s an assessment I agree with – our credibility took a huge hit with the WMD intelligence failure, of that there is no doubt – it remains a good decision, however, even if we stressed the wrong reason out of many…
This is a curious argument: despite everything which has gone wrong, things would have been even worse if we didn’t invade. We’ll never know. It’s like saying that your team would have won despite the fact that they were behind 5-0 when the game was called because of rain becaue they have great relief pitching. Well, maybe so, but it sure doesn’t seem that way based on what we know now.
However, there is a lot to pick apart in his argument:
1) While he catalogues “the failures of the occupation,” he neglects to mention the cost in US and British lives, the deficit spending which funded the war, or the stresses on the military and especially its recruitment. Nor did he mention what may be the most ominous result of the invasion: the biggest winner from our invasion of Iraq was Iran.
2) Re “the notion that terrorism has been brought to Iraq uniquely by the west’s overthrow of Saddam, who bankrolled it and was the most likely conduit for Islamist groups to obtain WMD, is astonishingly ahistorical:” not so. It is true that Hussein sent checks to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers and gave shelter to people like Abu Nidal. However, the results of his efforts were far less than other states which sponsor terrorism (North Korea, Syria), turn a blind eye to terrorism (Saudi Arabia, pre-9/11 UAE), or have unknown but suspected ties to terrorists (Iran, Libya). The fact is that there are a lot of terrorists in Iraq now, and there weren’t a lot before. Doesn’t sound like progress to me.
3) Moreover, the strongest statement he can make is that Hussein was “the most likely conduit” of WMD. He can’t claim that Iraq actually was a conduit of WMD — only that there is a likelihood of that. However, there were no WMD — since Iraq can’t export what it doesn’t have, it has to produce the WMD under sanctions, which is also problematical. Kamm weighs the reality of what has happened since the invasion against the possibility of what could have happened if we didn’t invade and claims that the hypothetical trumps the real.
4) It is true that we no longer “have to bear one major risk: a psychopathic despot.” However, we have replaced it with the risks that an emboldened Iran will create nuclear weaponry, that we have provided Al Qaeda with its best recruiting tool yet, and that we have undercut the ability of any pro-Western Muslim moderates who may be left to have any leverage. As bad as Hussein was, the world would be a safer place if he were still in power and we had not invaded Iraq.
I categorically disagree with your ending statement…but then, that won’t surprise you…
Eventually, we would have ended up in Iraq anyway, I suspect, and the longer we waited, the harder things would have been.
No one denies that Saddam wanted to reconstitute his WMD programs – should we have waited until he did?…
I would say yes (we should have waited) for these reasons:
1) By devoting the resources in lives, money, and alliances to invading Iraq, we do not have the resources to effectively threaten more dangerous countries, such as Iran and North Korea. In addition, military recruitment and the good will of people who serve in the reserves has been adversely affected, hurting our ability to wage war in the future.
2) By invading Iraq, we altered the geopolitical balance in the Middle East to favor Iran. I doubt they would thumb their noses at the rest of the world if we were not bogged down next door. (One possibility: what if Iraq splits into three countries and Iran invades the Sunni part? What do we do then? Or – less likely but still feasible — Turkey attacks the Kurdish part?)
3) Strengthening Al Qaeda, weakening moderates throughout Islam. We are vulnerable to terrorist attacks regardless of who we attack – look what nineteen guys with box cutters did – and the only way to truly defeat terrorism is by showing the Arab world that, among other things, we don’t invade Muslim lands for oil (to be clear: I don’t think we invaded for oil – but they do). American boots on Muslim soil may win battles, but lose wars.
4) The same debate raged in the early 1960’s when China successfully tested an atomic bomb. This was an aggressive Communist country whose proxy we fought the previous decade in Korea, led by a madman who starved his own people. Unlike Iraq, China had the bomb and the means to deliver it. Many called for a pre-emptive strike, with the same arguments that Bush used. Cooler heads prevailed, and now Wal-Mart shoppers everywhere can buy their underwear for $1.99.
5) I’m not sure that I buy into the concept of a pre-emptive war. George Bush feels that in response to the 9/11 attacks, he has the right to grab anyone in any place and hold them indefinitely without being charged with anything. He also believes that we have the right to attack another country if, in our sole judgment, that country poses a threat to us. The first belief is clearly wrong, and I believe that the second is wrong as well. In the event that there is a clear, demonstrable, imminent threat – perhaps something like the Cuban Missile Crisis – there may be justification for being the first to attack. However, when the threat does not currently exist, and may not exist for years to come, I cannot find the justification to launch a pre-emptive war.
peter, here’s a quite prescient article from 2003 that explains my answer to your objections pretty well – here’s an excerpt:
Over a year has elapsed since President Bush declared that the United States would act decisively and with armed force to preempt danger from terrorists and rogue states. His declaration—implemented last March in Iraq—has provoked a steady stream of commentary ever since, much of it negative. With the Iraqi war still controversial and tests still facing America in Iran, North Korea, and Syria, the “Bush Doctrine” of preemptive war is ripe for a fresh appraisal. Two things about it stand out.
First, the doctrine may be more difficult to execute than many of its supporters first thought. For one thing, the military force requirements of such a policy probably do not permit more than one such exercise at a time, at least in its full Iraqi regime-changing form. While modern “force multipliers” might drastically reduce the manpower needed to defeat the enemy in battle, they cannot obviate the subsequent need for extensive forces to police the post-war environment. We might well be able to gain victory against both Iraq and Iran simultaneously, but who now thinks we could occupy both simultaneously? Unless a commitment is made by the President and Congress to significantly expand the size of the armed forces, there is a severe constraint on the application of a preemptive policy. To be fair, the administration has tried to make it clear (though many of its critics are not listening) that it sees preemption as only one possible option of many, and an option to be used sparingly.
A second problem is political. To be sustainable over time, American wars depend on public support. That support, in turn, depends on the degree to which Americans are convinced that the costs of war (both human and financial) are outweighed by the benefits. The problem with preemptive wars is that the costs will always be obvious and tangible, even when they are not large by historical standards; the benefits, by definition, lie primarily in the intangible and unknowable realm of horrors prevented.
I’m not sure how this answers my objections – the author writes that pre-emptive wars are difficult to execute, drain our current resources, and are dependent on the support of a public which cannot see or quantify its benefits. My objections are that we’ve squandered our resources, emboldened our enemies, weakened our allies, and provided a place for terrorists to regroup and train. I’m not clear on how the excerpt above – which seems pretty reasonable to me – addresses these issues…
Well, if you read the whole article, you’ll see that preemptive war is far from a new concept. Second, it all depends on how you view the intangible horrors you avoided – and there’s the heart of our disagreement. I feel for a certainty that Saddam would have reconstituted his WMDs and would have caused a much worse confrontation down the line…but of course, you can’t prove a hypothetical…
It’s not really a direct answer to your objections, it’s another way of framing the debate – does the actual cost outweigh the perceived benefit? We have radically different answers to that question…
indeed we do — busy at the office, I will try to get to the whole article tonight –