Hi!
This is a reasoned look at the Bush-Blair-Iraq situation by the Economist which called the leaders "wielders of mass deception" in October.
The URL is:
HYPERLINK http://www.economist.com/printedition/PrinterFriendly.cfm?Story_ID=2227800 http://www.economist.com/printedition/PrinterFriendly.cfm?Story_ID=2227800
However, you may need a subscription to get to it so here it is.
I think it is very much worth reading.
Harry
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George Bush in London
Over here
Nov 20th 2003 From The Economist print edition
In defence of Bush and Blair, those oh so guilty men
ON OUR cover on October 4th, we called George Bush and Tony Blair
“wielders of mass deception”. We thought they had exaggerated the pre-
war intelligence that Saddam Hussein still owned weapons of mass
destruction. When no such weapons were found, the two leaders deserved
to forfeit some trust. But this does not justify the venom heaped on
them during Mr Bush's state visit to Britain. An event planned as a
victory parade after Iraq ended up putting the president and prime
minister in the dock of world opinion, where much of the jury has
already pronounced them guilty.
Americans who see the placards calling their president a war criminal
should be aware that a poll in the Guardian newspaper found that 43%
were glad that Mr Bush was visiting (36% were not) and 62% considered
America a force for good. However, most of those who thronged central
London to vilify the president seemed to take it for granted that the
Iraq war was wholly dishonest in its conception, and has been wholly
calamitous in its consequences. Mr Bush stands accused of mucking up
not only Iraq but also the planet itself (Kyoto, passim), the United
Nations (“unilateralism”, passim) and the outlook in Palestine (why
can't Mr Bush see, as a poll says Europeans can, that Israel is the
number one threat to world peace?). Predictably, many saw the attacks
on British interests in Istanbul on November 20th as Mr Blair's reward
for supporting the United States—as though he were to blame, not the
bombers. This view of the world, which turns Bush and Blair into the
real “axis of evil”, gains force with each indignant repetition. What
makes it spread?
One man and his lapdog, fouling our Eden
It is fed by three over-glib assumptions. The first might be called
the illusion of prelapsarian innocence. This holds that Mr Bush and
his British accomplice are the wanton wreckers of a system of
international order, with the United Nations at its apex, which up
until the Iraq war more or less succeeded in keeping the world
peaceful. In reality, this fabled system never existed. The
international order of the 1990s and beyond consisted of the usual
disorder. The UN's record during that decade included both failures to
intervene when it should have (to stop the genocide in Rwanda, for
example) and interventions that failed (Srebrenica, Somalia). There
was, of course, the occasional success as well, but like the war in
Iraq some of these, such as NATO's American-led rescue of Kosovo's
Muslims, were ad hoc actions undertaken without the express permission
(until after it was over) of the Security Council.
Iraq is in itself a perfect refutation of the idea that the world was
in apple-pie order before Mr Bush and Mr Blair upturned it. The
arguments for and against the war are familiar. Repeating them is
becoming tedious. But one point on which everyone should be clear is
that Iraq was a problem that needed solving, not one dreamt up for
America's convenience.
After the Kuwait war of 1991, nothing seemed capable of making Saddam
honour the terms of the ceasefire he signed. The Security Council
passed resolutions, which he ignored, and maintained sanctions, which
made Iraqis poor and hungry. This is the abject state of affairs which
critics of the war now refer to as “containment working”. Laying down
the law while failing to enforce it is no way to uphold order, but
that is how things stood before America and Britain acted (almost)
alone, and how they might still stand had France and the rest of the
permanent five managed to stop them. Though the rest hoped that more
time, inspectors and last chances could do the business bloodlessly,
it was a hope confounded by previous experience. At the least, those
who deem the war a mistake should admit that, without one, Iraq would
probably still be under the heel of its dictator.
Which leads to the second glib assumption, that the war has made
things worse for Iraqis than they were before. That is presumably why
London's protesters devised a clever wheeze to topple an effigy of Mr
Bush, in parody of the toppling of Saddam's statue on the day Baghdad
fell. This foolish notion belittles Iraq's suffering under the
dictator. Indeed, to too many of the war's critics, the relief of Arab
suffering seems to matter a good deal less than the supposed venality
of America's motives. Iraqis are, to say the least, not natural
admirers of Mr Bush. But most are pleased that the superpower got rid
of their oppressor.
None of this is to deny that America has made mistakes. It has found
the occupation harder than expected, and the guerrilla resistance more
painful. That is probably why Mr Bush has now decided to transfer
power next summer to a provisional government, instead of sticking
with the more methodical democracy-building programme he originally
envisaged (see article). This is a danger. Though the new plan will
speed up the formal transfer of authority from Americans to Iraqis (as
France and others have long proposed), the Iraqis who receive it will
not have been directly elected. Yet the broad picture remains hopeful.
Most attacks on the coalition are organised by a fraction of the Sunni
minority, whereas most Shias and Kurds are still content to work with
the Americans. Everything might still go wrong, but there is a
middling chance that with enough money and a sustained effort America
will indeed help Iraqis to create a serious democracy.
If Iraq is better off, what about the wider world? Here critics are on
firmer ground. The collateral damage the war has inflicted on the
Security Council, on the friendship between America and France and on
relations between America and Islam is no illusion. It is, however, an
illusion to hope that the superpower will see virtue in maintaining
institutions and alliances whose overall effect is to prevent it from
pursuing its own vital interests. That is why, under the beguiling
slogan of a “multipolar” world, France's message to America—please
make it easier for us to tie you down—is not going to be heeded. And
it also explains what so many Britons see as the mystery of Mr Blair's
slavish loyalty to Mr Bush.
When people complain that America is behaving as a global policeman,
their real gripe is often just the opposite. It is just fine when
America acts the policeman, using its muscle to enforce the law under
orders from the Security Council. But the United States is not just
the enforcement arm of the United Nations. Like all nation-states it
tends most of the time to put selfish motives first, with the big
difference that it has much more power with which to pursue them. Mr
Blair's insight is that it therefore makes sense for the rest of the
world to persuade America that it is more efficient to pursue its own
interests within a system of institutions and alliances than outside.
Mr Blair is not alone in seeing things this way. Kofi Annan, the UN's
secretary-general, takes a similar view, which is why he has now asked
a panel of eminent people to examine ways in which it will be able in
future to respond more effectively to America's post-September 11th
worries about terrorism and nuclear proliferation (see article).
How, though, do Americans feel? The paralysis of the Security Council
before the Iraq war was a blow to the Blairite vision of how to live
alongside the superpower. But all is not lost. In America, the
difficulties of winning the peace in Iraq have revived an appetite for
helpers. Mr Bush claimed in London that, like 11 presidents before
him, he believed in international institutions, provided they were
serious about the dangers facing the world. Now would be a good time
for the internationalists to prove to America that they are
serious—and for Mr Bush to prove that he means what he says.
Copyright © 2003 The Economist Newspaper and The Economist Group. All
rights reserved.
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Henry George School of Social Science
of Los Angeles
Box 655 Tujunga CA 91042
Tel: 818 352-4141 -- Fax: 818 353-2242
HYPERLINK http://haledward.home.comcast.net http://haledward.home.comcast.net
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