Greetings from the Pacific
Northwest, where the East winds have
abated and we are socked in with gentle rain.
Everyone is trying to get their
two cents in print before the President’s speech writers are
finished with the final copy of the State of the Union speech,
hoping to influence the thinking and presentation of an important,
time-sensitive public policy moment that will be gleaned for the
smallest details between the lines. Friedman puts a lot of
things into perspective we can understand while raising some
contentious issues that need to be
aired.
We are discussing consequences
here, not just morality about preemptive force. Conservatives used to have
a strong voice on the intended and unintended consequences of
government. Today,
with this White House, they have lost that edge. Karen Watters
Cole
The earlier column is at
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/22/opinion/22FRIE.html I urge you to read it also
if this subject is important to you.
Excerpt
from that:
“What
liberals fail to recognize is that regime change in Iraq is not
some distraction from the war on Al Qaeda. That is a bogus
argument. And simply because oil is also at stake in Iraq doesn't
make it illegitimate either. Some things are right to do, even if
Big Oil benefits.
Although President Bush has
cast the war in Iraq as being about disarmament — and that is
legitimate — disarmament is not the most important prize there.
Regime change is the prize. Regime transformation in Iraq could
make a valuable contribution to the war on terrorism, whether
Saddam is ousted or enticed into exile.”
Thinking
About Iraq (II)
By Thomas L. Friedman, NYT,
01.26.03 @ http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/26/opinion/26FRIE.html
In
my column on Wednesday I laid out why I believe that
liberals
underestimate
how ousting Saddam Hussein could help
spur positive political change
in the Arab world. Today's column explores why
conservative
advocates of ousting Saddam underestimate the
risks,
and where we should strike the
balance.
Let's
start with one simple fact: Iraq is a black box that has been
sealed shut since Saddam came to dominate Iraqi politics in the
late 1960's. Therefore, one needs to
have a great deal of humility when it comes to predicting what
sorts of bats and demons may fly out if the U.S. and its allies
remove the lid. Think
of it this way: If and when we take the lid off Iraq, we will find
an envelope inside. It will tell us what we
have won and it will say one of two
things.
It
could say, "Congratulations!
You've just won the Arab Germany
— a country with enormous human talent, enormous natural
resources, but with an evil dictator, whom you've just removed.
Now, just add a
little water, a spoonful of democracy and stir, and this will be a
normal nation very soon."
Or
the envelope could say, "You've
just won the Arab Yugoslavia —
an artificial country congenitally divided among Kurds, Shiites,
Sunnis, Nasserites, leftists and a host of tribes and clans that
can only be held together with a Saddam-like iron fist.
Congratulations, you're the new
Saddam."
In
the first scenario, Iraq is the way it is today because Saddam is
the way he is. In the
second scenario, Saddam is the way he is because Iraq is what it
is. Those are two
very different problems. And we will know which
we've won only when we take off the lid. The conservatives and
neo-cons, who have been pounding the table for war, should be a
lot more humble about this question, because they don't know
either.
Does
that mean we should rule out war? No. But it does mean that we
must do it right. To
begin with, the president must level with the American people that
we may indeed be buying the Arab Yugoslavia, which will take a
great deal of time and effort to heal into a self-sustaining,
progressive, accountable Arab government. And, therefore, any
nation-building in Iraq will be a multiyear marathon, not a
multiweek sprint.
Because
it will be a marathon,
we must undertake this war with the maximum amount of
international legitimacy and U.N. backing we can possibly muster.
Otherwise we will not
have an American
public willing
to run this marathon, and we will not have allies ready to help us
once we're inside (look at all the local police and administrators
Europeans now contribute in Bosnia and Kosovo). We'll
also become a huge target
if we're the sole occupiers of Iraq.
In
short, we can oust Saddam Hussein all by ourselves. But
we cannot successfully rebuild Iraq all by
ourselves.
And the real prize
here is a new Iraq that would be a progressive model for the whole
region. That, for me,
is the only morally and strategically justifiable reason to
support this war. The
Bush team dare
not invade Iraq simply to install a more friendly dictator to pump
us oil.
And it
dare
not simply disarm Iraq and then walk away from the nation-building
task.
Unfortunately,
when it comes to enlisting allies, the Bush team is its own worst
enemy.
It has sneered at
many issues the world cares about: the Kyoto accords, the World
Court, arms control treaties. The Bush team had
legitimate arguments on some of these issues, but the gratuitous
way it dismissed them has fueled anti-Americanism. No, I have no illusions
that if the Bush team had only embraced Kyoto the French wouldn't
still be trying to obstruct America in Iraq. The French are the French.
But unfortunately,
now the Germans are the French, the Koreans are the French, and
many Brits are becoming French.
Things
could be better, but here is where we are — so here is where I am:
My gut tells me we should continue the troop buildup, continue the
inspections and do everything we can for as long as we can to
produce either a coup or the sort of evidence that will give us
the broadest coalition possible, so we can do the best
nation-building job possible.
But
if war turns out to be the only option, then war it will have to
be — because I believe that our kids will have a better chance of
growing up in a safer world if we help put Iraq on a more
progressive path and stimulate some real change in an Arab world
that is badly in need of reform. Such a war would indeed be
a shock to this region, but, if we do it right, there is a decent
chance that it would be shock therapy.
Outgoing mail scanned by NAV
2002
