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In 1987, there was a television program
called Amerika that posited a Soviet invasion of America with people resisting
including breaking the country up into several parts. What
seems funny is how the names for the various parts of the country which were
supposed to be bad English translations of Soviet words actually sound like
language being used today. "Homeland Security" for
example. Much of the Texas speech of Bush, Armey, Phil Graham
and others also sounds like it was ground out of an American parody of
Pravda. Well surprise, the Amerika TV program was written by
Republican writer Ben Stein and the son of economist Herb Stein and a
classical economist himself.
What seems the most eery of all is how the
occupation of Iraq resembles the plot for the Soviet occupation of
Amerika. Now it is not hard to see that Sadaam is a brutal man
who came to power in the same way many other brutal men have done through the
years. The kind of gratuitousness that throws civil
rights to the wind at the first shot fired is a very Sadaam like
response. Except it is Americans who are arguing (on TV)
about tying electric radio wires around the genitals of suspects or pulling
out fingernails.
Yes, we've seen this before. Most
recently in Vietnam. These fools who say we didn't do enough in
Vietnam never saw a child who had been tortured by radio wires by Americans in
Vietnam. Vietnam made us insane as a country and to say that more
insanity would have cured us is beyond shameful ala Krugman and into
stupid. In the early seventies I used to sit with a baritone
friend who was an expert in Oriental languages. He had been in
Special Ops in Vietnam and the stories told were the type that took basic good
patriotic American souls and slowly turned them into the bad
guy. As one relative said not so long ago: "These
folks came in with ideals and innocence and they had no idea what that world was
truly about. Who would have believed?"
The myths here are palpable. GWB
acting the part of the Texas Ranger who has surrounded the house of an evil
villain who is using his own family to serve as his shield.
The Texas Ranger knows that he will be rewarded by a kiss from the wife of
the excorable villain. She will be happy
to have been removed from the clutches of her nefarious husband.
On the other hand I would say that Sadaam is acting
the part of Leonidas at Thermopylae with his 300 Spartans planning to hold
back Xerxes, Darius's son or die. "What will we do, the arrows of
the Persians are like clouds? Then we will fight in the
shade!"
The problem is that I am sure Sadaam knows more
about the Persian Wars than does GWB. But then Sadaam has
never fought Mexicans trying to get across the border either.
Sadaam is certainly less trustworthy
studying history books than the Korean Emperor with his Video tapes.
Let us take a little journey into the mythology of
belief possible in the other side. Perhaps we should be
wiser since we claim to be the good guys here.
Imagine that it is not so easy to accept that
Sadaam, a brutal man, is not acting at the moment any differently from the
heroes in any of the American's movieland fantasy America invaded by
Cubans, Russians, Martians, or any other "uns" in the
movies. What Hero wouldn't hide his country's weapons from
these "cloven footed Masses" who swept the world clean of Arabic
Moslem culture with their dark planes and laser guided missiles that struck
from the cowardly darkness of the night? In the myth, he
seems to be acting the part of any self-interested person in any
nation that has been oppressed by another. Why wouldn't anyone
who saw the results of a war on his people treat an enemy as "THE
enemy." Admittedly he could have given up those palaces
but some people see palaces (Ronald Reagan in California for example) as
proof of the people's pride since those building will be around long after the
despot is gone. What really bothers is that this man
seems more a student of world history and more sophisticated then these
Americans who may very well lose it all and end up with the same cancers from DU
shells as the Iraqis have been living with over the last 12
years. Like those Palestinian Kids with those stones
capturing the Jewish myth of David and Goliath, Sadaam seems to be
winning the propaganda war at this time except on American TV where the constant
running of the same clips with the rifle resembles the old stories of the worst
in Kremlin Television.
Let us be honest about this. It
was Carter, Reagan and Bush 1 who encouraged the actions of this
man including arming him, encouraging his war with Iran while selling arms to
the Iranians themselves. A despot he is and pissed off
for sure but so would we be if we had been told by a superior power that we
could claim land after we had bankrupted ourselves fighting a war that the
superior power had encouraged and used us as a surrogate power after being
humiliated by the Iranians. It was Bush's ambassador to Iraq that
told Sadaam that the US would not "interfere" if he invaded Kuwait to recoup his
losses. This is beyond depressing so I will just post an
article from a magazine:
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/
An Unnecessary War
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In the
full-court press for war with Iraq, the Bush administration deems Saddam
Hussein reckless, ruthless, and not fully rational. Such a man, when mixed
with nuclear weapons, is too unpredictable to be prevented from
threatening the United States, the hawks say. But scrutiny of his past
dealings with the world shows that Saddam, though cruel and calculating,
is eminently deterrable. |
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By John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt
Should the United States invade Iraq and depose Saddam Hussein? If the
United States is already at war with Iraq when this article is published, the
immediate cause is likely to be Saddam�s failure to comply with the new U.N.
inspections regime to the Bush administration�s satisfaction. But this failure
is not the real reason Saddam and the United States have been on a collision
course over the past year.The deeper root of the conflict is the U.S. position
that Saddam must be toppled because he cannot be deterred from using weapons of
mass destruction (WMD). Advocates of preventive war use numerous arguments to
make their case, but their trump card is the charge that Saddam�s past behavior
proves he is too reckless, relentless, and aggressive to be allowed to possess
WMD, especially nuclear weapons. They sometimes admit that war against Iraq
might be costly, might lead to a lengthy U.S. occupation, and might complicate
U.S. relations with other countries. But these concerns are eclipsed by the
belief that the combination of Saddam plus nuclear weapons is too dangerous to
accept. For that reason alone, he has to go.
Even many opponents of preventive war seem to agree deterrence will not work
in Iraq. Instead of invading Iraq and overthrowing the regime, however, these
moderates favor using the threat of war to compel Saddam to permit new weapons
inspections. Their hope is that inspections will eliminate any hidden WMD
stockpiles and production facilities and ensure Saddam cannot acquire any of
these deadly weapons. Thus, both the hard-line preventive-war advocates and the
more moderate supporters of inspections accept the same basic premise: Saddam
Hussein is not deterrable, and he cannot be allowed to obtain a nuclear
arsenal.
One problem with this argument: It is almost certainly wrong.
The belief that Saddam�s past behavior shows he cannot be contained rests on
distorted history and faulty logic. In fact, the historical record shows that
the United States can contain Iraq effectively�even if Saddam has nuclear
weapons�just as it contained the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Regardless of
whether Iraq complies with U.N. inspections or what the inspectors find, the
campaign to wage war against Iraq rests on a flimsy foundation.
Is Saddam a Serial Aggressor?
Those who call for
preventive war begin by portraying Saddam as a serial aggressor bent on
dominating the Persian Gulf. The war party also contends that Saddam is either
irrational or prone to serious miscalculation, which means he may not be
deterred by even credible threats of retaliation. Kenneth Pollack, former
director for gulf affairs at the National Security Council and a proponent of
war with Iraq, goes so far as to argue that Saddam is �unintentionally
suicidal.�
The facts, however, tell a different story. Saddam has
dominated Iraqi politics for more than 30 years. During that period, he started
two wars against his neighbors�Iran in 1980 and Kuwait in 1990. Saddam�s record
in this regard is no worse than that of neighboring states such as Egypt or
Israel, each of which played a role in starting several wars since 1948.
Furthermore, a careful look at Saddam�s two wars shows his behavior was far from
reckless. Both times, he attacked because Iraq was vulnerable and because he
believed his targets were weak and isolated. In each case, his goal was to
rectify Iraq�s strategic dilemma with a limited military victory. Such reasoning
does not excuse Saddam�s aggression, but his willingness to use force on these
occasions hardly demonstrates that he cannot be deterred.
The Iran-Iraq War, 1980�88
Iran was the most powerful
state in the Persian Gulf during the 1970s. Its strength was partly due to its
large population (roughly three times that of Iraq) and its oil reserves, but it
also stemmed from the strong support the shah of Iran received from the United
States. Relations between Iraq and Iran were quite hostile throughout this
period, but Iraq was in no position to defy Iran�s regional dominance. Iran put
constant pressure on Saddam�s regime during the early 1970s, mostly by fomenting
unrest among Iraq�s sizable Kurdish minority. Iraq finally persuaded the shah to
stop meddling with the Kurds in 1975, but only by agreeing to cede half of the
Shatt al-Arab waterway to Iran, a concession that underscored Iraq�s weakness.
It is thus not surprising that Saddam welcomed the shah�s ouster in
1979. Iraq went to considerable lengths to foster good relations with Iran�s
revolutionary leadership. Saddam did not exploit the turmoil in Iran to gain
strategic advantage over his neighbor and made no attempt to reverse his earlier
concessions, even though Iran did not fully comply with the terms of the 1975
agreement. Ruhollah Khomeini, on the other hand, was determined to extend his
revolution across the Islamic world, starting with Iraq. By late 1979, Tehran
was pushing the Kurdish and Shiite populations in Iraq to revolt and topple
Saddam, and Iranian operatives were trying to assassinate senior Iraqi
officials. Border clashes became increasingly frequent by April 1980, largely at
Iran�s instigation.
Facing a grave threat to his regime, but aware that
Iran�s military readiness had been temporarily disrupted by the revolution,
Saddam launched a limited war against his bitter foe on September 22, 1980. His
principal aim was to capture a large slice of territory along the Iraq-Iran
border, not to conquer Iran or topple Khomeini. �The war began,� as military
analyst Efraim Karsh writes, �because the weaker state, Iraq, attempted to
resist the hegemonic aspirations of its stronger neighbor, Iran, to reshape the
regional status quo according to its own image.�
Iran and Iraq fought
for eight years, and the war cost the two antagonists more than 1 million
casualties and at least $150 billion. Iraq received considerable outside support
from other countries�including the United States, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and
France�largely because these states were determined to prevent the spread of
Khomeini�s Islamic revolution. Although the war cost Iraq far more than Saddam
expected, it also thwarted Khomeini�s attempt to topple him and dominate the
region. War with Iran was not a reckless adventure; it was an opportunistic
response to a significant threat.
The Gulf War,
1990�91
But what about Iraq�s invasion of Kuwait in August 1990?
Perhaps the earlier war with Iran was essentially defensive, but surely this was
not true in the case of Kuwait. Doesn�t Saddam�s decision to invade his tiny
neighbor prove he is too rash and aggressive to be trusted with the most
destructive weaponry? And doesn�t his refusal to withdraw, even when confronted
by a superior coalition, demonstrate he is �unintentionally
suicidal�?
The answer is no. Once again, a careful look shows Saddam was
neither mindlessly aggressive nor particularly reckless. If anything, the
evidence supports the opposite conclusion.
Saddam�s decision to invade
Kuwait was primarily an attempt to deal with Iraq�s continued vulnerability.
Iraq�s economy, badly damaged by its war with Iran, continued to decline after
that war ended. An important cause of Iraq�s difficulties was Kuwait�s refusal
both to loan Iraq $10 billion and to write off debts Iraq had incurred during
the Iran-Iraq War. Saddam believed Iraq was entitled to additional aid because
the country helped protect Kuwait and other Gulf states from Iranian
expansionism. To make matters worse, Kuwait was overproducing the quotas set by
the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, which drove down world oil
prices and reduced Iraqi oil profits. Saddam tried using diplomacy to solve the
problem, but Kuwait hardly budged. As Karsh and fellow Hussein biographer Inari
Rautsi note, the Kuwaitis �suspected that some concessions might be necessary,
but were determined to reduce them to the barest minimum.�
Saddam reportedly
decided on war sometime in July 1990, but before sending his army into Kuwait,
he approached the United States to find out how it would react. In a now famous
interview with the Iraqi leader, U.S. Ambassador April Glaspie told Saddam,
�[W]e have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement
with Kuwait.� The U.S. State Department had earlier told Saddam that Washington
had �no special defense or security commitments to Kuwait.� The United States
may not have intended to give Iraq a green light, but that is effectively what
it did.
Saddam invaded Kuwait in early August 1990. This act was an
obvious violation of international law, and the United States was justified in
opposing the invasion and organizing a coalition against it. But Saddam�s
decision to invade was hardly irrational or reckless. Deterrence did not fail in
this case; it was never tried.
But what about Saddam�s failure to leave
Kuwait once the United States demanded a return to the status quo ante? Wouldn�t
a prudent leader have abandoned Kuwait before getting clobbered? With hindsight,
the answer seems obvious, but Saddam had good reasons to believe hanging tough
might work. It was not initially apparent that the United States would actually
fight, and most Western military experts predicted the Iraqi army would mount a
formidable defense. These forecasts seem foolish today, but many people believed
them before the war began.
Once the U.S. air campaign had seriously
damaged Iraq�s armed forces, however, Saddam began searching for a diplomatic
solution that would allow him to retreat from Kuwait before a ground war began.
Indeed, Saddam made clear he was willing to pull out completely. Instead of
allowing Iraq to withdraw and fight another day, then U.S. President George H.W.
Bush and his administration wisely insisted the Iraqi army leave its equipment
behind as it withdrew. As the administration had hoped, Saddam could not accept
this kind of deal.
Saddam undoubtedly miscalculated when he attacked
Kuwait, but the history of warfare is full of cases where leaders have misjudged
the prospects for war. No evidence suggests Hussein did not weigh his options
carefully, however. He chose to use force because he was facing a serious
challenge and because he had good reasons to think his invasion would not
provoke serious opposition.
Nor should anyone forget that the Iraqi
tyrant survived the Kuwait debacle, just as he has survived other threats
against his regime. He is now beginning his fourth decade in power. If he is
really �unintentionally suicidal,� then his survival instincts appear to be even
more finely honed.
History provides at least two more pieces of evidence
that demonstrate Saddam is deterrable. First, although he launched
conventionally armed Scud missiles at Saudi Arabia and Israel during the Gulf
War, he did not launch chemical or biological weapons at the coalition forces
that were decimating the Iraqi military. Moreover, senior Iraqi
officials�including Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz and the former head of
military intelligence, General Wafiq al-Samarrai�have said that Iraq refrained
from using chemical weapons because the Bush Sr. administration made ambiguous
but unmistakable threats to retaliate if Iraq used WMD. Second, in 1994 Iraq
mobilized the remnants of its army on the Kuwaiti border in an apparent attempt
to force a modification of the U.N. Special Commission�s (UNSCOM) weapons
inspection regime. But when the United Nations issued a new warning and the
United States reinforced its troops in Kuwait, Iraq backed down quickly. In both
cases, the allegedly irrational Iraqi leader was
deterred.
Saddam�s Use of Chemical
Weapons
Preventive-war advocates also use a second line of
argument. They point out that Saddam has used WMD against his own people (the
Kurds) and against Iran and that therefore he is likely to use them against the
United States. Thus, U.S. President George W. Bush recently warned in Cincinnati
that the Iraqi WMD threat against the United States �is already significant, and
it only grows worse with time.� The United States, in other words, is in
imminent danger.
Saddam�s record of chemical weapons use is deplorable,
but none of his victims had a similar arsenal and thus could not threaten to
respond in kind. Iraq�s calculations would be entirely different when facing the
United States because Washington could retaliate with WMD if Iraq ever decided
to use these weapons first. Saddam thus has no incentive to use chemical or
nuclear weapons against the United States and its allies�unless his survival is
threatened. This simple logic explains why he did not use WMD against U.S.
forces during the Gulf War and has not fired chemical or biological warheads at
Israel.
Furthermore, if Saddam cannot be deterred, what is stopping him
from using WMD against U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf, which have bombed Iraq
repeatedly over the past decade? The bottom line: Deterrence has worked well
against Saddam in the past, and there is no reason to think it cannot work
equally well in the future.
President Bush�s repeated claim that the
threat from Iraq is growing makes little sense in light of Saddam�s past record,
and these statements should be viewed as transparent attempts to scare Americans
into supporting a war. CIA Director George Tenet flatly contradicted the
president in an October 2002 letter to Congress, explaining that Saddam was
unlikely to initiate a WMD attack against any U.S. target unless Washington
provoked him. Even if Iraq did acquire a larger WMD arsenal, the United States
would still retain a massive nuclear retaliatory capability. And if Saddam would
only use WMD if the United States threatened his regime, then one wonders why
advocates of war are trying to do just that.
Hawks do have a fallback
position on this issue. Yes, the United States can try to deter Saddam by
threatening to retaliate with massive force. But this strategy may not work
because Iraq�s past use of chemical weapons against the Kurds and Iran shows
that Saddam is a warped human being who might use WMD without regard for the
consequences.
Unfortunately for those who now favor war, this argument
is difficult to reconcile with the United States� past support for Iraq, support
that coincided with some of the behavior now being invoked to portray him as an
irrational madman. The United States backed Iraq during the 1980s�when Saddam
was gassing Kurds and Iranians�and helped Iraq use chemical weapons more
effectively by providing it with satellite imagery of Iranian troop positions.
The Reagan administration also facilitated Iraq�s efforts to develop biological
weapons by allowing Baghdad to import disease-producing biological materials
such as anthrax, West Nile virus, and botulinal toxin. A central figure in the
effort to court Iraq was none other than current U.S. Defense Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld, who was then President Ronald Reagan�s special envoy to the Middle
East. He visited Baghdad and met with Saddam in 1983, with the explicit aim of
fostering better relations between the United States and Iraq. In October 1989,
about a year after Saddam gassed the Kurds, President George H.W. Bush signed a
formal national security directive declaring, �Normal relations between the
United States and Iraq would serve our longer-term interests and promote
stability in both the Gulf and the Middle East.�
If Saddam�s use of
chemical weapons so clearly indicates he is a madman and cannot be contained,
why did the United States fail to see that in the 1980s? Why were Rumsfeld and
former President Bush then so unconcerned about his chemical and biological
weapons? The most likely answer is that U.S. policymakers correctly understood
Saddam was unlikely to use those weapons against the United States and its
allies unless Washington threatened him directly. The real puzzle is why they
think it would be impossible to deter him today.
Saddam With Nukes
The third strike against a policy of
containment, according to those who have called for war, is that such a policy
is unlikely to stop Saddam from getting nuclear weapons. Once he gets them, so
the argument runs, a host of really bad things will happen. For example,
President Bush has warned that Saddam intends to �blackmail the world�;
likewise, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice believes he would use
nuclear weapons to �blackmail the entire international community.� Others fear a
nuclear arsenal would enable Iraq to invade its neighbors and then deter the
United States from ousting the Iraqi army as it did in 1991. Even worse, Saddam
might surreptitiously slip a nuclear weapon to al Qaeda or some like-minded
terrorist organization, thereby making it possible for these groups to attack
the United States directly.
The administration and its supporters may be
right in one sense: Containment may not be enough to prevent Iraq from acquiring
nuclear weapons someday. Only the conquest and permanent occupation of Iraq
could guarantee that. Yet the United States can contain a nuclear Iraq, just as
it contained the Soviet Union. None of the nightmare scenarios invoked by
preventive-war advocates are likely to happen.
Consider the claim that
Saddam would employ nuclear blackmail against his adversaries. To force another
state to make concessions, a blackmailer must make clear that he would use
nuclear weapons against the target state if he does not get his way. But this
strategy is feasible only if the blackmailer has nuclear weapons but neither the
target state nor its allies do.
If the blackmailer and the target
state both have nuclear weapons, however, the blackmailer�s threat is an empty
one because the blackmailer cannot carry out the threat without triggering his
own destruction. This logic explains why the Soviet Union, which had a vast
nuclear arsenal for much of the Cold War, was never able to blackmail the United
States or its allies and did not even try.
But what if Saddam invaded
Kuwait again and then said he would use nuclear weapons if the United States
attempted another Desert Storm? Again, this threat is not credible. If Saddam
initiated nuclear war against the United States over Kuwait, he would bring U.S.
nuclear warheads down on his own head. Given the choice between withdrawing or
dying, he would almost certainly choose the former. Thus, the United States
could wage Desert Storm II against a nuclear-armed Saddam without precipitating
nuclear war.
Ironically, some of the officials now advocating war used
to recognize that Saddam could not employ nuclear weapons for offensive
purposes. In the January/February 2000 issue of Foreign Affairs, for
example, National Security Advisor Rice described how the United States should
react if Iraq acquired WMD. �The first line of defense,� she wrote, �should be a
clear and classical statement of deterrence�if they do acquire WMD, their
weapons will be unusable because any attempt to use them will bring national
obliteration.� If she believed Iraq�s weapons would be unusable in 2000, why
does she now think Saddam must be toppled before he gets them? For that matter,
why does she now think a nuclear arsenal would enable Saddam to blackmail the
entire international community, when she did not even mention this possibility
in 2000?
What About Nuclear Handoff?
Of course, now
the real nightmare scenario is that Saddam would give nuclear weapons secretly
to al Qaeda or some other terrorist group. Groups like al Qaeda would almost
certainly try to use those weapons against Israel or the United States, and so
these countries have a powerful incentive to take all reasonable measures to
keep these weapons out of their hands.
However, the likelihood of
clandestine transfer by Iraq is extremely small. First of all, there is no
credible evidence that Iraq had anything to do with the terrorist attacks
against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon or more generally that Iraq is
collaborating with al Qaeda against the United States. Hawks inside and outside
the Bush administration have gone to extraordinary lengths over the past months
to find a link, but they have come up empty-handed.
The lack of evidence
of any genuine connection between Saddam and al Qaeda is not surprising because
relations between Saddam and al Qaeda have been quite poor in the past. Osama
bin Laden is a radical fundamentalist (like Khomeini), and he detests secular
leaders like Saddam. Similarly, Saddam has consistently repressed fundamentalist
movements within Iraq. Given this history of enmity, the Iraqi dictator is
unlikely to give al Qaeda nuclear weapons, which it might use in ways he could
not control.
Intense U.S. pressure, of course, might eventually force
these unlikely allies together, just as the United States and Communist Russia
became allies during World War II. Saddam would still be unlikely to share his
most valuable weaponry with al Qaeda, however, because he could not be confident
it would not be used in ways that place his own survival in jeopardy. During the
Cold War, the United States did not share all its WMD expertise with its own
allies, and the Soviet Union balked at giving nuclear weapons to China despite
their ideological sympathies and repeated Chinese requests. No evidence suggests
Saddam would act differently.
Second, Saddam could hardly be confident
that the transfer would go undetected. Since September 11, U.S. intelligence
agencies and those of its allies have been riveted on al Qaeda and Iraq, paying
special attention to finding links between them. If Iraq possessed nuclear
weapons, U.S. monitoring of those two adversaries would be further intensified.
To give nuclear materials to al Qaeda, Saddam would have to bet he could elude
the eyes and ears of numerous intelligence services determined to catch him if
he tries a nuclear handoff. This bet would not be a safe one.
But even if
Saddam thought he could covertly smuggle nuclear weapons to bin Laden, he would
still be unlikely to do so. Saddam has been trying to acquire these weapons for
over 20 years, at great cost and risk. Is it likely he would then turn around
and give them away? Furthermore, giving nuclear weapons to al Qaeda would be
extremely risky for Saddam�even if he could do so without being detected�because
he would lose all control over when and where they would be used. And Saddam
could never be sure the United States would not incinerate him anyway if it
merely suspected he had made it possible for anyone to strike the United States
with nuclear weapons. The U.S. government and a clear majority of Americans are
already deeply suspicious of Iraq, and a nuclear attack against the United
States or its allies would raise that hostility to fever pitch. Saddam does not
have to be certain the United States would retaliate to be wary of giving his
nuclear weapons to al Qaeda; he merely has to suspect it might.
In sum,
Saddam cannot afford to guess wrong on whether he would be detected providing al
Qaeda with nuclear weapons, nor can he afford to guess wrong that Iraq would be
spared if al Qaeda launched a nuclear strike against the United States or its
allies. And the threat of U.S. retaliation is not as far-fetched as one might
think. The United States has enhanced its flexible nuclear options in recent
years, and no one knows just how vengeful Americans might feel if WMD were ever
used against the U.S. homeland. Indeed, nuclear terrorism is as dangerous for
Saddam as it is for Americans, and he has no more incentive to give al Qaeda
nuclear weapons than the United States does�unless, of course, the country makes
clear it is trying to overthrow him. Instead of attacking Iraq and giving Saddam
nothing to lose, the Bush administration should be signaling it would hold him
responsible if some terrorist group used WMD against the United States, even if
it cannot prove he is to blame.
Vigilant Containment
It is not surprising that those who
favor war with Iraq portray Saddam as an inveterate and only partly rational
aggressor. They are in the business of selling a preventive war, so they must
try to make remaining at peace seem unacceptably dangerous. And the best way to
do that is to inflate the threat, either by exaggerating Iraq�s capabilities or
by suggesting horrible things will happen if the United States does not act
soon. It is equally unsurprising that advocates of war are willing to distort
the historical record to make their case. As former U.S. Secretary of State Dean
Acheson famously remarked, in politics, advocacy �must be clearer than truth.�
In this case, however, the truth points the other way. Both logic and
historical evidence suggest a policy of vigilant containment would work, both
now and in the event Iraq acquires a nuclear arsenal. Why? Because the United
States and its regional allies are far stronger than Iraq. And because it does
not take a genius to figure out what would happen if Iraq tried to use WMD to
blackmail its neighbors, expand its territory, or attack another state directly.
It only takes a leader who wants to stay alive and who wants to remain in power.
Throughout his lengthy and brutal career, Saddam Hussein has repeatedly shown
that these two goals are absolutely paramount. That is why deterrence and
containment would work.
If the United States is, or soon will be, at war
with Iraq, Americans should understand that a compelling strategic rationale is
absent. This war would be one the Bush administration chose to fight but did not
have to fight. Even if such a war goes well and has positive long-range
consequences, it will still have been unnecessary. And if it goes badly�whether
in the form of high U.S. casualties, significant civilian deaths, a heightened
risk of terrorism, or increased hatred of the United States in the Arab and
Islamic world�then its architects will have even more to answer
for.
John
J. Mearsheimer is the R. Wendell Harrison distinguished service professor of
political science at the University of Chicago, where he codirects the Program
in International Security Policy. He is the author of The Tragedy of Great
Power Politics (New York: W. W. Norton, 2001). Stephen M. Walt is the
academic dean and the Robert and Renee Belfer professor of international affairs
at Harvard�s John F. Kennedy School of Government. He is faculty chair of the
International Security Program at the Belfer Center for Science and
International Affairs and is writing a book on global responses to American
primacy.
Let me just say that deterrance was a successful
policy but these folks are about to get hung up again in a war that has been
built to tumble a giant. It happened at Thermopylae, at
Bull Run and with the French going to WWI in their dress
uniforms. Bush is a moron and he has the red button and we
morons allowed him to have it. But what is worse is that
a well aimed missle or say ten well aimed missles at a target that your
enemy loves is worth thousands of your own soldier's lives.
I am a child of the Cold War which was so tight that we learned that Stalin
was murdered by his own because he was going to make it hot.
Delusional thought is just that.
The problem is to decide what your enemy loves and
to define the enemy. An enemy who acts like a school of fish
is impossible unless you have a net. There will be those who are not
"directly" connected to the enemy but they will not disconnect or take
responsibility for the actions of their kinsman either. Bush
almost got it right and then ran into the quicksand. Yes, in
terror, everyone connected to the terrorist is at war whether they like it or
not. If a Saudi doesn't like America's policies then they
have to elect to go through their government or their government
pays. The Saudi government protected the Bin Laden family and they
payed nothing that we know about. Maybe they lowered the price of
oil but they are making it back now with the high prices. They and their
governments are one and the same as are we. When we allow an
American business to screw the world we also are responsible and we did pay not
so long ago.
The world is not easy but deterrance
is. All it takes is making the other side realize that
there is no hope if they decide to prick the tiger. These
fools don't understand that America is made up of the people that they didn't
like and sent here instead. There are no people who are here
because the folks back home loved them and took care of them. These
folks are more wounded in their souls than the Black slave or the Palestinian
child living in a camp. In short, these folks are dangerous,
hurt and obsessed with being found and saved because they were
abandoned, lost and exiled. With the terrible fire power of
this people there is not a single person on the face of the earth
who shouldn't be concerned with healing the American's wounds.
They are without history and tradition, their art is simple and primal and their
credo is to consume and buy when lonely or depressed.
This is not a people to fool around with. I would suggest that
the rest of the world understand that and realize that the Soviets really did do
the right thing when faced with Reagan's smiling face and pin stripped
suit. They gave up. Anyone who doesn't understand
is too stupid or innocent to be involved in this game.
REH
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