Comments on: That was the good news

By: George

George — Thu, 28 Oct 2004 18:50:58 +0000

dsquared: sorry, didn’t mean to put words in your mouth. But I will say it: how Israel treats its citizens, including its Palestinian citizens, is better than how most Arab nations treat most of their citizens—let alone unfavored minorities. But I think you may have been trying to compare the insurgents in Fallujah with the Palestinians in the occupied territories—since that’s where most of the terrorists come from, not from the Arabs who live in Israel. If that’s the comparison you’re making, I think it’s a flawed one. For one thing, it is not at all clear to me that the difficulties of non-Israeli Palestinians stem more from mistreatment by Israel or from mistreatment by other Arabs (particularly their own avaricious leaders). Having said that, I don’t really want to get into a discussion of the Arab-Israeli question. That would take all day.

By: George

George — Thu, 28 Oct 2004 18:35:00 +0000

Thanks Roger. I agree, civil debate is so rare these days that it’s a palpable relief to engage in it. Actually, I didn’t advocate that the US attack Fallujah with any particular degree of violence. I agree with you that it is a delicate balancing act: on the one hand, a fundamental attribute of states is a monopoly on violence, and so allowing any faction outside the central government to maintain power by force of arms undermines the legitimacy of the central government, perhaps fatally. So the situation in Fallujah is untenable. On the other hand, as you say, any violence with an American face on it (or even an Iraqi face, although less so) also runs the risk of alienating many Iraqis from the central government. A dilemma. But the solution is (as with the war as a whole) is to take the path with the least risk and the greatest potential benefits. That path is, I believe, to invest Fallujah with a combination of US and Iraqi troops—although as I noted above, I don’t pretend to know the exact calibrations. But from the examples of Najaf (where US troops assiduously avoided inflaming the situation [for ex, by damaging the Imam Ali mosque] despite outrageous provocations from Sadr’s militia) and Samarra (where US troops provided the bulk of the firepower, but Iraqi troops provided the face, and also occupied the mosques to prevent a replay of Najaf) suggests to be that we are getting reasonably good at walking that tightrope. Either of those places, if mishandled, could have been the tinderbox for a national insurrection, but both were safely defused. In any event, whatever is going to happen will probably happen soon. So we’ll see.

By: George

George — Thu, 28 Oct 2004 18:19:41 +0000

John Q: actually there was opposition in the US to the Afghan war: protests, vigils, marches etc. And while it’s true that this was mostly at the fringe, and far less than opposition to the Iraq war, it was still (to my imperfect recollection) much more opposition than the Kosovo war inspired in the American public. Very few street protests that I recall about the NATO campaign in Kosovo. But that’s not really what I meant, nor you, I think. The Afghan war was as cut-and-dried as a modern war could be: the Taliban was sheltering the people who were responsible for a massive attack on American soil. Who besides the extreme anti-war fringe could oppose that? Whereas the justifications for the Iraq war were more abstact and subject to debate—much like, in fact, the justifications for the Kosovo campaign. Yet opposition to the Iraq war coalesced around that core of semipro protesters in a way that nevered happened over Kosovo. Moreover, this phenomenon holds in the particular as well as the aggregate: I know many people who are vitriolically opposed to the Iraq war but voice(d) support for the Kosovo campaign. That’s hypocrisy, and it’s widespread.

By: jet

jet — Thu, 28 Oct 2004 14:11:22 +0000

Kevnin, I take it that because Iraq doesn’t have the highest literacy rates in the modern world, you are assuming they are automatically lower than 1945 Japan? And this is 1945 class ridden, mostly rural, quasi-industrialized, Japan we are talking about? Numbers for 1945 Japanese literacy rates probably don’t exist, but I think you are taking the sucker bet on this one.

By: dsquared

dsquared — Thu, 28 Oct 2004 10:40:05 +0000

dsquared: as you note, an Israeli-style armed democracy is still way better than an Arab-style despotism, which is how many or most Arab states (including Saddam’s Iraq) keep their minorities under control. No, I said it’s better than Saddam’s Iraq. And in the specific case of Israel, it takes place in the context of a first-world economy, which nobody is seriously suggesting Iraq would have. Furthermore, for people who don’t live in Iraq, the main issue is the effect of the political system there on terrorist production and recruitment. And as I say, one thing we do know about “armed democracies” (I would call them democracies with internal colonies) is that they breed terrorists like flies.

By: roger

roger — Thu, 28 Oct 2004 10:12:19 +0000

Sorry for the two-fer. Satan strikes the comments section again!

By: roger

roger — Thu, 28 Oct 2004 09:22:39 +0000

George, I’m glad you don’t identify the Platonically Good and the U.S. That means we can calmly discuss, and disagree on, the Good, American interest, and Iraq’s interest without yelling. It is quite liberating. So: here is why I think it is neither good, nor in Iraq’s interest, nor in the U.S.’s interest to attack Fallujah with the violence that you advocate. The reason, we are told, that Fallujah must be “retaken” is that we need to hold elections in Iraq. We need to hold elections in Iraq to create a legitimate government. We need a legitimate government, from the U.S. point of view, in order to collaborate with Iraq to promote America’s security interests in the region – and from the Iraqi point of view, to restore normality and dignity to everyday life. So far, so good. Is the path to those goals through a violent attack on Fallujah? I think not. I think such an attack will further alienate the Iraqi population. This in turn will make more extremely anti-American political parties popular, and sink the popularity of those factions seen as close to the U.S. This in turn will incline the Americans to find ways to finesse the elections in order to elevate our collaborators. Which will lead to a deepening, rather than a lessening, of the crisis of legitimacy in Iraq. Which will be productive of more violence against the Americans and their associates in the country. And so it will go in a downward spiral. In America, any politician worth his salt can win votes by promising to be tough on crime. But he will quickly lose votes if his toughness on crime consists in bombing selected high crime cities. . The idea that America is going to win friends and influence people in the Sunni triangle by killing x amount of them seems, to me, like a pretty crazy plan. When it was tried, last April, it nearly destroyed the Iraqi Governing Council, and certainly speeded up their dissolution. Allawi knows this. So why should he be pressing for the sacking of Fallujah? Perhaps because Allawi doesn’t want power from the ballot box – making himself electorally unpopular, while at the same time making himself indispensable to the Americans, opens up another, and quite sinister, avenue for retaining power. In this, Allawi’s interests are almost parallel to the insurgents.

By: roger

roger — Thu, 28 Oct 2004 09:17:40 +0000

By: John Quiggin

John Quiggin — Thu, 28 Oct 2004 01:36:56 +0000

“And in the US at least, much of the hypocrisy about the Iraq war is generated, I believe, by animus toward George W Bush.” If so, why was there so little opposition to the overthrow of the Taliban?

By: George

George — Thu, 28 Oct 2004 01:27:21 +0000

And with that I have to go. May check back later, or tomorrow, to respond to any new posts. Thanks.

By: George

George — Thu, 28 Oct 2004 01:23:11 +0000

dsquared: as you note, an Israeli-style armed democracy is still way better than an Arab-style despotism, which is how many or most Arab states (including Saddam’s Iraq) keep their minorities under control. I hope that it does not turn out that despotism is the only viable form of government for Arabs. There’s no shortage of evidence for that theory, but I’m stubbornly hopeful about the ability of Arabs to come up with some better mode of governing themselves. If not, we’re all in for much worse than this little dust-up.

By: George

George — Thu, 28 Oct 2004 01:10:47 +0000

nicholas: I certainly see how you could reach that conclusion. Kosovo today is a mess of racial violence and organized crime, and it’s unclear to me whether the original goal (stopping a genocide) was really accomplished, or if we simply exchanged one genocide for another. But that’s a minority position, I thunk, or at least it is in the US. For one very large example, the New York Times gave their reasonably enthusiastic endorsement to intervention in Kosovo, which they’ve never retracted, yet they were against the Iraq war from the very beginning. Different people can have different positions on what is right or wrong, or what are acceptable risks. But it’s hypocrisy I can’t stand. And in the US at least, much of the hypocrisy about the Iraq war is generated, I believe, by animus toward George W Bush.

By: George

George — Thu, 28 Oct 2004 01:02:08 +0000

Roger: I like a poster who can cut through the chaff. I think your assertion that “The occupation has been premised on the idea that the U.S. is a force for good” is not just an oversimplification but a misrepresentation. There were several overlapping motivations for the war, which I will not attempt to outline here. (And anyway, they never seem to convince anyone who’s not already convinced.) If I had to condense it all down into one pithy assertion, I would not use terms like good and evil (that’s Bush’s job) but I would say that the object of the war was to exchange one set of risks and potential benefits for another, better set of risks and potential benefits. So for the war to be considered a success over the intermediate- to long-term, the resulting Iraqi society does not necessarily have to be “good” in an absolute sense (ie, to the level where it might join the EU or something like that) but only that it be better than Saddam’s Iraq—better for the Iraqis, better for the Arab world, better for the larger world. I think there is every reason to be optimistic that that will eventually be the case. Some might say that that is already the case, although even an optimist like me cannot have complete confidence about the long-term outcome. But even knowing everything we now know that we didn’t know in March 2003, I’d still take the long-term risks as they stand now over the long-term risks of not having invaded. To your specific question about what I think the US should do: I think the US and the Coalition should work to eliminate the ability of factions in Iraq to attain power through violence. They took a great step toward this goal by working closely (albeit quite delicately) with Sistani to dislodge Sadr’s ragtag militia from the religious centers in the south. Sistani is no angel, but he holds his influence legitimately, by force of personality and religion, rather than by force of arms—and he is a resolute supporter of elections. The next big step in this regard will come with the assault on Fallujah. I don’t pretend to know what precise measure of military attack versus co-optation would yield the best result, and when, but I do know that allowing the insurgents in Fallujah to remain unmolested would undermine the legitimacy of any Iraqi government—and would encourage others to do the same. That’s why the US will attack. The overall goal is to demonstrate that the best way for any particular group to advance their interests is nonviolent participation in the democratic process. That’s the basic self-interest dynamic that maintains any civil society. The initial results in Iraq will probably be a messy, dirty tribal politics that makes the current US race look like a tea party, but so what? That would be progress.

By: Nicholas Weininger

Nicholas Weininger — Thu, 28 Oct 2004 00:49:35 +0000

george: it is pretty clear to some of us that the Kosovo war (or as Jim Henley has nicely dubbed it, the War for the KLA) was not remotely worth it.

By: dsquared

dsquared — Thu, 28 Oct 2004 00:07:42 +0000

An imperfect democracy would be better than Saddam, both for Iraqis and for the world. It is not at all clear to me that this is true. The situation in Fallujah suggests to me that what we are headed for in Iraq is an Israeli-style democracy; a broadly legimate democratic state, but with a minority of about a million people who are not represented in that democracy, who do not regard it as legitimate and who can only be kept under control by attacking them with helicopter gunships. Democracies of this kind work, and they are better than totalitarian states like Saddam's Iraq, but one thing we do know from the last ten years is that states of this kind breed terrorists at a frightening rate.