There were some good arguments for going to war in Iraq, especially those based around the need to remove from power that country’s murderous regime. Other reasons were not so good, and, as is now emerging, not based in particularly good evidence. Reasonable people can differ about which set of reasons were conclusive and also concerning whether it matters if the Bush adminstration’s reasons for fighting the war differ significantly from whatever the best case for fighting was. But the Bush adminstration’s reasons do matter to our evaluation of what is happening now. Is the adminstration’s purpose in invading and occupying to produce, inter alia, a democratic Iraq where human rights are respected, or not?
My hope that such is the outcome, whatever the intention, is somewhat diminished by reading conservative commentator Christopher Caldwell (in the FT) who thinks that “The president is now paying the price for being disingenuous about his real casus belli.”
What, according to Caldwell was that “real casus belli”. Addressing the issue of UN involvement he writes:
bq. This is a dangerous moment for the Bush administration. More than it perhaps realises, it faces a choice between its war aims and its international standing. America’s best reason for invading Iraq was to transform a hostile country into a base from which it could plausibly threaten force against al-Qaeda and governments tempted to support and abet it, especially Saudi Arabia, Syria and Iran. This sounds belligerent; but supporters of the invasion argued plausibly that marginalising al-Qaeda would reduce, rather than increase, instances of conflict. Might UN troops render the US less able, for example, to discipline Saudi Arabia for indoctrinating and exporting terrorists? If so, the US risks unravelling its rationale for invading Iraq in the first place, in return for momentary multilateral kudos.
Not, I think, a morally or legally justifiable reason for invading or occupying a country, nor a recipe for that country’s future flourishing.
{ 18 comments }
Bob 08.30.03 at 12:51 pm
“There were some good arguments for going to war in Iraq, especially those based around the need to remove from power that country’s murderous regime.”
There are not many who would want to justify Saddam’s self-serving despotism in Iraq but by web estimates more than 6,000 Iraqis were killed as the result of the war, with 20,000 injured. It is more than curious that those wont to claim the moral high ground for getting rid of Saddam seldom, if ever, mention the scale of casualties among the Iraqis because of the war. I wonder why?
chris 08.30.03 at 2:31 pm
Probably for the same reason that those who draw attention to the casualties “seldom, if, ever” wonder whether more Iraqis would have been killed or injured had the regime remained in place. Me, I’m willing to think about both of those things.
Bob 08.30.03 at 4:51 pm
Chris – Your response overlooks several salient matters:
– The death toll as the result of the war is still mounting, not to mention the disruption of public utility services in Iraq, the lack of personal security through increasing crime, and dysfunctioning hospital services, which must also be part of the balance sheet.
– As we now know for sure, there was virtually no substantive planning for the post-conflict situation by either the US or Britain. Instead, we were assured the invading armies would be cheered on by the liberated citizens of Iraq, which turns out to have been just more pro-war propaganda to soften up domestic opposition.
– You assume, as the Bush administration and the Blair government evidently did, that the war – and a war without UN sanction and of doubtful legitimacy on the premise of a justified pre-emptive attack against a real and imminent threat – was and is the only feasible means of reining back the brutal excesses of the Saddam regime.
– The differential treatment of other despotic regimes, with long records of human right abuses, sends out a clear message: Be sure to have WMD for a credible response in case the Neocons in the Bush administration are minded to extend their list of target countries to be “liberated”.
Before I get the familiar complaint that I’m engaging in another tiresome “anti-American” tirade, please note the advertisement in the New York Times of last September signed by 33 American academics specialising in international relations: http://www.bear-left.com/archive/2002/0926oped.html
Chris 08.30.03 at 5:18 pm
Bob,
I don’t see why I should be held to have overlooked anything (unless you demand a comprehensive engagement with every issue in every post).
Frankly, I expected more flak from the pro-war crowd than the antis for that post, since I’m attacking the reasons advanced by Caldwell.
If you read my original post carefully, you would have noticed that I wrote: “Reasonable people can differ about which set of reasons were conclusive”. So I was treating the “humanitarian case” for war as providing pro tanto rather than conclusive reasons. Or don’t you have room for the idea of good reasons that aren’t conclusive?
Bob 08.30.03 at 7:59 pm
“Or don’t you have room for the idea of good reasons that aren’t conclusive?”
Chris – Well, we are talking here about war, not garden fetes or the dancing capacity of pinheads. The reasons of the Bush administration and the Blair government, which may not have been congruent, were evidently sufficiently compelling or they would not have taken the course to bloody war with the apparent conviction and commitment that they did.
There is, of course, an entirely coherent set of amoral real politick motives for the Iraq war on the part of the Bush administration:
– Iraq has the second largest identified oil reserves in the world after Saudi Arabia.
– America had and has a pressing need to withdraw its military bases from Saudi Arabia, least the governing regime there becomes unstable, but could not do so leaving intact the Saddam regime in Iraq.
– Establishing a substantial military presence in Iraq would also threaten Syria and Iran, co-members of Bush’s so-called “axis of evil”.
You may recall that not long after the conflict with Iraq started, for about a week in April the Foreign Office and Downing St were issuing almost daily public releases saying Britain would not be party to an attack on Syria or Iran. That rather suggests to me the Bush administration, whatever its rhetoric, was very much motivated by real politicks and Britain’s government knew it. It knew too from press reports, if not through diplomatic channels, that the Bush administration had been internally committed to an Iraq war at least since early December 2001 (sic): http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,610461,00.html
Let’s not gloss all that over with some moralising whitewash. As commentators have noted, we are not short on declared official motives for the war: http://www.newsday.com/news/columnists/ny-vppin283431363aug28,0,1868383.column?coll=ny-news-columnists
We have an embarrassment of choice. Whenever the flaws in one official reason for the war have been exposed, another reason has been quickly recruited as a relacement with the unintended but predictable consequence of mounting scepticism on the part of the public as recent polls in both America and Britain reflect. What seems to me to be the challenging question here is whether governments in democracies can be open about real politicks and still hope to carry their electorates when all the moralising cant has been stripped away. With the web and 24/7 global news, governments can no longer depend on the duplicitous artifice of applying different messages to different audiences. Call it another casualty of Globalisation, if you will.
rps 08.31.03 at 3:20 am
“So I was treating the “humanitarian case†for war as providing pro tanto rather than conclusive reasons.”
Since when do conservative hawks consider the military a humanitarian tool? When they talk about Saddam’s atrocities they sound like bleeding-heart Amnesty International activists, but you’d have to be pretty naive to believe that posture.
Nobody in America cared about Saddam’s atrocities in, say, 1991, when we encouraged uprisings in Iraq and then left those people to their fate. Why should we care now?
Chris 08.31.03 at 8:52 am
RPS, you should trouble to read more carefully. I explicitly distinguished between what the best objective reasons might have been and whatever was in the heads of the Bush administration. So there is no claim in my post that *they* were acting from humanitarian motives.
The war has happened, whether it was a good thing or not, and my purpose (plainly lost on you and Bob) was to say that the administration’s own conception of what it is doing is important to the evaluation of what is going on now, and that if that conception is anything like what Christopher Caldwell says it is (and ought to be), then the people of Iraq have a pretty big problem.
Jurjen Smies 08.31.03 at 12:49 pm
Personally, I would have thought that “America’s best reason for invading Iraq” was that the Iraqi régime was a proven threat to stability in the Gulf, and by extension to the world economy (since the latter relies on oil from the former; Japan and Europe get over 80% of their oil from the Middle East), and that the options for dealing with this threat were either invasion, or an indefinitely drawn-out and messy policy of “containment” (involving sanctions, “No-Fly Zones” etc.).
The latter option, however, would have required the continued presence of American troops in Saudi Arabia, but that was becoming increasingly untenable. The presence of infidel troops in the kingdom was a major source of popular discontent, fed sympathy towards al-Qaeda, and caused friction between the Saudi and American governments. Overthrowing the Iraqi government by military action would remove the threat which required the presence of US forces in the kingdom, allowing the US to withdraw those forces. Which, it should be noted, it is indeed now in the process of doing.
Kenneth Pollack puts it better than I can, though.
rps 08.31.03 at 1:31 pm
No, you don’t say that the Bush administration was motivated by humanitarian reasons, but you consider it a possibility, or at least a partial motivation. I find it implausible that the humanitarian case for war is anything but a cynical posture.
Martin Wisse 08.31.03 at 2:22 pm
One of things that I hope people who supported this war for reasons not shared by Bush ‘n Blair have learned is that this is unwise. That if the people in power don’t share your assumptions on how to handle the war and its aftermath, things won’t happen the way you want them.
Andrew Zalotocky 08.31.03 at 3:26 pm
Caldwell briefly outlines a perfectly respectable case for war from a national interest point of view, which is exactly the position a conservative should take.
America’s key strategic priority is to defeat the Islamic terrorist threat, which means forcing states like Saudi Arabia, Iran and Syria to change their behaviour. Putting a massive American military presence on their borders is a way of applying the necessary pressure. Also, the example of a democratic Iraq would do a lot to undermine the despotisms around it. As long as the U.S. was dependent on Saudi co-operation to contain Saddam’s regime, it could not do anything to force the Saudis to crack down on al-Qaeda. So regime change in Iraq became a key part of a logical (albeit risky) strategy for pursuing the war on terror.
There’s no doubt that the Iraqis are better off without Saddam. Now they have freedom and the chance to rebuild their country with massive assistance from the United States. Previously, they had no prospects beyond endless tyranny and grinding poverty, with only the faint possibility of a bloody revolution if the regime ever weakened. In the long run, leaving the regime in place would have killed vastly more people than the war did.
I’m willing to believe that many of the hawks in the administration did believe that removing Saddam was the morally right thing to do, as well as serving America’s interests. The neo-cons do seem to genuinely believe in a mission to spread freedom and democracy.
But I’ve no doubt that this was primarily a war for American security, which as a side-effect also freed the Iraqi people from terrible oppression. There’s nothing wrong with that. The first duty of the American government is to protect the American people from external threats, and in this instance it benefited the Iraqi people too.
It would be incredibly naive to believe that this was a purely humanitarian intervention. Indeed, it would be naive to assume that any nation would ever undertake such a large and perilous intervention unless it had vital national interests at stake. These things happen with mixed motives or not at all.
Whether it had the blessing of the UN is irrelevant. If the UN had passed a resolution authorising war, it would have been because of arm-twisting and vote-buying by the U.S. and UK. In the end, there was no such resolution because France and Russia opposed war for their own selfish reasons of national interest. Neither possible outcome had anything to do with morality or legality, just power politics.
Any possible conflict between American goals and Iraqi democracy will almost certainly be postponed until the Ba’athist and Islamist resistance has been quashed and the reconstruction of the country is significantly underway. Until then, the Iraqi people are likely to accept the American presence as necessary and ultimately beneficial.
I do believe that once the country is secure and returning to a normal civil society the Iraqis will quickly demand the withdrawal of coalition forces and full control over their own government.
Whatever the Pentagon may want the administration will have no choice but to accept this because the American people will support it. Colonialism is anathema to most Americans, and they would not tolerate being put in the position of oppressors holding down a people yearning to be free.
So the U.S. has a limited window of opportunity in which to achieve its political goals in Iraq, and the more successful it is in transforming the country the shorter that window will be.
That’s why it’s such a damn risky strategy.
Geoff Pynn 09.01.03 at 4:06 am
Chris,
Some more friendly flak from the pro-war crowd.
I heartily endorse Andrew’s analysis, and add this:
There’s no reason to think the administration had one true casus belli, as Caldwell implies and as you also seem to think. As Andrew points out and as I think the Bushies’ various arguments from January and February indicated, there were several broad and linked but independent sets of reasons for going to war. And even if none of the reasons was “compelling” on its own (which may or may not be true), it’s entirely possible (and indeed, I think, the case) that taken together they become compelling.
So Caldwell’s blunt and unsentimental “rationale” is part of the story, but not the whole story: yes, the US gets a base of operations for fighting Islamofascism, but it does this by making a close ally of Iraq. And how does it do that? By freeing it from tyranny and helping it become a stable, prosperous, liberal democracy. Does it matter which one is the “real” reason for what the administration is doing in Iraq now? No, since the two are so thoroughly overlapping.
tom beta 2 09.01.03 at 5:36 pm
Chris: Thanks for posting about this. Also, thanks for understanding there are worthwhile opinions on both sides , which is something that’s rare on both sides, it seems.
Everyone: Thanks! This is a great discussion!
From Bob:
Still mounting, but it will never even come close to the 600,000 or so Iraqi civilian deaths Saddam was responsible for from ’91 to ’01. This is something the anti-war types trying to claim the moral high ground by opposing his removal never mention (or if they do, it’s to blame evil Amerikkka, of course). Deaths from starvation, etc., count on Saddam’s bill — Oil for Palaces and Palestinian suicide bombers, not for food and medicine for Iraqi kids, right?
Basically, Saddam killed Iraqis at an average rate of about 5,000 a month. Since the war ended, that would mean about 20,000 (and counting fast) Iraqis are alive today that wouldn’t have been had Saddam stayed in power. Minus 6,000 and counting very, very slowly.
From rps:
Actually, a lot of conservative hawks cared a lot about the Iraqi people, and a lot didn’t. Just like a lot of the pro-peace crowd didn’t give a flying flip about the Iraqi people, but then, a lot did. Cynicism is not the opposite of naievity.
I was furious that we abandoned the Shiites in ’91. However, the UN influence can be seen there as well — a world of law and order was far more important than a few thousand lives, and eventually that law and order was worth more than a few hundred thousand lives. And, to our credit, we and the British have obstinately enforced the no-fly zones and protected the Kurds, where democracy has done very well.
Bob 09.01.03 at 7:39 pm
I have several difficulties with justifying the Iraq war as a war of liberation even if it is necessary to kill and injure Iraqis to liberate them.
This is, basically, the Leninist justification for the carnage of the Russian revolution and its aftermath: You can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs. With only slight variation much the same high principle of liberation was invoked by the Soviets for the invasion of Hungary in 1956 and Czecho-Slovakia in 1968. On the basis that what American administrations do necessarily accords with international law and high moral principles, presumably we should have praised the Soviets for their timely actions then and will have no complaint if PRC liberates Taiwan any time soon.
Secondly, as said above, we seem to have an embarrassment of choice in official reasons paraded to justify the war. Whenever the flaws in one are exposed, another is quickly recruited as a replacement. As I recall, the early rationales were based on claims about the real and imminent threat to America and Britain posed by Iraq’s WMD and the links of the Saddam regime with al-Qaeda and other terrorist organisations. Whatever happened to them?
Thirdly, the assumption is that war was the only feasible means in 2003 of reining back the brutal despotism of the Saddam regime. Curious then that so little substantive planning was made by the Bush administration and the Blair government for the post-conflict situation in Iraq and the Bush administration is now investing much diplomacy into trying to get other states to share the costs of restoring security and stability to Iraq, subject to America’s overall control, naturally.
tom beta 2 09.02.03 at 2:41 pm
From Bob:
Well, I think a HUGE difference is that Lenin and Stalin went out of their way to stomp on as many eggs as possible. They didn’t make an omelette, they went out to the chicken houses and smashed every egg they found, then buried them in mass graves.
On the other hand, the US went out of its way to not break ANY civilian eggs, and even avoided killing Iraqi soldiers where possible, something pretty much unheard of in military history. After the Russian Revolution, there were mass executions — hasn’t happened in Iraq. After the Revolution, Stalin intentionaly starved millions of Ukrainian farmers to death for defying him. Hasn’t happened in Iraq.
So it’s not a fair comparison. Lenin and Stalin relished the killing part — “you have to break a few eggs” wasn’t a justification, it was a sick joke. The US in Iraq, whatever its justifications for war, does not in any way compare to what these men did in Russia.
Meanwhile, our Stalin-worshipping Saddam was doing his level best to recreate Stalin’s bloodbaths, executing people left and right, starving them to death, etc. What he did does compare to what Lenin and Stalin did.
I certainly don’t like saying, “okay, some innocent people may die here, but it’s worth it.” On the other hand, to have _not_ invaded and militarily removed Saddam’s government would have resulted in far, far more civilian deaths, and I was even more uncomfortable saying “let’s leave him in power for another six months (i.e., 20-30,000 more dead Iraqis) and see if he’ll comply.” After which we still might have needed to invade.
It was a crappy situation and innocent people were going to die either way it went; I voted for fewer civilian deaths.
From Bob:
What was another option? Sanctions failed miserably. What else do you think should have been tried?
contract3d 09.02.03 at 7:19 pm
“What was another option?”
A year’s patience, while we kept our focus on Al Queda, kept our promises in Afghanistan and kept building a coalition abroad and consensus at home with honest arguments based on reality rather than fearmongering. Good work and good results on the first two would have ensured good progress on the third.
Splitting off the Shia south and the Kurdish north (this would have included most major oilfields, btw) should at least have been considered. (By the first Bush admin, too!)
Having a real plan based on firmer ground than the fantasies of the NeoCons and the lies of Chalabi for post-war Iraq before we invaded.
None dare call them options.
Bob 09.03.03 at 6:38 am
Truly fascinating to see that the general principle by which starting the Iraq war is being currently justified has now devolved to a comparison between respective scales of the unintended civilian fatalities resulting from actions by the “Coalition of the Willing” versus the previous intended fatalities inflicted by the Saddam regime.
The inevitable questions are just at what point would the number of unintended casualities become too many and by what process ought that decision to have been made.
Could it be that Tony Blair was correct when he said to Chicago Economic Club in April 1999:
“If we want a world ruled by law and by international co-operation then we have to support the UN as its central pillar” ? – from: http://www.ndol.org/ndol_ci.cfm?cp=4&kaid=128&subid=187&contentid=829
tom beta 2 09.05.03 at 12:56 pm
From contract3d:
You are very possibly right. But, I don’t think the coalition abroad or consensus at home would have ever developed. France and Russia clearly blocked UN authorization simply because they had huge investments in Iraqi oil under Saddam — given that both countries are in bad economic situations, there was no way they were ever going to authorize an invasion that might endanger billions of dollars in oil contracts. Without UN authorization, I don’t think your consensus at home or coalition abroad would have developed much further than it already had. On the other hand, waiting had distinct dangers: Saddam knew he was a marked man and would have had another year to prepare.
Back to contract3d:
This option would have destroyed any international cooperation whatsoever and is directly contradictory to your first option. But I like it anyway, on a personal level. Although I think it’s politically impossible, the Kurds certainly deserve their own nation.
Bob:
What principle was that? Humanitarian grounds, or something else? And, exactly how has that principle devolved (instead of, for example, been explained in more detail)? Also, I’m still interested in your alternatives to war that should have been tried.
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