Max Sawicky believes that the Bush Administration is taking us on the road to Hell. I wish I did not find his arguments so convincing...
Posted by DeLong at October 20, 2002 12:50 PM | TrackbackWeblog Entry - 10/20/2002: "HONORABLE MEN ON THE ROAD TO HELL" ...By stated rationales I do not mean obvious short-term excuses that change every week. I mean the discussions of high policy that emerged in watered-down form in Condoleeza Rice's strategy document issued by the White House.... (1) The world's economy depends on petroleum that originates in a highly unstable region. The volatility of oil prices contributes to instability and damage throughout the world. It is thus in the interest of all to pacify this region. Moreover, the construction of democratic institutions would be a boon to the peoples of the region, all of whom suffer under one or another sort of autocracy.... [T]he Iraqi mission makes sense as a first step in a process to control the entire region. What could be wrong with the... internationalist view summarized above? Only that it's a formula for mass death and economic calamity. The project embodies all the systemic defects of Wilsonian imperialism: subjugation of peoples who will resist with force, the inevitable corruption of the enterprise by narrower self-seeking interests, and the intrinsic incapacity to construct the idealized democratic societies held before us as goals.
One added ingredient in the mix is the threat from mobile, stateless terrorist groups who will be empowered by U.S. action, even as state-based elements like the Saddam clan are obliterated. We note that notwithstanding the U.S. mission in Afghanistan, our own CIA director claims Al Queda is fully reconstituted and ready to strike. The invasion of Iraq will do nothing to limit Al Queda's logistic capacities. The destruction of the Iraqi state makes possible the disperson of Iraq's state-controlled weapons of mass destruction to Al Queda. What is the U.S. option if Al Queda strikes after an Iraqi invasion? Against whom will the U.S. retaliate?
A second added ingredient is the dependence of the world on a stable supply of oil. Disruption of this flow can cause serious damage to the world economy, including the U.S. This would remain the case even if the U.S. imported no oil at all. The reason is that domestic prices follow the world market price. If you are pumping oil in Oklahoma, why would you sell it here for less than you could obtain elsewhere? Will the Bush Administration nationalize U.S. oil fields?
I don't doubt that military action can secure control of oil. I very much doubt that such a move will enhance my own security, or that it will herald the liberation of subjugated peoples elsewhere. Insofar as the public is supporting the direction Bush has taken, it is not for the goals most likely to be achieved, but for ones that could be positively thwarted tenfold.... But integrity is not fundamentally what is at issue. What is at issue is the foreseeable consequence of a violent takeover of an Arab country. Just because the Administration says they want a democratic Iraq does not mean that they can pull it off....
I also recommend reading The Wrong War at The Wrong Time by TONY JUDT in the NYT.
Posted by: Jean-Philippe Stijns on October 20, 2002 03:10 PMP.S. I liked Max Sawicky's argument but I disagree in sofar as a truthful strategy to reduce US sensitivity to oil supply shocks would entail working on both the supply and the demand side. The Bushies simply don't care about encouraging R&D in altenative energies, fuel-efficient cars etc. Remember: the "American" way of life is non-negociable.
This is especially sad as there seems to be a growing backlog of technological opportunities along these lines, and that we know that ultimately we're going to have to use some of these technologies out of economic or environmental necessicity. It feels so odd to write this though... ;-7
Posted by: Jean-Philippe Stijns on October 20, 2002 03:40 PMMax Sawicky makes a well-stated argument, but see the comments that now follow it. The gist of them is, "Yes, you have shown that Bush's administration isn't disinterested and that things could go very wrong, BUT, do you have any substantive plan that isn't stupider?"
For instance, the argument "we can always invade Iraq later, even if it has nuclear weapons," seems highly unconvincing. Every argument being used against an invasion now will be re-used by the same people and scaled up to fit the increased hazards associated with fighting a nuclear-armed country.
It really does seem to come down to this: we either do nothing, and take the risks associated with letting Hussein stay permanently in power (and become nuclear-armed, probably sooner than later); or, we act decisively to end Hussein's armament program, while doing so is a somewhat tractable option. "Acting decisively" means either an invasion or "inspections" that are so forceful that they in effect require an invasion.
There is a theoretical third option: that Iraqi nuclear armament could be prevented with U.N.-administered arms inspections rather than by armed force. However, it seems to me that there is a strong practical likelihood that U.N.-run inspections will be thwarted, as they were previously. Which would nullify the wishful "third way" of nonviolently preventing of Iraqi armament, and force us back to choices 1 or 2.
A great deal of the anti-Bush arguments seem to me to be aimed at ignoring some ugly realities of adult life at its most non-liberal and painful: that we can't, always, infinitely finesse everything; that we can't have any certainty that invasion of Iraq, even if it is truly the least bad choice, will work well; and that we can't successfuly defend the United States without, as a byproduct, making American geopolitical power stronger. If America successfully invades Iraq and the invasion indeed weakens Al Qaeda, then, by definition, it will strengthen American power in the world and incidentally strengthen the Republican Party at home. Which would cause nothing but misery to the Left, both in Europe and America. One must remember that, when the Left accuses Bush of having a selfish stake in invading Iraq, the Left itself has an equally selfish stake in Bush's failing to do so. Nobody in this debate, who either has or aspires to political power, can be genuinely disinterested.
But I'd rather politically dismay the Left than sit, wait, let Hussein rearm, and then wake up one fine day to see -- with pundits expressing stupid "surprise" -- an American city blasted, the culprits at ease in the privileged sanctuary of an nuclear-armed Iraq, our ability to punish them far weaker than now, and the saintly Europeans spending half their time telling us that we really deserve this and the other half of their time telling us that we need to understand the "root causes".
To Hell with that.
Posted by: Erich Schwarz on October 20, 2002 03:45 PMYou want an alternative plan? Here's one. Fly some planes in and simply bomb the putative nuclear sites. The Isrealis of course did this twenty years ago and it worked out fine.
So why not do this?
Well that's the question. And it's precisely things like this that make one suspect that the whole talking about nuclear weapons is bogus. Bombing some sites will not remove Hussein (thus curing Bush's psychological issues) and will not establish an American base in the sea of oil (thus dealing with his adviser's concerns).
(If, of course, there actually is no Iraqi nuclear arms plan, as seems to be the concensus of everyone in the world except the Bush cabal, then the whole issue is even more moot.)
Frankly, I suppose my problem is that I don't see what's so special about Saddam Hussein and Iraq. The charges against the current regime seem to be:
1) It's horribly abusive of the human rights of Iraqis. Well gee, aren't China, Myanmar, North Korea, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Liberia, Morocco, Zimbabwe, Vietnam, and so on?
2) It has or is developing weapons of mass destruction. Yeah, but Britain, the U.S., India, Pakistan, France, Russia, Israel, and China have weapons of mass destruction too, and North Korea and Iran may.
3) It's shown hostile intent toward its neighbors, Iran and Kuwait. Point, but Pakistan and India fight a never ending low-intensity conflict over Kashmir, China invaded India a while ago, and seized a province which it still holds to this day, and continually threatens Taiwan. The U.S. invaded Panama and is threatening to invade Iraq. Liberia has messed up Sierra Leonne to no end. Oh, and North Korea CERTAINLY threatens South Korea.
As for the charge of terrorist backing, it seems like that's just thrown in for good measure: maybe Saddam backs terrorists, maybe he doesn't, but the point is, we can't rule it out, and he's guilty until proven innocent.
Not only is Iraq not the only country guilty of the serious charges against it, but it's not the only country guilty of all THREE charges against it: Iran, China, North Korea, and Pakistan are ALL guilty of treating their people lousily, having or developing WMD, and being territorially aggressive, and Iran is apparently a much more active terrorism sponsor than Iraq.
I'm not saying that Saddam isn't a bad guy. I'm just saying that there are a lot of bad guys out there, and our resources in combatting evil are limitted. With contained bad guys who aren't killing Americans, and who are reasonably contained within their borders, a better use of our resources to ensure security is containment.
I bet that had we tried to roll back communism from East Germany using pre-emption, and a general war against communist countries, the United States would have lost millions of people, Europe would be a wasteland, and communism, if not triumphant, would be a much stronger force than it is today.
Julian Elson
Posted by: Julian Elson on October 20, 2002 06:02 PMI wouldn't object to the "alternative plan" if it could actually work. Will it?
To quote Patrick Hayden's "Random Plot Generator": Hussein's Evil, he's not Stupid. He's not going to stick a nuclear power plant up in the open the way he did back in 1980. He's going to get nuclear materials from somebody else (North Korea? the Nation Formerly Known as the Soviet Union?) and work from there. Bombing nuclear power plants that don't actually reside within Iraq isn't as tractable an option, for reasons I won't belabor.
But assume that we somehow get enough intelligence from The Republic of Fear (as somebody recently called Iraq) to reliably bomb an Iraqi nuclear laboratory in which weapons-grade materials are being used to make bombs. Then what? We sit back and wait for ... what, exactly? More labs to be built? The Europeans to talk the U.N. into ending sanctions on Iraq, thus giving Hussein a freebie to rebuild his arsenal on a truly large scale? A lab making nuclear materials or weaponized anthrax to escape the attention of American's hardly-infallible intelligence community? What, exactly, is the endpoint?
As far as I can tell, the desired European endpoint is for Iraq to emerge as a regional power hostile to the U.S. and extremely impervious to any but the bloodiest possible American attack. If I were European and hated America, I might find that an acceptable outcome. But why *exactly* do the Europeans expect me or other Americans to find that acceptable? More to the point, why even on moral grounds should we?
It would be nice if there were no Iraqi nuclear arms plan, but such evidence as has been obtained with great difficult from Hussein's fascist state would seem to indicate that acquiring nuclear and biological weapons is a high priority of the Hussein regime. And if it's not, it's really not clear why Hussein isn't willing to do the obvious, peaceful political ju-jitsu manuver of giving absolute freedom of entry to U.N. inspectors. Indeed, it's not clear why he didn't do that long ago.
One has to be trying very hard not to see the obvious -- that enlightened self-interest alone would have defused this situation long ago, if Hussein's desires were indeed peaceful. One must try very hard not to grasp the obvious; one must want not to see the link. Of course, it's completely the right of Europe to choose that. But I don't want people with that mental bias to be deciding America's military policies.
Posted by: Erich Schwarz on October 20, 2002 06:04 PM"With contained bad guys who aren't killing Americans, and who are reasonably contained within their borders, a better use of our resources to ensure security is containment."
I think this is a fair point. But my worry is that Iraq may indeed not be just like all the others.
It's one thing to use containment when a situation already looks like it's somewhat stable. For instance, Pakistan and India have been persuaded not to go to war by previous (not very publicized) U.S. diplomacy by both the Bush (I) and Clinton administrations. To invade Taiwan, China must move its army over water, which means (possibly) fighting the U.S. Navy and Air Force in a battle that they've had about 40 years to war-game. Iran is quietly simmering with internal dissent which one can actually hope will drive that country to some sort of peaceful internal reform. North Korea is being left alone because our allies, the South Koreans, would rather not lose Seoul and face a million-man Communist army just yet; but if the North itself starts a war, it is likely that South Korea and the U.S. will end it.
Those are situations where we already have a stasis, and where in many cases we can reasonably hope for peaceful internal reform by the people themselves. Iraq strikes me as not being either stable or at all likely to have the sort of public dissent that even Iran has had.
Not stable: we can't keep sanctioning Iraq forever. The people angry at us about that are right to point that out. Of course, they conveniently forget that sanctions were supposed to be the peaceful, enlightened, U.N.-supported alternative to simply sending the U.S. army into Baghdad in early 1991, but, hey. It is true that at some point the sanctions must end.
But, when they end, who do we want running Iraq? The same person who's running it now? Need I reiterate why I see that as a "non-starter"?
Public dissent: Iraq is simply in no position to have peaceful internal reform, of the sort we might hope to see in Iran or China. That is documented thoroughly and the evidence is there for anybody who wants to see it. The only place on earth that's scarier to live than Iraq now, among all the nations that might use weapons against America, is North Korea. But Iraq is much more favorably situated to expand and build itself into a regional fascist power with truly dangerous capabilities.
So in Iraq we have a combination of utter immiseration and potential expansion that indeed unique. If China tried to actually invade India, it'd face extremely substantive obstacles, and even if it succeeded, the costs of holding down India would almost certainly be ruinous. But Hussein might yet end up seizing Kuwait and Arabia if the dovish Left gets its way. Such expansion would indeed pay its own way, and would certainly enable further action against the United States on a potentially very large scale.
Why, exactly, is the United States supposed to risk that? What's the morality of ignoring this situation, or letting it go on unhindered by an American invasion now?
Posted by: Erich Schwarz on October 20, 2002 06:28 PMYes, the USA has the MIGHT to attack Iraq.
So why not? Where is the morality of not atacking?
>>Then what? We sit back and wait for ... what, exactly? <<
Presumably, for the election of a government in the USA which can be remotely trusted not to turn the whole exercise into a disastrous imperialist oil-grab. In other words, and in all probability, one led by Al Gore. Or at a pinch, Hillary Clinton.
Any more difficult questions, I'll be in the bar.
Posted by: dsquared on October 20, 2002 11:13 PMThe Administration's case for the war is remarkable for its shoddiness, but the more disturbing issue is the lack of public outcry and the seemingly supportive role of the press.
It seems to me that we know roughly the impact on Al Qaeda of a successful war in Iraq: zero. There is almost no connection between the regime and the network.
This is only part of what is baffling about the rationale behind the war: the contention that we will advance our campaign against a non-state terrorist network by attacking a government that has probably contributed almost nothing to its cause. How did the Administration get away with this one?
The even more baffling part of all of this is the apparently casual abandonment of the principle of deterrence in favor of the adoption of a national security strategy based on preempting all threats. One would have thought that since we have the ability to obliterate Iraq we also have the ability to deter it. Again, how did the Administration get away with this one with almost no public dissent?
Please see John Lewis Gaddis on this last point at:
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/issue_novdec_2002/gaddis.html
On the "if you invade Iraq you must also invade China/North Korea/Pakistan or else you're all hypocrites" argument. Would it be wrong to rescue someone from the downstairs bedroom of a burning house, when you are unwilling to try to save the numerous people stranded upstairs for lack of suicidal heroism? What's so special about the downstairs bedroom?
On deterrence, I think the issue is not deterrence vs war, but rather the scope of deterrence. Assume for the purposes of discussion that Saddam is as rational as you and me. Then deterrence would certainly work very well to stop him from attacking anybody (anymore).
But must we set our sights so low? During the Cold War, the threat of war was used to deter the Soviet Union only from overt agression against a relatively small group of U.S. allies and protectorates. The Soviets were free to subjugate Eastern Europe, help the North in the Korean War, fight proxy wars using puppets, invade Afghanistan, all without fear of triggering open war with the U.S. Surely these were bad things that the U.S. did not like to see the Soviets do, so why didn't it extend the threat of war to cover these acts too, in order to deter them? The answer, of course, is that deterrence comes with a contingent cost. A policy of deterrence means being prepared to go to war, and war with the Soviet Union could mean the end of the world, so the scope of deterrence was rightly kept very narrow in order to minimize the chance of war.
As the cost of war decreases, the scope of deterrence should widen, as the benefits of deterring conduct that is currently on the margin of the scope of deterrence outweights the cost of being prepared to go to war. Now the cost of war with Iraq is highly uncertain, but it is surely less than the cost of going to war with the Soviet Union was during the Cold War. So we should be willing to extend the scope of deterrence to include a larger range of conduct in the case of Iraq. If this larger scope includes something that Saddam has already done, then war now would be an exercise in deterrence, not a substitute for it.
Another difference between the Soviet Union and Iraq. The threat of a war to end the world was only good for deterrence if it was never carried out. After the world is ended, there is nobody left to be deterred. In the case of Iraq, war would mean a failure of deterrence against Iraq, but there are plenty of other states which would be deterred by the example of Iraq.
Posted by: Daniel Lam on October 21, 2002 09:13 AMThat is an interesting argument.
But it seems misleading to compare the Soviet Union to Iraq, and wrong to ignore the workings of deterrence strategies on a more modest scale than the Cold War.
And how do we know that waging war against Iraq would deter other states? One might have argued that we would simply be providing them with a good argument for developing nuclear weapons--since this is the one plausible way to deter the US war machine from intervention in domestic politics, having a demonstrating a nuclear capability. How would Iran react, for example, to a US assult on Iraq? By renouncing nuclear weapons, or be accelerating their development?
I don't know the answer to this. I'm just concerned that the pro-war arguments have been challenged too little, and that the assumptions underlying the pro-war arguments deserve more scrutiny.
Cheers.
Posted by: Jim Harris on October 21, 2002 09:58 AMEric, here is a point by point response:
"He's going to get nuclear materials from somebody else (North Korea? the Nation Formerly Known as the Soviet Union?) and work from there."
Why has he not already gotten it from Pakistan? perhaps because even pakistan is not crazy ehough to sell its wares to Saddam. So, the counter argument: if he cannot get it from even Pakistan, where can he possibly get it from? Is it irrational to consider that the current nuclear powers are as aware of his craziness as we are?
"As far as I can tell, the desired European endpoint is for Iraq to emerge as a regional power hostile to the U.S. and extremely impervious to any but the bloodiest possible American attack. "
You, of course, have some sort of evidence to back this assertion up. Perhaps they are scared of leaving us in control of the world's second largest deposit of oil. If I am playing Monopoly, I don't want to guy who owns Boardwalk and the four railroads to get Park Place and thereby bankrupt the rest.
"And if it's not, it's really not clear why Hussein isn't willing to do the obvious, peaceful political ju-jitsu manuver of giving absolute freedom of entry to U.N. inspectors. Indeed, it's not clear why he didn't do that long ago."
Even (especially) a dictator needs to maintain a facade of 'tough guy'. Why would Saddam set himself up as 'scared of the US / UN' in front of his people? Witness Fidel Castro.
Say what we might, in the final analysis, this Iraq brouhaha is about two things:
1: Revenge
2: Oil
I have not yet heard a persuasive case to convince me otherwise. All the other 'reasons' fail to impress.
'"And if it's not, it's really not clear why Hussein isn't willing to do the obvious, peaceful political ju-jitsu manuver of giving absolute freedom of entry to U.N. inspectors. Indeed, it's not clear why he didn't do that long ago."
Even (especially) a dictator needs to maintain a facade of 'tough guy'. Why would Saddam set himself up as 'scared of the US / UN' in front of his people? Witness Fidel Castro.'
Paul Krugman talking about the tendency of theories that don't fit the data to end in a "blaze of explanatory sociology" comes to mind.
Posted by: Jason McCullough on October 21, 2002 11:13 AMMaybe he's not letting in inspectors because the inspectors sent last time including a sizable contingent of spies trying to set up his assassination?
Iraq is a war searching for a cause, in many ways. Bottom line: it will make terrorism more likely, not less.
Posted by: Ian Welsh on October 21, 2002 11:24 AMThe cold war model of nuclear deterrence is terminally ill, if not already dead. The model is dependent on a very small number of known nuclear powers, and the ability to identify the source of an attack. As the number of nuclear-equipped entities expand, and perhaps some do surreptitiously, the deterrence model fails, and unfortunately, there is no such phenomena as a non-catastrophic failure in this arena. Anything less than 100% success is disastrous. If a nation as dirt poor as North Korea can obtain such capability, it is unwise in the extreme to have confidence in a great many other states being unable to do so. If one opposes war with Iraq, one should make the case without reference to the cold war nuclear deterrence model as the alternative, because to do so is to continue to wage the last war, which is often a recipe for disaster.
Posted by: Will Allen on October 21, 2002 11:51 AMjason,
if you had lived in India for any time at all, you will see the import of my words. Every time the government did something, anything, that remotely resembled 'supporting' the US position or 'giving in ' to US suggestions, they were roundly and effectively criticized.
Even today, Indians will bristle at the suggestion that they are standing down on the Pakistani border due to 'pressure' from the US.
National pride runs very deep in many countries and being forced to 'obey' US dictates is the ultimate emasculation.
It is career suicide for Saddam Hussein to be seen as 'pliant' to US demands. This is not some abstract social theory. This is what happened to Gorbachev.
Posted by: Suresh Krishnamoorthy on October 21, 2002 02:27 PM"You, of course, have some sort of evidence to back this assertion up. Perhaps they are scared of leaving us in control of the world's second largest deposit of oil. If I am playing Monopoly, I don't want to guy who owns Boardwalk and the four railroads to get Park Place and thereby bankrupt the rest."
1. Even if my claims are absolutely true, it's not bloody likely that European leftists would be candid and admit it officially. People lie. They lie a lot. The more vicious and crooked their internal emotions are, the more likely they are to try to look like angels of light. If you don't know that, you've managed to avoid a lot of the uglier experiences of human life -- for which I envy you, but that doesn't make me want you deciding U.S. defense policy.
2. It seems to me that the European left's pronouncements and behavior are consistent with the hypothesis that, in their heart of hearts, it really wouldn't faze them to see Hussein stay in power, shake off the U.N. blockade, and become an effective fascist regional power with a nuclear deterrent and the ability to expand greatly.
3. The fact that one of my critics sees this situation, in his own words, as some sort of 'Monopoly game' gives me yet more reason to think that my cynical hypothesis is correct.
4. Very, very few of us Americans who favor war think that there's going to be anything particularly glorious about it. War is the least bad option, forced on us by many years of past fecklessness and wasted opportunities by previous U.S. politicians, and also by the U.N.'s not-so-neutral attitudes towards any fascism as long as it's anti-American fascism.
5. The situation isn't scientifically rigorous and can't be -- this is not a controlled experiment in a laboratory. Unfortunately, the U.S. still has to make decisions, in a "fog of war". I think the U.S. has very little margin for error on the side of military restraint. So I'd rather be wrong my way than the Left's. 2800 dead Americans in New York City is enough for me, thanks.
Posted by: Erich Schwarz on October 21, 2002 05:20 PMLook, this is about oil, pure and simple.
It has nothing to do with nuclear weapons,
North Korea and Israel are proof of that.
And Saudi Arabia probably holds a few too.
It has nothing to do with pacifying the
region. Saddam was pumping too much oil, undercutting OPEC's target price. So the
US (and the Saudi's?) set him up on Kuwait.
Besides, Israel is the true source of angst.
It has nothing to do with drugs. Afghanistan
is about drugs, and someday the "stan's" oil.
Columbia is about drugs, and someday too, oil.
And that's not to STOP the flow of drugs, by
the way, that's to CONTROL the flow of drugs.
It has nothing to do with al Queda. They
only represent a threat to US hegemony,
colonialism and imperialism. Al Queda didn't
bomb Grand Central Station & Yankee Stadium,
they bombed World Trade Center & Pentagon.
They are fighting US policy, not our people!
Besides Saddam and bin Laden are adversaries.
It has nothing to do with Hitler II. Saddam
isn't Hitler, despite US media demonization.
He's a military strongman holding onto oil,
and now his usefulness has come to an end.
Remember Noriega? Our main man in Panama?
And as for 'certainty', nothing is certain.
Everything is a chess move. It's all done
incrementally. Push here, fall back there.
The end-game is, to still be in the game.
(And still be able to drive our SUV's ; )
So we're going after the largest remaining
pool of oil in the world. The 'debut step'.
Any other raison detre is spin and caw-caw.
Get over it. We live in a happy plutocracy.
Posted by: al Zed on December 30, 2002 12:07 AM