Next Step, Iraq?

Great Debates
1

Lord David Owen writes:

http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=95001481

The full article goes on to recommend stategies throughout the Middle East.

What I’m most interested in for this debate is whether the US and the UK should eliminate economic sanctions, but replace them with a military presence in Iraq and enforce inspections by threat of arms. What do you think?

My opinion is that Iraq is seeking to acquire nuclear weapons, and we must do whatever it takes to prevent this from happening. I’m uncertain whether a resumption of inspections would be enough.

2

Hmm, an American military presence in Iraq. Sort of a “coup d’etat without porfolio”, eh? Sounds great, but just one problem–how do we explain it to the rest of the Islamic world? I mean, with this Afghanistan thing, we at least had a ghost of a reasonably reasonable excuse–“sorry, guys, but we gotta get Osama”.

What would be our excuse for moving into Saddam Hussein’s house? “Sorry, guys, but he might get some nukes and come after us, so we gotta get him before he gets us”?

By the same rationale, the rest of the Islamic world would then be perfectly justified in saying, “Pakistan already has nukes–why don’t ya’ll establish a military presence there?” Not that they would want us to, of course.

And by the same rationale, other Islamic nations like Egypt and Turkey might be forgiven for being made to feel just a trifle nervous and alienated. There would be a rather implicit threat, I would think. “Better watch your step, boy, or else you’ll look out your front window one fine day to see the 83rd Airborne dropping out of the sky.”

3

The problem with Iraq is that we don’t have enough evidence to convince the American people that it’d be worthwhile going in and taking out Saddam (which is really what should be done). That’s the problem with a democracy, there are things which need to be done, but unless its slapping the populace in the face, they’re not going to want to do anything about them.

If we go after Iraq, its going to create problems in that the Moslem fundies are going to be screaming that the US is anti-Islamic, and it’ll fuel the arguments of the terrorist recruiters. If we don’t go after Iraq now, we’ll have to go after them later when they’ve done something along the lines of 9/11.

4

And, actually, it doesn’t have to be only the Islamic nations that might feel a tad nervous to have a full-of-himself Uncle Sam swaggering about the place, loaded gun in hand, 83rd Airborne burning a hole in his pocket. I can see folks like, say, Argentina, or New Zealand, not being happy about it a-tall.

5

Dumbest fucking possible move one can possibly do now. all I have to say.

Wolfie is fine guy, I’ve had beers with the man, but dumbest fucking possible move.

In fact, moronic.

It’s the long term that counts. Saddamn is a fucking poster boy and one replaces him with WHAT fucking people who have local street cred? Why don’t just replay the Pahlavi policy again? That’s will just do us real good.

Dumb fucking policy. Paul should stick to Indonesia instread of floating dumb fuck baloons in the media to please all the knee-jerkers at National Review.

6

I think Iraq is a serious policy problem but not so much because it is sponsoring terrorism now.

The problem, as I see it, is that we boxed ourselves into a corner. Sadaam Hussein’s regime is an extraordinarily serious threat to the region. If we drop the sanctions, elminate the no-fly zones and walk away, he’ll start in on the Iraqi Kurds (who, as much as I hate to use the word in a foreign policy context, we do owe a moral obligation as we have been protecting them for ten years) and go on from there. He’s made it plain that he has every intention of acquiring – and threatening to use – weapons of mass destruction.

OTOH, there is a certain element of truth in the charge that we are killing innocent women and children in Iraq. The sanctions impose enormous hardship on ordinary Iraqis. They’ll never be successful in forcing the current regime to change its behaviour, because the current regime couldn’t care less how many of its citizens die so long as it remains in power. This seems, BTW, to be a real blind spot for liberal democracies. We assume that governments are there to serve the populace. Therefore, we assume, sanctions which damage a country’s economy will cause the government to change its policies because the sanctions are “bad” for the country. In fact, it turns out that regimes like that in Iraq have no interest whatsover in the well-being of the general populace so long as the regime remains in power. Thus, these regimes are able to weather sanctions indefinitely even though they exact a horrifying toll on the general population.

So what to do? The sanctions don’t “work” but we can’t afford to drop them as long as the current regime remains in power. Our regional allies know this perfectly well, however, they are under popular pressure to dump the sanctions. At the time, there were sound reasons not to go all the way to Baghdad however, in retrospect, we should probably have completed the job in 1991 when we had the chance.

I don’t see, however, that we can afford to take Sadaam Hussein out militarily right at the moment. Apart from the upheaval this would cause on the street in the Muslim world, the Iraqi “opposition” in exile would be comical if they weren’t so pathetically disorganized so we don’t really have a political alternative if we did remove him.

Having said all that, we do need a coherent policy that will allow us to lance this festering boil so that we can get on to the healing process.

7

Aren’t we suppose to treat nations that harbor and train terrorist the same as we would the terrorist themselves? If so then there is a real possibility that we may attack other countries in the future. And although we have to take into consideration the attitudes of our “allied” countries in the area I don’t think it should cripple us.

Marc

8

Is this a good time to point out that Canada could be accused of having “trained” and “harbored” terrorists? :smiley:

Or is it too early in the morning for that?

[sub]not to mention Florida–oh, wait, they aren’t a sovereign nation, they’re still just a state. maybe somebody oughta tell them that

but I like the idea of the 83rd Airborne invading Miami Beach[/sub]

:smiley:

9

If anyone seriously believes that Iraq’s government is, in any fashion, Islamic, then that person is completely uninformed about the ruling Baath Party.

10

Monty: If anyone seriously believes that Iraq’s government is, in any fashion, Islamic, then that person is completely uninformed about the ruling Baath Party.

Doesn’t matter, from the point of view of international relations. State-on-state military action against Iraq on the part of the West is still going to be perceived by many Muslims as anti-Islamic aggression.

11

It’s true that the Baathist parties in Syria and Iraq were originally strictly secular parties. However, they’ve been far more pragmatic than idealogical for quite sometime. Iraq is certainly not an Islamic state, however, they’ve been making Islamic noises and trying to cosy up to Islamic extremists outside of Iraq for the last six or seven years.

12

Even if we get best case scenario in Afghanistan - a broad based, multi-ethnic, democratic government - al qaeda will still exist. The Taliban are already claiming that OBL has left the country.

So before long, even if we successfully straighten out Afghanistan, another terrorist attack will happen and then America will have to go after the next nation that it feels are complicit.

The next one on the list is Iraq.

(Or possibly Syria)

So if I was an American military planner I might conclude that it would be better to launch a pre-emptive attack. To go after these countries now, while they are unprepared and while the American public still have their minds on vengeance.

Rather than later after they blow up a nuclear bomb in LA.

So, if America sees Iraq as a sponsor of terrorism (which they do) then I think it is almost a certainty that Iraq is next.

The American public may need some persuading but they’ll probably accept it since they are aware that Saddam has been a pain in the butt for too long now and they know he is all for WTC-like attacks on America.

So the only realistic way to stop him is to remove him. An Iraqi opposition movement in exile does exist.

This is why the United States informed the UN some weeks ago that they reserved the right to expand the conflict to other nations.

The US govt would sweeten the pill by saying that once Saddam was gone we could remove the sanctions, this is how the US will gain the support of the Arabs.

Most of the Arab countries have no love for Saddam anyway.

13

Let’s not forget about the threats posed by Argentina and New Zealand though.0

14

Taliban envoy Abdul Salam Zaeef has already retracted that remark. IMHO, if the Taliban tells you “Good Morning,” you better look up to see if the sun is shining.

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/full_coverage/world/osama_bin_laden/

…

In fact, Bin Laden’s whereabouts are said to have been narrowed to a 30-square mile area in southeastern Afghanistan, according to a British newspaper report:

http://sg.news.yahoo.com/011118/1/1tem7.html

This next article, which is half-a-day older than the article above, cites very recent “hot leads” in the chase for Bin Laden. Looks to me (not in the article) like some Al-Qaida folks are turning Bin Laden’s location in – or else Bin Laden is leaving behind some giant-sized clues:

http://www.portal.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2001/11/18/wafg118.xml&sSheet=/news/2001/11/18/ixhome.html

Bin Laden is not Superman. We’ll get him.

15

*Collounsbury, *here’s a quote from an article in today’s USA Today. I’d be interested in your opinion.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/attack/2001/11/19/iraq.htm

16

Coolounsbury is rather busy boozing it up with Paul “The Wolfman”. Nonetheless, I rise to toady his comments, fearing only that he may have underestimated the stupidity of the aforementioned idiocy.

What is most telling in December’s post is that last line: they have been diligently searching for linking evidence, unsuccessfully, to thier frustration. Oh, what the heck, they seem to be saying, we already know he’s guilty, why fuss about evidence.

Pray for Colin Powell.

17

The ABC News site has an interesting analysis of this issue.

The best arguments I see in favor of taking on Iraq are:[ol][li]We could take out any budding nuclear capabilities, possibly pre-empting nuclear terrorism down the road.[]The installation of a democratic, non-terrorist-supporting regime in Iraq would allow us the luxury of removing our troops from Saudi Arabia, which in turn would eliminate one of the grievances of the Muslim world against the US.[]Resolving this problem would allow us to lift sanctions, removing another source of enmity among Muslims.[/ol][/li]
Not sure if those pros outweigh the potential cons, though. An unstable Iraq would be almost as bad as unstable Afghanistan has been. What happens to the Kurds? Do they get a separate nation? How would that jibe with our “war on terrorism” in view of the activities of the separatist Kurds against our ally Turkey?

If we go into Iraq, we’d better have a damn good plan of action after the shooting is over.

18

More analysis from ABC News here.

19

Attacking Iraq would, as many have already pointed, probably cause the Muslim world no end of anxiety and fuel anti-American sentiment further.

However, to me it’s either sooner or later. Personally I’d rather not see the US wait for another major attack, especially bilogical or chemical, before feeling we have the moral right to attack.

We’re over there already…bite the bullet a bit longer and finish what needs finishing. The Muslim world would probably be furious but if we could achieve our aims within several months they’d probably get over it. Especially since I think we would need to throw in the carrot after using the stick. As others have pointed out there are many benefits to the Muslim world to be had from us settling things down there.

Good. Many countries feel the US military (or rather its willingness to use its military) is very weak. It’s a good thing if some people think twice about whether they’ll be inviting the Marines to dinner if they embark on some foolhardy and deadly crusade.

[Off Topic]
Does the US have 60 B-52’s by any chnace? I recently heard the ‘kill-box’ of a fully loaded B-52 is about a 1/2 mile square. Seems to me 60 could do a good job of cleansing that area of ObL once and for all (unless the wimp is hiding among civilians).
[/Off Topic]

20

First, as I discussed above, 1) we do need to do something about the current regime in Iraq and 2) there is no obvious political solution. Having said that, our new policy on Iraq as it is shaping up may well turn out to be a stroke of brilliance.

I couldn’t be more pleased by all this talk about invading Iraq. We aren’t seriously planning on invading Iraq (at least not at the moment) we’re shaking the tree. Sadaam Hussein is not really a popular guy, even in Iraq. The only reason he remains in power is because those around him feel that their fate is tied to his. These people don’t want to die for Sadaam Hussein, they want to keep on living. Rumblings about a possible U.S. invasion will start to put pressure on the ruling clique, any number of which would be happy to shop Sadaam Hussein and take over the country if they thought they would survive the attempt. Once someone in a position of power in Iraq calculates there is a greater chance of being killed by the U.S. than there is by Sadaam Hussein, Sadaam’s got real problems.

Look at the way this has been coming out. Highly respected but currently out-of-work British diplomat says “invade.” Unnamed sources say certain people in the Defense Deparment are arguing for an attack. Iraq is put on a list of countries accused of trying to develop a germ warfare program. This is a (so far) well-orchestrated program aimed at destabilizing the Iraqi ruling class. There’s nothing anyone on the street can get upset about but there’s plenty to make the Iraq ruling clique lay awake at night.

The absolutely worst possible thing we could do is start making public pronouncements about how we would never even consider invading Iraq. Clinton did that in Kosovo and it was probably the single stupidest foreign policy move he made in his entire term in office. What he should have done was put 20,000 Marines just off shore and said, “All our options are open and we are going to do whatever we need to do.” By taking that option off the table, he almost certainly extended the war.

The U.S. doesn’t seem to be making that mistake this time. We’re creating a credible threat of an invasion. At the same time, we haven’t committed to anything. Brilliant strategy, I say. I just hope it’s intentional!