BTW 1) There’d be lots of innocent people in an area that size. 2) Such an attack wouldn’t necessarily do anthing to hardened targets like caves. 3) Assuming you mean “a square a half-mile on a side,” a “1/2 mile square” isn’t a half-mile in area, it’s a quarter mile in area.
Great. Thanks for blowing our bluff, Truth Seeker.
:rolleyes:
(Heh heh.)
So we got this heavily armed psycho. We urgently need stability and calm in the neighborhood, so lets make the psycho guy nervous. Just enough, maybe he’ll do something stupid.
Remember when it was Quaddaffi Duck? How everybody thought he’d be next, how he’s got this and that and was just about to get that other thing. Better we should go in and get it over with. Start a war to prevent a war.
The ghost of Curtis LeMay is abroad in the land. Call out the Federal exorcists.
That was back when a couple of cruise missles scared the bejeezus out of people. IIRC, after Qadaffi’s personal compound was bombed, he summarily quit causing trouble.
Iraq will be a somewhat tougher nut, to be sure.
Iraq Policy
My take? Paul is a fine guy, but he and his boys are smoking crack if they think this is good policy.
(a) The policy is going to look like pure opportunism. I can’t think of a better way to blow whatever slim street cred our anti-terrorism campaign has if we go after Iraq for the sole reason that we don’t care for Sadaam. That is, if we don’t have good, really good evidence of connection to 11 September, you are going to see explosion.
a. I can think of nothing better to cement the ObL story for the street than some trumped up, opportunistic attack on Sadaam.
b. I don’t think it will go over well with anyone outside the Arab and Islamic worlds, except for our English butt-boys, and even then I remind everyone of some specific British policy makers’ warnings on earlier talk about going after Iraq.
(b) Taking out Sadaam in this manner (massive bombing, invasion perhaps) solves very little. There is no coherent Iraqi opposition, nothing resembling an Iraqi northern alliance.
a. (Except perhaps the Kurds if you stretch it, but they are impossibly divided and there are serious issues in re neighboring Turkey and Iran which both have Kurdish issues. Opening that can or worms for the dubious advantage of taking out Sadaam strikes me as inanely short-sighted).
b. The decade long sanctions and bombing campaign was largely had, according to all accounts, a rally round the flag effect. As such campaigns typically have when not linked to the requests of a viable domestic opposition group.
i. Given US policy as stated in the papers in re the Taleban leadership, it strikes me as unlikely that Sadaam’s generals et coterie will risk overthrowing him insofar as it would appear that would not take them off the target list.
ii. Replacing Sadaam in a palace coup is likely to go more to some segments of our domestic opinion who have an outsized obsession with Sadaam and an undersized understanding of the regions politics. It doesn’t strike me that the replacement would be any better per se if an internal coup occurred.
c. The obsession among some policymakers with Sadaam strikes me as domestic politics driven rather than clear-headed analysis.
© The threat Sadaam presents is of a much more controllable and definable nature than the risk that a weak regime would come to control Iraq and extremist fundamentalist groups could begin to operate with greater impunity. Or a radical Islamic revolution. Certainly, to the extent the Iraqi regime is hated internally, it is important to take note that its roots are pan-Arab secularism. The shift of tact reflects as much its vulnerabilities to radical Islamist agitation as some super-secret Evil Guys[super]tm[/super] meeting of the minds.
(d) The opinion of the surrounding states matters. The Saudis, the Emirates, the Bahrainis, the Syrians, the Iranians do not have to go along. The US already is spending political capital on the current operations – with good reason—and needs these states to cooperate in the future to fight al-Qaeda. Do something that effectively makes cooperation impossible, you’ve lost a major tool in fighting a direct uncontrolled threat – al-Qaeda—for a manageable threat, Sadaam. Sadaam is not “crazy” – he’s a bit dim perhaps and certainly does not understand how to best deal with the West, but he’s not crazy. Now, Qadhdhafi, he’s a bit loopy (and good lord, if anyone has ever seen the bizarre qandarah he wears, one knows his fashion sense went to hell.)
Finally, for the Love of God the Merciful and the Compassionate, stop putting “u” after “Q” in Arabic. There is no goddamned need. It drives me batty.
As for Qadhdhafi, the 1986 bombing by Reagan hardly put him out of business as any French official can tell you. Policy changed for other reasons, largely internal.
I agree that a strong Saddam is preferable to an Islamist state.
I wonder if we might be running a good cop/bad cop game on Saddam (utilizing back channels of communication):
Bad Cop: That’s it. We are gonna come in there and wipe your sorry ass off the map.
Good Cop: Man, Saddam, I don’t know if I can control this guy any more. Maybe if you allowed weapons inspections and agreed to cooperate in the crackdown on al-Qaeda and their ilk…Maybe we could even talk about lifting the sanctions…
I dunno though. The prospect of ridding ourselves of Saddam and getting our troops out of Saudi Arabia in one fell swoop might be too good to pass up for the Bushies. So maybe they’re serious. Sure is a lot of sabre-rattling going on in these parts.
We are fighting a war on terrorism not just a war on the Taleban. Iraq is a sponsor of terrorism so we need to address that if we are going to win the war. Iraq is known to be building weapons of mass destruction and has shown a willingness to use them. The only question is when should we go after them, now or after thousands more of our citizens are killed in another terrorist attack.
As for the reaction of the arab street, Who cares? They already hate us and a majority think that the WTC attacks were done by Jews. IF they have not been convinced of our good intentions after we go to war to defend Kuwait and Kosovo they probably never will. What do we care if they like us as long as they don’t attack us. The best way to keep them form attacking us is to remove regimes that sponsor and harbor terrorism. If all we accomplish with this war is to make the terrorist train outside Baghdad instead of Kabul we will not have made our world any safer. It would be like stoppoing WW2 after VE day.
Slogans are not a substitute for critical thinking.
War on terror is a slogan. Now, what content does that have? Whose terror and when? Clearly that terror which presents a direct danger to the USA. That means largely Islamic radicals of the al-Qaeda, al-Gamaa Islamiyah variety. Nationalist or otherwise non-international movements are clearly not the same kind of threat and sloppy thinking will turn a war on terror (the slogan) into a morass if left at that level.
Yes, and one has to think about how to fight a war on terror, what that actually means as noted above and the ** long term policy ** involved in actually achieving that.
Insofar as these terror networks are clandestine in large part, aiming at states with tangential involvement may not be a high value operation.
Nice sloganeering, but what does Iraq actually sponsor and where. That is the question. Historically Iraq has sponsored secularist Palestinian groups against Israel. While some contact seems to have been had with Islamic radicals, in general I don’t believe the Iraqi regime has deep involvement, for a key reason; Sadaam is widely known to be a less-than-observant-and-respectful Muslim. He’s a pig. Islamic radicals present as much a danger to him as to American friendly regimes. One rarely finds any kind of Islamic rhetoric supporting him per se, as Iraq against the Americans, infidels etc.
The Iraqi program was destroyed. Some remnants of bio-weapons surely remain, however, Iraq (meaning Sadaam) has only shown a willingness to use chemical and other “bad” weapons against folks who can’t hit him back hard.
Sadaam and his coterie are thugs, that is sure, but they are calculating thugs whose main preoccupation is their own well-being and remaining in power (as not remaining in power means hanging from a lamppost).
Sadaam’s regime in Iraq does not present an immediate threat to the domestic USA the way al-Qaeda and its component, related Islamic radical groups do. Sadaam’s threat can be managed through standard diplomatic and military gamesmanship. Al-Qaeda cannot.
Anyone with a clue as to short, medium and long term interests.
Anyone who understands how the Arab street can feed back into al-Qaeda and get us to lose the real threat.
Ah, so you read Arabic and follow the news in the language? Not only that, you know what the Street thinks all across the diverse Arab world?
Damn, you know better than I. As far as I can tell, given my feeble knowledge of the language and 3 of its dialects, my experience in the region and my professional interests:
(a) The Arab street does not “hate” the US.
(i) Some portion of Islamic radical opinion hates US ‘a great hating” – I love that phrase. These folks feed into al-Qaeda, passively or actively.
(ii) A majority of Arab street opinion is mixed with real substantial dislike of US politics in the region mixed with a real attraction to what they believe US culture represents. Mixed feelings, love, dislike, fear.
(iii) It is not clear to me that a majority think that the WTC attack was done by the Mossad. That seems to be a prevalent opinion in Egypt and among some Palestinians. Elsewhere I don’t get that impression. Egypt is particularly prone to such nonsense. Perhaps you have better sourcing than I do.
(b) Regardless of what they think, containing a downside risk (revolutions in or cessation of cooperation from major partners such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt is an important issue, thus managing public opinion is important.
Well, I suppose it might be rude of me to say this is a stunningly ignorant comment, but I’m afraid an accurate characterization. Kuwait. “Defending” Kuwait hardly bought the US any baraka in the region. (a) it was widely and correctly seen as something we did in our own selfish interests (b) the Kuwaitis were among the most widely despised Gulfies around, their treatment of Arab (and in general non-Western) guest workers pretty piss-poor. Few folks I know had much sympathy for them. © subsequent Iraq policy, the sanctions, dumb-ass comments by US officials sounding callous about Iraqi suffering under the sanctions, tone deaf pronouncements all pissed away any minimal baraka we might have achieved. (d) most Arabs see this in the context of our Israel policy – lack of intervention to protect Palestinians is seen as hypocrisy. And there is an element there.
Kosovo and Bosnia have both simply not been sold well. The United States has had, IMO, one of the most ham-handed, fumble-fingered communications policies possible in the region. No good effort to sell this occurred. When you let your opponents control the discourse, you lose. Of course, they also happened in a largely European policy rubric for America so most Arabs see discrimination between European Muslims (to quote something I heard, the Balkans are white enough for the Americans) and non-European. And there is some truth to that, not an overriding truth but some truth.
Well, we care because in fact such attacks will occur if dislike runs to hatred. Hatred is not a default and can be countered. Further, enough dislike and we find that our friends in the region can’t be seen or even perceived to cooperate with us. That undermines the capacity to fight our real concern, the al-Qaeda networks.
The best way to do that is not to create conditions where al-Qaeda can recruit and more effectively operate. Al-Gamaa and other groups have operated in police state conditions for years. They do not necessarily need an Iraq or an Afghanistan. Some operations can occur even in the West or anywhere where diaspora is found. Or in Africa where state’s have poor control over their territory relatively speaking. The idea that this requires state sponsorship is entirely mistaken, as is the conflation of Terror into one big undifferentiated whole.
No, more like imposing a bad Versailles treaty on the wrong set of people.
You admit that Iraq is a sponsor of terrorism but that we should not deal with them because they provide a threat only to Israel and not to us. This is the mindset that ignored Islamic terrorism for years and allowed the WTC attacks to happen. These terrorists hate the US and Israel and will not be satisfied with attacking just one. As long as there is an Israel they will hate it and as long as the US supports Israel they will hate us too.
Iraq has had the last several years to pursue its WMD program without interference and has had millions of dollars with which to develop these weapons, should we wait until we this research succceeds to do something?
Given your feeble knowledge of Arabic and three dialects I can understand if you missed the english language stories on the opinion poll of pakistan that I mentioned before. Or the thousands of demonstrators that Time had on its cover a few weeks ago. Or the footage CNN had of Palestinians dancing on Sept 12. I understand that arab opinion is not monolithic but a large and vocal part of it hates us and trying to cozy up to our enemies will not change that the US military is the only reason the Saudi’s are still in power I should think they should be more worried about our opinions than the reverse.
Did I say not deal with Iraq? No I did not. I simply critiqued a bombing campaign against Iraq as simple-minded and not useful given present priorities. Their support of Palestinian terror groups has particular bounds, tied to the state interests of Iraq and Sadaam personally. That can be dealt with far more easily than something like al-Qaeda. The expected return on bombing Iraq does not appear very high as compared with the risks. One has to think about consequences.
Islamic radicals were not ignored, they were misunderstood in terms of their capacity and desire to strike the US. Sadaam, on the other hand, is far more easily understood and countered. He’s hardly being ignored. The question then is simply bombing now versus other policies. Bombing does not strike me as useful nor productive.
“These terrrorists” : there isn’t something coherent about the disparate groups that can fall under your phrase. Hezbollah in Lebanon, for example, has narrow interests. PLO radical groups are another. In any case, Iraq is hardly the most important player on this anymore.
Iraq to my understanding has limited ability to puruse a new weapons program. The regime has had millions in income, but muhc ofthat has to be spent on internal security, basic supplies to its security forces and the like. Importing materials to set up a new program after much of it was destroyed in the past decade is harldy a trivial endeavor.
As for the folks who hate Israel and thus the USA: most of these groups operate underground. Taking on Iraq is not the same problem.
(a) A single opinion poll of dubious validity in Pakistan – but we covered that didn’t we. I guess you didn’t learn much
(b) the CNN footage, quite real, but again one part of a whole range of responses.
© I don’t read time so I can’t comment on what the pop mag says or presents.
All in all, some select and hardly coherent support for a broad and unsupportable statement “they” hate us anyway.
I already noted there is a difference between hate and dislike. The hate is vocal certainly. Large is another matter.
Yes, it is rather this sort of uninformed, self-indulgent attitude which has lead to our pitiful, failed communication policy in re the MENA region.
So puddleglum, are you saying that if large numbers of Arab Muslims hate the US and support anti-US terrorism, we can fix that by going to war with them? That really doesn’t make sense to me. For far too long, IMHO, we’ve had the de facto policy that as long as a country’s ruling regime is more or less favorably disposed towards us, it doesn’t matter if popular sentiment is opposed. This does little but increase anti-US resentment at the popular level, which is where much of the effective support for terrorism comes from.
It’s not going to work any more (if it ever really did work) to try to counter hostility towards the US by destroying the government (and, inevitably, many of the soldiers and civilians) of the hostile country, putting in a regime that’s more US-friendly (or at least is willing to pretend to be so until it gets securely established), and then sitting back and saying “There, we’ve liberated you. Now do you see how nice and friendly we really are?”
It’s very difficult for people to believe in the good will of anybody who’s dropping bombs on them. Increasing that resentment and fear by expanding our military aggression is going to make Americans less safe from terrorism, not more safe. Policy pressures for long-term improvements in stability, prosperity, and democracy, rather than exclusive focus on short-term economic interests: that’s what’s really going to undermine terrorism, not just in the Middle East but in Latin America (where there has also been widespread and vocal support for bin Laden recently). If we reject that as “cozying up to our enemies” and instead pin our faith on stifling anti-Americanism by military force, I think we’re going to be very, very, very sorry for that decision further down the road.
Other vivid quotes from Leo Durocher include
Then, there’s Colson’s Law (also attributed to Lyndon B. Johnson)
Kimstu has suggested a nice foreign policy. However, as these quotes demonstrate, there are two schools of thought on whether niceness is the most important thing. The US was certainly nice to Afghanistan. We helped them win a war against the USSR and then we gave them considable foreign aid. It sure didn’t win us an brownie points with Osama bin Laden and the Taleban.
I am not a foreign policy expert, but I have a sense that a successful foreign policy needs some combination of public relations, money, guile, strategy, force, and niceness. I’m happy to let the experts define the right approach.
Considering said bombing of his compound killed his infant daughter, I don’t see that as an acceptable solution.
december: *The US was certainly nice to Afghanistan. We helped them win a war against the USSR and then we gave them considable foreign aid. *
That’s painting a pretty rosy picture, as far as I can make out. We did indeed help them oust the Soviets—though you can’t really say that we did it to be “nice to Afghanistan”, as it was part of our general anti-Soviet policy—but then we abandoned them to continuing civil war. As author Ahmed Rashid (Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia) remarked in an interview last year,
So I don’t think that recent Afghani history at all supports your contention that our problem in the region is that we’ve been too “nice” and that we just need to be more aggressively militaristic. On the contrary, it was our encouragement of militant aggression in Afghanistan—and then our subsequent neglect of the situation once we short-sightedly thought it had served its purpose and we no longer needed to worry about it—that helped create this very situation that we’re in now.
I also think that using sports metaphors (like your Leo Durocher quote) for attitudes about military conflicts is kind of silly. Maybe it provided some useful insights back in the days of “gentlemen’s wars” (if there ever really were any such), when armies fought battles in circumscribed theaters of action with strictly observed rules of combat, and the war was over when the heads of state called the game. But modern conflicts, especially involving terrorist organizations, aren’t sports. There isn’t a set of rules that makes it obvious who won and who lost, after which we can all shake hands and go home without worrying about whether we’ll step on a leftover land mine while leaving the stadium. More and more these days, conflicts are fundamentally about gaining the support of world public opinion. It’s very difficult to maintain any kind of peaceful and stable sovereignty if there’s widespread global agreement that what you’re doing is oppressive or otherwise out of line. That’s why it’s most important, as I said, to work for long-term improvements in stability and democracy. I’m not saying that because I just want us to “be nice”; I’m saying that as a recognition of the realities of practical politics.
I’m happy to let the experts define the right approach.
! Never thought I’d hear you saying that we should stop worrying about these issues and just trust the politicians. 
kimstu said
I dunno, the people of Kabul and the rest of Afghanistan looked pretty happy to be rid of the Taliban.
I’ll be interested to see whether Afghanistan becomes more friendly towards America in the future (assuming they get a decent government sorted out). America has liberated them from the Taliban after all.
Personally I think that if we invaded Iraq, we would get a similar response from the people of Baghdad once they knew it was safe to oppose Saddam because he was on the way out.
The tragedy with America is it doesn’t see things through. It is urgent that we prevent Afghanistan from falling into the situation it was in before the Taliban. During this time, every road in Kabul was controlled by a different warlord.
But America is reluctant to commit resources beyond its narrow self-interest goals of removing the Taliban and catching Bin Laden.
If America achieves these goals but then exits and leaves Afghanistan in chaos then we will be back where we started.
If you are going to liberate a country, you need to do it properly.
Maybe the democracies of the world should take some time out to oust some of the more oppressive regimes in the world and liberate those countries.
This role would have to fall to the western democracies and Russia and India because they have all the best weapons.
Maybe we should use our time as the predominant world power to do some good and free the world.
This was also discussed in this thread.
**
I agree that it would look like opportunism. (Of course, if we really wanted to invade, I’m sure we could find some reason to do so. Maybe we’d get lucky and a battleship would sink or something. ) But I’m not sure I agree that there would be an explosion. If it were necessary to do this, I think it could be sold. Certainly, most of the governments in the region would privately be very pleased indeed. My understanding is that many of our allies in the Gulf have expressed some annoyance that we left Sadaam Hussein in power. A reasonable gripe as they are the ones who will ultimately have to deal with him. I suspect that if we did remove him from power in some spectacular fashion, most governments would react as they did when the Israelis bombed the Iraqi reactor back in 1981 that was producing weapon’s grade materials. There was a brief period of diplomatic “protest” coupled with private sighs of relief.
**
Absolutely correct. This, indeed, is the real problem. We can remove Sadaam Hussein easily enough but we have nothing to replace him with. In other words, we’d have no exit strategy. **Without a political solution, a military solution would be useless. **
**
Truer words were never spoken. In any case, the Kurds are far more interested in an independent Kurdistan than they are in running Iraq, even if they could pull it off. Try to create a “Kurdish” Iraq and we might find ourselves at war with Turkey! And the Turks would be right!
There are also, of course, the Shia in the south of Iraq. However, they’re not really very organized and they got burned so badly after the Gulf war that I doubt they’d have anything to do with the U.S.
**
**
I don’t know. In recent memory, Iraq was a relatively prosperous and advanced country. While I can’t point to an Iraqi Gallup poll, my impression is that the Iraqi populace is just tired. Many of them remember the way things used to be. Given a chance to rejoin the world, I think most Iraqis would be happy to take it and put the disasters of the last 20 years behind them.
**
**
I disagree. I think it most certainly would take Iraq off the targets list and get the sanctions lifted, especially if it were accompanied by a few conciliatory noises and the odd gesture. First, while we have said we want to remove the Taliban “leadership,” we’ve also said that we think the “moderate” Taliban deserve a place at the table. Translation into English: Taliban who continue to fight must be removed. Taliban who (you should pardon the expression) get religion and agree to co-operate are “moderate” Taliban who won’t be killed and who’ll get a place in the new government.
The U.S. has been looking for a way out of the Iraqi problem for several years. The original idea behind the inspection regimine was that it would be wrapped up in a few months. Had we known it would drag on inconclusively for years, we would never have proposed it. I think C is correct in pointing out that Iraq won’t be much of a threat at least for several years even if we dropped the sanctions tomorrow. The problem is that Sadaam Hussein has decided to defy not only the U.S. but the world community and test its political will. The policy consensus is that, he can’t be allowed to get away with it because it would encourage others (like Milosevic) to try similar stunts.
The point here is that, given an acceptable face-saving solution, the U.S. would like nothing better than to begin re-integrating Iraq into the international community.
**
**
I don’t know. First, by his defiance, Sadaam Hussein has made himself the issue since the issue is not just a non-threatening Iraq but is also detering future troublemakers. Second, I think Sadaam actually is a good part of the problem.
**
**
I agree.
**
**
Depends on what you mean be “crazy.” I think Sadaam presents many features of a classic sociopath. He seems to have a severe lack of empathy and has a grandiose sense of self: He has a bizzare unconcern for the suffering of the Iraqi people. He spends huge amounts of what little foreign exchange the county has on building elaborate palaces while the populace goes without basic medical supplies and even, on occasion, without food. He has also spent huge sums on military projects that are best explained as an effort to increase his power on the world stage. He has refused to give up those projects even though it made his country into a semi-permanent pariah state. He also, at least publicly, shows a lack of remorse. He ruthlessly maintains his power and has created something of a personality cult. His seemingly inexplicable wars and his efforts to challenge the West argue for a very strong need for stimulation. As far as Sadaam Hussein is concerned, it really is all about Sadaam.
While Qadhdhafi certainly has his own personality kinks, he seems to be the better-adapted of the two. We don’t know, of course to what depths he would sink given the chance. However, on balance, he had done far better by the Libyan people that Hussein has done by the Iraqis. Libya is repressive but relatively prosperous. It’s true that Qadhdhafi has engaged in terrorism. However, this was mostly back in the 1980’s when lots of countries, including the Soviets, were playing the game for one reason or another. This certainly doesn’t excuse things like Lockerbie but it does put it in historical perspective. Most of the dust-ups we had with Libya involved freedom of navigation, rather than terrorism.
At least Qadhdhafi is entertainingly colorful. While I can’t speak to Qadhdhafi’s fashion sense, has anyone seen the “bodyguards” he travels with? 
LOL!
I’m obviously not suggesting that either of these two are paragons of virtue. However, I am suggesting that it is very likely that Sadaam Hussein has a mental disorder that does indeed make “him” the problem and that any replacement even from within the power structure is likely to be more rational and easier to deal with.
And that’s why I like our current strategy. As I indicated, I doubt seriously whether we have any concrete intention to invade in the near future. I think we are just shaking the tree to see if anything comes lose. It’s a strategy that costs nothing, has very little downside and has at least some chance of paying off.
First, to take the lesson that because of initial successes in Afghanistan that we should go round overthrowing regimes we decide are repressive is to understand nothing of the history of the 20th century.
The US has had success thus far due to a well-modulated policy of support for an indigenous resistance with full-street cred in its region. One notes that the rejoicing you’ve seen on TV are the reconquest of areas of NA home turf. That is not necessarily going to be the case in the Pushtu south. They may now want to shed the Taleban for opportunistic reasons, but the socio-cultural regime sure ain’t going to change there in the short run.
Investigate current Arab opinion on this. Tempers are already frayed over the Intifada II and perceived double standards in re Iraqi suffering under the sanctions. One can assert all one wants that Sadaam is the real source, that’s not going anywhere nowadays. Even in Europe, outside of England, few folks have patience with that. Without a clear cause of action, this stinks and it will produce an explosion on the Arab street. (I am commenting on the idea of a large scale bombing campaign in the near term without finding some solid links between Iraq and 11 September)
Nota bene that even the Saudis have gone on record in the past week of discounting an 11 September connection with Iraq. The Saudis do not lightly make public comments like that, in direct contradiction of US comments. They are conflict avoiders. With the exception of Kuwait for the obvious reasons, I know of no Gulf state which thinks current Iraq policy has real benefits. The costs have clearly started to outweight the gains.
No and yes and no. How Sadaam goes is every bit as important as when or his presence in general.
Sold to the governments? To an extent, but only with a price: they have to live with the consequences even more than the US. A bad policy with the sole idea of taking out Sadaam gets them nowhere. An internal coup might get somewhere.
The street. No way. Popular resentment is running very high when I left a few months ago. Nothing in the press tells me this has changed. Heavy bombing of Iraq would be a match. Demos and all kinds of unpleasant things. No governments would topple, but getting things done on the ground like the hunt for al-Qaeda networks could become next to impossible for our friends and un-enemies.
As for the ‘private’ expressions: certainly the Kuwaitis would have rather had a change and others have had a half-whimsical desire for the US to magically make Sadaam go away, but no one I’ve ever had contact with actually like the idea of invasion or heavy direct US intervention in Iraq. There’s a difference between off-the-cuff wishful thinking and actually backing a policy.
False analogy. The Iraqi reactor bombing was a quick, lightening strike. Over in a day. If we are still talking about a process of bombing, then we’re talking months. Never mind putting together opposition or moving troops necessary to do the on-the-ground work. You will see massive protests in the Arab capitals (or not, in which case its because limited security resources are going to suppress them rather than hunting al-Qaeda folks).
A lightening change, yes, that would be analagous. Thus my comment on “other” routes. Bombing. No it is 100% long term loser. The conditions are just not there.
Good, we agree.
Of course, anyone looking at a map of Kurd majority areas sees that most of the territory is outside of Iraq. In our old friend turkey and our new “un-enemy” Iraq.
Bingo. Major difference II: we’ve got a history of letting folks hang in Iraq. In Afghanistan folks had more positive associations. (True some talk about USA walking away, but it strikes me most Afghans don’t want long-term outside involvement in their country)
Well, my best read is through Arabic sources, however biased. Including speaking with Iraqis outside of Iraq. That read is while folks hate Sadaam, they have immense, bitter resentment towards the US sanctions. Albright’s idiotic comments were widely reported and I understand there is a widespread feeling the US is out to fuck them too.
Our Iraq policy, frankly, has been stupid, missold and too driven by idiotic domestic politics to make sense of late.
Now, replacing Sadaam, I am sure if a lightening replacement --e.g. palace coup-- could be engineered, then yes folks would welcome that. But I don’t beleive a massive bombing campaign would do jack besides spread misery. Invasion? It might work, but the extra-Iraqi repercussions far outweigh theoretical gains when we have no good replacements lined up.
Your translation. Do actually think the Taleban and above all the Iraqi generals understand it in the same way? I don’t. First, our discourse makes sense to us, but in the Arab world these things just are not understood in the same framework. One of our greatest failings is not getting the comm right. Of course the Arabs have the same problem.
As an Iraqi general, you have to think of the risk to yourself if you fail, the risk that if you suceed the US will still say, fuck you, you’re Sadaam’s boy and that regime has to fall. The risk that if you don’t get things looking good, but fast, you’re dead at one of your comrades hands.
A whole bunch of risks for the rather slim possibility of reward that the USA will lay off.
Anglo-US policy consensus. Almost everyone else was looking for other routes.
As for looking to get out of the Iraq business, it strikes me domestic cojones politics has driven that more than rational policy analysis.
Quite possibly true, but that is not the way Iraqi leadership is likely to perceive this and not necessarily going to work for US domestic reasons.
I mean in an actual clinical way as opposed to abusive language.
Classic sociopath? Bah, until you get him on a couch I don’t think there’s any way to judge his “sanity” based on his ruthlessness and other reads. Too much western pop psychology, too little understanding of the social context. He may or may not be bonkers, but all his actions seem to make sense to me, putting him in the context of the headman paradigm. Stupid in the sense of constantly mis-calculating his foes capacities, but sensible in other aspects.
Libya? Libya is fucking economic basket case. 5 bill or more on the stupid man made river project, massive investments outside the country based on Qadhdhafi’s latest pet obsession. Contracts and laws changing at his whims? Iraq, before Sadaam tangled with the USA, was much better run.
And one has only to read his Green Book (above all in its original) – the man is seriously loopy.
I’m relatively unconcerned with terrorism as a judge of rationality. Frankly it makes sense given certain conditions and aims. Not nice, but no one plays nice all the time. Including us.
Oh, he’s colorful all right.
Bah, mental disorder schmorder. Being against us and out for one’s own coterie is not a mental disorder. Stupid perhaps if you misstep, but not a mental disorder.
This is speculation on my part but is it possible that Saddam has already acquired a deterrence capacity with bio/chemical weapons and privately threatened the US with use if they invade Iraq and remove him.
It is highly likely that he does possess some kind of WMD and that he has agents in the US. The only question is whether he has developed the ability to deliver the weapons sufficiently effectively to kill in the hundreds of thousands rather than a few hundred or thousand. Even this doesn’t really matter because you don’t need certainty for deterrence but only a reasonably credible threat.
I have always been rather suspicious of the way he was let off the hook after the Gulf war and how the groups who were fighting him were more or less abandoned. The official explanation IIRC was that the coalition partners did not want an invasion of Iraq but I have heard at least one person ( the historian Bernard Lewis) say that his private sources indicated otherwise. Is it possible that Saddam threatened retaliation with WMD if the US tried to remove him from power?
The fact that the US kicked Saddam out of Kuwait and imposed sanctions isn’t inconsistent with the idea that Saddam developed some kind of deterrence. This is because the threat of WMD retaliation is credible only if Saddam has absolutely nothing to lose and no other option which clearly wasn’t the case with either the sanctions or his ejection from Kuwait.
In any case he may have aquired deterrence capability after the Gulf War.
Regardless of how much WMD capabilities he has,I think it’s quite likely that he has already threatened the US in private with big terror attacks if they try to remove him (after all what does he have to lose by making threats?).
I think evaluating such threats are the single most important issue to sort out before deciding whether to invade Iraq or remove Saddam but force.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/africa/newsid_1672000/1672220.stm
Looks like little Georgie wants to clean up all the failed military missions of the past. Fighting in Somalia would be smaller and cleaner than Iraq, a nice warmup for our inexperienced Commander-in-Thief before taking on the bigger enemy.
My apologies, I can’t get the nesting for the quotes to work out. I’ve labeled the text C for Collounsbury and T for Truth Seeker. Hopefully that will make this exchange a bit clearer.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Collounsbury *
T. IMHO, Iraqi suffering under the sanctions is exactly how you would sell it. The pitch would be, “Sadaam Hussein is a threat to his neighbors and to the whole world. The world community has tried to deal with him by peaceful sanctions, but he ignores them while the Iraqi people suffer. We can no longer stand by while this callous monster grinds the Iraqi people under his heel. Therefore, the U.S. and its (hopefully Muslim) coalition partners have decided to remove Sadaam Hussein from power.”
As I’ve noted before, I don’t believe we are currently considering an actual invasion of Iraq right now and I personally don’t think we should do anything militarily unless we have a political solution to go along with it. In any event, there’s no way (I hope!) we’d even consider an invasion of Iraq until we’ve wrapped Afganistan to our satisfaction.
T. See above. Would there be some protests? Sure, in the short term. Though, as you observe, they probably wouldn’t bring down any governments even without a solid PR campaign. In the medium term, removing the constant irritant of the sanctions and elminating the periodic provocations cause by bombing Iraq would improve the U.S. image in the Arab world. Providing, of course, we didn’t end up having to permanently occupy Iraq.
**
**
T. The Iraqi ruling clique are orders of magnitude more sophisticated than the Taliban. There are plenty of people in Iraq (Tarik Aziz, for one, though he’s no longer part of the government) who are perfectly able to properly interpret the U.S. position and know exactly how the U.S. would react to a coup. Certainly anyone planning a coup who were able to establish some covert communications with the U.S. would get plenty of re-assurance regarding the U.S. position. This would, of course, be difficult considering Sadaam Hussein’s extremely efficient intelligence service. I agree, however, that anyone considering such a move will finely calculate where his interests lie. I’ll repeat my earlier observation. 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.
T. As I noted above, certainly some people close to the leadership know it. Tarik Aziz knows it because he’s been told more-or-less exactly that countless times since the Gulf war. As for U.S. domestic politics, get rid of Sadaam Hussein and the U.S. “street” will be perfectly content. U.S. public opinion very much views the average Iraqi as a victim of Sadaam Hussein. If the U.S. administration announces itself satisfied with the change, the U.S. public is not going to protest in the street because the new ruler happens to be an Iraqi general would did bad things to the Kurds.
T. Bah, yourself. Pop psychology, indeed. I’m not suggesting that Sadaam Hussein needs to get in touch with his inner child. I’m arguing that Sadaam Hussein presents many symptoms of a diagnosable mental disorder. Calling someone a sociopath isn’t simply “abusive language”, it’s a clinical diagnosis. I invite any licensed psychologists or psychiatrists to weigh in here on the question of whether Sadaam Hussein is more likely to be someone with antisocial personality disorder with elements of narcisistic personality disorder, a sociopath, or a full-blown psychopath.
I yield to no one in my desire to understand and learn from other cultures. Having said that, cultural context is irrelevant to the question at hand. If Sadaam Hussein does indeed have a grandiose sense of self-worth; a need for stimulation; is conning and manipulative; has no sense of remorse or guilt and has no sense of empathy, I don’t care why. If it walks like a psychopath and it quacks like a psychopath, then you’d better treat it like a psychopath. In any event, while people with psychopathic symptoms may find it easier to “prosper” in some cultures than others, I very much doubt that cultural factors alone can create a psychopath. Psychopathy is a very serious mental illness.
T. It’s true that his views on goverment are, ahh, unusual, however, Libya isn’t quite a “basket case” and is indeed relatively prosperous compared to other states in the region.
For example, In Libya, about 90% of men are literate and about 65% of women. In Egypt, right next door, only about 65% of men are literate and about 40% of women. The average life expectancy is about 75 in Libya and about 65 in Egypt. GDP per head adjusted for purchasing power parity is Libya is about 2 1/2 times what it is in Egypt.
Libya has lots of oil revenue to spend and that explains its relative prosperity. My point was, however, that at least some of this cash actually ends up benefiting the Libyans. I freely concede that Qadhdhafi is not the most stable world leader I can think of. Nonetheless, if I had to choose between Sadaam Hussein and Qadhdhafi, I’d rather deal with Qadhdhafi. Qadhdhafi’s relative mental health is somewhat beside the point, anyway, as we’re discussing Iraq.
T. See above. There is evidence that it goes much, much beyond that.
The point of all this is that, Sadaam Hussein may, indeed, be a major part of the problem. Therefore, I think that anything like our current “tree-shaking” strategy is excellent. No real downside, it doesn’t cost anything, and it has a real, though slight, probability of a high payoff.