I’d like to ask people who support the war in Iraq to answer a couple of questions. I don’t mean for this to be a pile-on, but you all know how Iraq war threads go. For my part, I won’t attack anyone in this thread and I’d ask everyone to maintain a level of respect here. I also thank anyone who does answer the questions for stepping into the breach.
My two questions are:
What, in your opinion, is the United States trying to accomplish in Iraq?
and
What are appropriate indicators for success?
Here’s my background: I am an aid worker from the US in Baghdad. I’ve been here off and on since the very early days of this war. I thought it was an extremely bad idea then and I still do. When I go home on leave people ask me if the US can still win this war and I honestly have no idea what ‘win’ means here.
To me, it is imperative that any project has a clear goal and clearly identified indicators for achieving that goal. I think this is true whether one is building a garden shed or fighting a war. IMHO every project should start with the questions: “What are we going to do and how do we know when we are done?”
I’m troubled by the lack of clarity for the Iraq project. It seems to me to be unfocused and ill-defined, but maybe I suffer from being to close to the subject. So, I’d like to hear people’s (respectful) thoughts. Because of the time difference, I might not respond until late the next day, but I will check it.
The basic policy, on the surface, was a good idea. But chess-wise, it removed Iraq as the counterweight to Iran. Also, the now cliched question about Iraq being better off now? It’s not clear. We’ve replace a Sunni/Baath/Hussein terror state, where things ran (but people were terrorised) to a chaotic Sunni v. Shiia v. Kurd v. Everybody mess where little works, and Iran has the freedom to screw around.
Bottom line, perhaps the best hope for lasting peace (ha!) in the region is to use the three state solution: Sunni, Shia and Kurd.
cerberus can I ask what you mean by the basic policy in your quote above? Do you mean the removal of Saddam Hussein, the attempt to transform the Middle East’s political culture through regime change, or something else?
Do you think establishing three viable states should be the US (stated or unstated) policy in Iraq now?
I think that a naive reading of the flawed intel, enabled by a politically leveraged intel community, supported the removal of Hussein/Baath.
A longer view, more careful view, would have suggested that he be kept in place, as a spoiler for Iran, with heaps’O’sanctions to keep him in check. Fact is, Hussein snowed us, and did some really good trashtalk. The Bush administration, pre-inclined to act, found what it needed to act.
The current mess is a mess, and does not bode a clean solution. The only thing that bound Iraq as a nation was the continued rule of terro by the Baath Party, which is now gone. Iraq has always been three-fold: Sunni, Shia, and Kurd. Attempts to force a fusion of the three will fail. The hard part is this: we lost the foil for Iran, and we cannot reconstitute Iraq to serve that purpose. If we want a stable nation-state set for Iraq, it’s time to split them up.
Even if the terror bits could be suppressed, the longterm issues invovle intractible sectarian and ethnic violence: Sunni v. Shia, Kurds v. Both. It’s time to form three separate substates. The problem is that in doing so, peaceful division of petrochemical assets is difficult, and also that one of those substates will promptly befriend and strengthen Iran.
Thanks, I’m just trying to get a sense of what people think we should be accomplishing. Do you consider yourself a supporter of the war? Did you in 2003?
I agree that we have lost a counter-balance to Iran, which is why Bush I didn’t remove Hussein. It is also one of the reasons I thought the war was ill-advised in 2003. In addition to Iraq’s role here, we also have to take into account Turkey’s itnerest in preventing an independant Kurdish state and the Saudi’s influence in attempting to prevent an Iranian and Southern Iraq super Shia state.
During the buildup before the invasion, I expressed my opinion that war is an extremely expensive and unpredictable policy choice, and I asked only 2 questions of supporters of the war:
Why do we need to invade Iraq?
and
Why do we need to invade now?
To date, I have yet to be given a good answer to either question.
I recall Turkey saying Sadaam was barely a threat to his own people and no threat to his neighbors.They did not wish to get involved. Neither did I.
Sadaam was quickly gone and now we fight the people.
The US was trying to stabilize the middle east. They wanted a strong presence and bases from which to operate. They are being built.
We wanted access to their oil. We have it.
We wanted to export international corporation system. Read the Bremmer rules.
We did not want a democratic Iraq unless it fulfilled the other needs.
It was about stretching our power and money…
First, helping Iraqis to create a stable, democratic, and liberal (at least by Mideast standards) country. Second, to defeat the Al-Qaeda types and other assorted illiberal forces trying to bring down the country. Third, to help get the Iraqi economy back on its feet. Fourth, to leave.
Indicators of success include: a government that controls the entire country, with democratic legitimacy, that includes the minimum minority protections and judicial checks inherent in a just society, a lessening of attacks by insurgents and nationalists, especially against the Iraqi government, (US troops can always leave, but Iraqis don’t have that option,) a decent economy, and finally, a US troop withdrawal that is not percieved as a victory for Al Qaeda types. In the final area, with regards to the GWOT, perception is exceedingly important.
And everyone, supporters of the war or not, owes you a debt of gratitude. It’s through the work of folks like you that the US has any chance at all of succeeding.
It was about stretching our power and money…
Does anybody realize how foolish this is? He were are the 21st-century American Empire, and we are bankrupt! A run on the dollar would destroy us. We are squandering $2 billion/week, on an un-winnable war, which is being financed by debt.
talk about the fall of the Roman Empire!
aclubs can I ask if you think we are acheiving these goals? Also, do you think that any outcome that doesn’t create a stable, democratic and liberal (by ME standards) country will be a failure?
We fight some of the people. And they seem to be getting more interested in fighting each other than us. Also, I don’t think that the people would necessarily agree that Sadaam was no threat to them. Turkey, I fell, may not be the most non-biased source for info on the subject.
We’ve got at least one base in Isreal. We have bases in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.
They were already built. Now we’re building more.
Oil production and exports from Iraq are lower now than they had been at any point in recent history, even lower than it was in the early days of the Oil for Food program, according to an article in the most recent Mental Floss magazine.
I don’t know much about this. Off to Google “Bremmer Rules”!
Since the needs you’ve described are not necessarily the case, I don’t know how to call this one. But it seems that the longer the Iraqi gov’t is around, the more it seems capable of telling the US no.
At the cost of $2 billion a day, and loosing credibility in the international community (at least the more left of it) I don’t know if that’s necessarily true either.
What’s infuriating about the whole mess is that the idea behind what we’re supposed to do keeps changing. I think this administration started with good intentions, and screwed up, and doesn’t know what to do about it now.
As for winnable, no, not really. WE can kill every insurgent, stabilize Iraq, leavign a shining beacon of democracy and financial affluence, and the moment the last chopper leaves, Al Queda and other groups will issue press releases claiming their victory over the Infidel Devils.
I’m pretty sure I’ve given pretty good answers to these questions.
The need to invade Iraq was based on A) the belief that he had WMD, but also that B) the sanctions were crumbling and could not be maintained indefinitely. Nor could the northern and southern no-fly zones. Lest we forget, Al-Qaida was already screaming about U.S. presence in Saudi Arabia. The current situation was unstable. And the result of losing the no-fly zones would have been a bloodbath in Iraq that would have been devastating to the Kurds especially. And with the sanctions gone, Saddam WOULD have built WMD, even if he didn’t currently have them. The various reports since the war was over all agree that Saddam was retaining the ability to build WMD and had every plan to start up production again as soon as he could.
So that leads to #2: IF Saddam had to be taken care of eventually, then the best time to do it is when he’s at his weakest, and that was as soon as possible. You don’t want to wait to attack Saddam until he’s had, say 5 years of no-sanctions income to rebuild his military and re-stock his WMD arsenal. That would be bad.
In addition, Saddam was showing every sign of being a major player in the war on terror. He was making overtures to the Islamist terrorists, moving to religious rhetoric when before he never did. He was paying suicide bombers in the Palestian areas. There was a big worry that he was about to become a major sponsor of terror and give groups like al-Qaida access to state resources. And in fact, the U.S. military found all sorts of terrorist training materials in Iraqs, including caches of suicide belts of the type the Palestian bombers were using.
What it boils down to is whether you think a conflict with Saddam’s Iraq was inevitable, or whether it could be somehow managed and defused over time. I certainly believed the former. With his crazy sons waiting in the wings, I saw no possibility for reform within Iraq. To me, that meant inevitable showdown, and that also meant that it was reasonable to strike while Saddam was weak and the U.S. mobilized.
There’s yet another entire issue here, which gets completely overlooked in the debate. EVERYONE supported the military build-up in the Gulf. It had widespread, by-partisan support in Congress. Some supported it who didn’t want war, but who thought that the threat would be enough to get Saddam to cave. So here’s the problem - given that you had 70,000 soldiers parked in countries surrounding Iraq, and given that Saddam basically thumbed his nose at it all, how do you withdraw them all without losing all your credibility? When you make a big threat like that, you had better be willing to carry it out. Had the U.S. demobilized and brought everyone home, Saddam would have been the hero of the Middle East. He would have been emboldened, and so would other countries who would have believed that the U.S. was a paper tiger with no stomach for a fight. This would have cause the U.S. to lose a significant amount of its threat deterrent.
Also, had the U.S. withdrawn after that big a build-up, it would have been politically impossible to send those troops back into the middle east if it became more clear that Saddam was a threat.
The war in Iraq is not going well. It’s been mismanaged from the start. But that does not a priori mean it was a mistake in the first place. It may simply have been the best of a whole bunch of really sucky options. Sometimes you have to play the cards you are dealt. I’m not convinced at all that the world would be a safer place, and that the war on terror would be going better, if Saddam were still in power.
That might seem like a pretty good answer to you, but it is quite at odds with my recollection of what was going on at the time. I clearly recall when Colin Powell was supposedly making the admin’s ironclad argument to the UN of why action was needed, my reaction was “That’s all they’ve got? A couple of grainy shots of a semi-trailer somewhere they think was used to make chemicals? Some tubes that are supposedly intended for a supergun?” Bush and his team clearly presented themselves as believing Saddam had WMD (whether they actually did or not is anybody’s guess). But the evidence they provided as supporting that belief certainly failed to convince this pacifist.
Especially when I did not see that all alternatives had been exhausted. As I recall it, the inspections teams were citing a lack of definite proof, and calling for more time. I was not aware of any significant problems with the fly-zones. To the contrary, our flyboys essentially had a free training opportunity. I’m not saying they were without cost or risk - but compared to the alternative…
And you think that an unstable situation is sufficient reason to initiate large scale military action? What could be more unstable - and unpredictable - than out-and-out war? Folks say “Oops - we relied on faulty intel.” Well, shouldn’t they bear the blame of making sure the intel was correct before they embarked on such a costly mission? As I recall it, there was certainly no “smoking gun” showing WMD that required our immediate action. Please direct me to such evidence if I have forgotten it.
I do agree, however, that once the decision was made to mobilize on such a grand scale, the die was cast. It was simply too expensive to simply call off. But I disagree with your characterization that “EVERYONE” supported the military buildup in the Gulf.
Also, to be fair, you should at least give lip service to the administration’s consistent tactic of accusing anyone who did not support any aspect of their initiatives as being unpatriotic. I will clearly criticize Congress for not strongly enough opposing this policy action which I consider reprehensible and inexcusable. But the fact that they rolled over like obedient lapdogs does not lessen the fact that it was Bush and company who set the agenda. Now that that agenda has been revealed as either disingenuous or misguided, I find it unconvincing for the drumbeaters of war to try to diffuse their responsibility because they were able to successfully convince other folks to climb onto their bandwagon.
This isn’t the place to dispute every aspect of the war and the Bush administration’s policies. We’ve done that enough in Great Debates. Nor am I going to act as the water-carrier for everything that comes out of the Bush administration, since I generally despise it. You asked a specific question, and I gave you a specific answer.
I find it interesting that you admit that the ‘die was cast’ once the military build-up started. But you disagree that it had widespread support. Well, it did. It had support from the UN, it had massive support in the Congress, and I don’t even recall a lot of liberals on this board arguing with the need to put pressure on Saddam. It’s just that those 70,000 troops were the elephant in the room that one side was pretending didn’t matter in the decision to call off the war. That’s what made people like John Kerry, who still claims that he supported the buildup wholeheartedly but opposed the war, so incoherent. To me, when you make a decision to threaten war unless certain terms are met, and you follow up by parking huge numbers of forces on the border of that country, you had better be prepared to go to war if the other side thumbs its nose at you. And that was exactly the situation the U.S. was in.
I’d really like to hear supporters of the war answer my orginial two questions:
What are we trying to accomplish?
What are our performance benchmarks?
I have to say, that I find it very troubling that I haven’t heard anyone give the same answer on these topics. Here it is 3 years later and we still haven’t had a clear statement from the administration of what the goal of this war is.
I’m willing to bet that if you had asked these two questions 3 years into WWII, you’d get some pretty clear answers from people and they would all be almost identical.
But here it is 3 years into this war and no one can articulate what we are trying to do.
I’d also like to avoid this thread just being the usually cast of characters sniping at each other. We see that a lot in Great Debates (which in my opinion is neither).
I know what the critics of the war say. What do the supporters think?
We have three main goals in Iraq. First, to help build a stable government that’s democratic and liberal by ME standards. Second, to rebuild the economy and get quality of life back up to par. Third, to defeat insurgents and terrorists. I’m not going to pass judgement on the operation as a whole until we leave. But I’d say that if we achieve all three goals by the time we leave, it will have been a smashing success. If we fail to achieve any of the three, it will be a failure. If we achieve a mixed bag, we achieve a mixed bag.
Obviously, all three would be the best option, but the most important component of victory would be the defeat of terrorism. (The defeat of nationalist “we want the US out of our homeland” insurgents is only a priority as it relates to the welfare of the Iraqi people with regards to the economy and the political situation.) Both the United States and its allies, and Al Qaeda and its allies, have deemed Iraq to be a central battle. Both have staked their reputations on winning. If we leave, and it is percieved that we’ve left because of losses against Al Qaeda (even if the true reasons are losses against nationalists or war-weariness at home) it would be a horrendous morale defeat for liberalism and a tremendous morale boost for Al Qaeda. The United States has staked its reputation on Iraq. Remember the bitterness the Iraqi people had for the US after the Gulf War when we told them to rise up against Saddam Hussein?
The other two are important as well. The achievement of a relatively liberal, relatively democratic society in the Middle East is not only desirable on moral grounds, but also politically. It’ll be one less society in the bonds of totalitarianism. Also, the economy of Iraq, especially with regards to infastructure, is important. We simply must get the power back on in Baghdad.
Now, I’m no blind hawk here. I’m still not sure if invading Iraq in the first place was such a good idea or not, knowing what I know now. But I’m absolutely certain that we’ve largely botched the war effort, and that we’ve lost much of the moral high ground in the detainee and Abu Ghraib fiascos. And I voted for the Dems in the last two presidential elections.
