Seriously, why the war in Iraq?

Great Debates
21

I believe the thinking is (and was): “Eh… It’s worth a shot.”

And from a very high level political perspective (partisanship aside), it was. The difference being, one administration thinks it was a risk worth taking, the other does not. Nobody could predict the outcome up front.

Because of SH’s Stalinist style of leadership, Iraq was the most secular country of all its neighbours. If deposing SH won the hearts and minds of the moderate Muslims, this might have been the start of the revolution against Muslim radicalism. Once again, this was not a certainty but a calculated gamble made by this admistration. They lost because they over estimated the political will and ability of moderates and under estimated the influence and strength of the fundamentalists. The irony of the “liberation”, as far as we can see today, has turned Iraq into a more radicalized state.

22

I have to say (not in relevance to you DanBlather in particular) but Goddamn it! Why do more people not know about this? This “liberal media” sucks!. To paraphrase Homer Simpson “it’s the suckiest thing that ever sucked!”

23

I think it was part of the philosophy of those around Bush (and probably Bush himself)…i.e. to bring democracy to the world. Some call this the ‘neo-con’ philosophy and I think it WAS a factor. How much of a factor? I’m unsure, but I do believe it was significant in their planning. Obviously if you COULD bring democracy to the ME by planting a seed and then having it grow, that would be a great thing for the US…a region of vital strategic importance would go from being a powder keg to being peaceful partners and…customers for our goods and services, and providers of what we desparately need.

Just because they couldn’t bring it off doesn’t mean it wasn’t part of their planning…it just means they screwed the pooch, yes? And the jury is still out for a while longer on just how screwed this pooch is.

You expected truth from a politician? My, you ARE optimistic.

-XT

24

Right, and this is something we haven’t seemed to learn our lesson on, too. The Bay of Pigs plan also relied on locals going “Yay, here come the Americans! Let’s drop our arms and join them in overthrowing our tyrannical dictatorship!” And we still pay the idiots who come up with this claptrap.

25

One thing that comes to mind is the old cliche “If all you’ve got is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.”

The U.S. has a superb military manned by brave competent men and women equipped with awesome tech. Unfortunately our diplomatic and intelligence skills have been faltering, and our counter-terror abilities were all but non-existent prior to 9/11 and have not improved much since.

After 9/11 there was a lot of talk in the air about how we were in a new paradigm. 9/11 was an act of war and we must respond militarily. The old “law-enforcement” paradigm hadn’t worked, and the new “war” paradigm was what was needed. You heard a lot of this from various conservative commentators, such as Charles Krauthammer and the late Micheal Kelly.

The problem is that there really isn’t that much the military can do against Al Qaeda, or any other terror group. The only role it had was the Afghan invasion. Once the Taliban was destroyed, it was just down to some difficult, dreary nation-building. (Although I think we let an opportunity slip by in Tora Bora.) After Afghanistan, what could we do? The only real task would have been to pursue AQ and Taliban fighters into Pakistan, but this was politically impossible, for various reasons. (At least on a large scale.)

So once the Afghan war ceased major operations, there really wasn’t anything for the military to do. Counter-terror would return to the realm of law-enforcement, diplomacy, and intelligence. The conservative commentators were simply, and obviously wrong. There is no real war on terror. The military would serve a vital role in going after AQ supporting states, but the only real one was Afghanistan, and we already did that. AQ is a loosely ordered criminal gang, not a nation that can be attacked and defeated in battle.

So we had to keep the war paradigm going. Where to attack? North Korea has Nukes, Iran is mountainous and huge, Pakistan is our ally more or less, so that leaves Iraq.

In short one of the motives in attacking Iraq, IMO, was simply to keep the military part of the War on Terror going, because that’s what we know how to do.

26

I’m not saying it wasn’t a component in the administration’s thinking. But it makes more sense (to me at least) that, from a strategic perspective (and one in which the military would play a vital role) whether or not Iraq was a democracy or not wasn’t as important as 1) getting rid of Saddam and 2) having a compliant Iraqi government in place in order to establish a presence in country.

Which is why Chalabi was getting a lot of support from the DoD (and others) in the run up to the war. The thought was that we would be able to influence the new government with Chalabi in place. That certainly didn’t go as expected.

Plus, if democratization was such an important component, surely the administration foresaw the possibility that the people (via their elected representatives in a new democracy) might not be as compliant as hoped for (from a strategic perspective). Without a compliant Iraq, then the possibility of establishing a permanent presence in Iraq is lessened. Which therefore lessens the chance of achieving a strategic goal.

The only kind of democratization I can see in the administration’s planning was more along the lines of a democracy compliant to the wishes of the US (Chalabi, et al. in place in a newly formed democracy to our liking). In essence, an imposed democracy in name only.

Well…Fido may not have “shot his load” just yet, but he’s been pumping Fifi for quite a while, though :slight_smile:

27

They invaded Iraq because they could.

It worked: they won.

28

Facetiously, it was time to make Great Strides.

There is logical fallacy in there somewhere…

29

I suspect that the a great many Iraqi’s would give up the right to vote just to have reliable water and sewer service, electricity for more than a couple hours and day, and freedom from the fear that they’re going to be blown into many, many little pieces.

30

Bush’s economic invasion of Iraq

I can see why the Iraqis are thilled democracy has arrived. Well, some of them anyway…like the ones inside The Green Zone making a killing working for American and personal interests.

31

As for the answer to the OP, how about the abridged version?

The point was to install a nice little pro-western faux-democracy which would offer salutary oil deals to the US, leave Israel alone and rubber-stamp the establishment of US military bases right-smack in the bullseye of the Middle east.

32

The London Review of Books featured an essay on this topic (among others)

Blood for Oil?:

Worth a full read.

33

Another interesting article, along the lines of oil and strategic interests.

Too bad they fucked it up and handed that interest to Iran.

34

You know, if they really want those permanent bases out in the Iraqi desert, sooner or later they’re going to have to grow the balls needed to mention them in public.
Are these sites preconditions to the US accepting a new sovereign government or not?

35

Not that I’m aware. But think about it, Squink, how much of stretch is it to say that the current ‘sovereign’ government’s very existance is contingent on the continuing presence of American forces on their soil? Bases simply mean a way of trying to fade into the background while remaining very much in charge - a monetary compromise good for both ruling sides. Beyond that, do you really believe that after investing so much blood and treasure in Iraq, the US is simply going to walk away?

Hell, for that matter, that’s not even an option being tabled by the only significant political opposition in the US. About the only way I see the US out of Iraq is by way of Vietnam – lots of further bloodshed, significant amounts of it, your own, and a swelling grassroots opposition to the occupation that leads to a politically untenable stand vis-a-vis continuation of same.

In that sense, I think you’ve only just begun, for the loosely labelled ‘anti-war movement’ lacks any sort of unifying stand and/or cohesive goals, and, worst of all, real leadership. In the current climate is still too risky for the Big Guns to get involved for fear of losing political capital, or even worse, being labelled as anti-Americans, Extreme Left, undermining the troops, etc. But surely you realize that it’s going to take someone other than a Michael Moore, a Cincy Sheehan or even a Senator Byrd or Kennedy. Doesn’t matter that they might be right in most of their pronouncements, too “out there” is the current concensus.

It’s in your – collective – hands to make the necessary changes.

36

Completely seriously, the goal of US invasion was to pre-empt the fall of Saddam.

Saddam was old, ill and no longer capable to run Iraq. Most likely, the country was run in his name for a few years before the invasion. Such things are common in MIddle East (Saddam himself was a shadow ruler for few years, before openly assuming powers in late 1970-s).

Saddam fall was considered imminent and decision was made to put US troops in Iraq before it happens. All the evidence we have points in that direction.

Saddam was found abandoned and totally disoriented, his life was spared. His sons were killed, because they still presented a threat. Really powerful people either escaped or were eliminated quietly.

37

To be honest, I never questioned their inevitability. That there will be bases allways seemed to go without saying.

38

Ok, I understand your point about the royal “we.”

Here I would disagree with you. If you are trying to step back and, without personal bias regarding the issue, determine what someone else’s motives were, then you will potentially end up with reasons some might consider non-sense.

As for your most recent post, I personally think most (not all) of the reasons you posted are basically accurate.

39

Another factor in the oil game is that the modern military runs on oil. When (not if) the House of Saud loses control of Saudi Arabia, the new rulers would effectively be able to cripple our war machine by embargoing oil. Before the invasion, that would have meant that we would be beholden to a presumable revolutionary Islamic theocracy on the one hand and Sadaam Hussein on the other hand in order to keep the planes flying and the tanks rolling. The idea was that after the invasion, we would be militarily in control of the second-largest oil reserve in the world and would not therefore be beholden to an Islamicist government in Saudi Arabia in order to keep the military functioning.

Now, IMHO, that’s probably pretty good strategic thinking in a game-of-Risk sort of way, but morally it boils down to a war for resources. That’s the thing we fought against in the World Wars of the 20th Century, that’s the sort of thing we set up the United Nations to prevent, and that’s the sort of thing that has no place in the civilized world.

40

The real reasons for going into this war were quite credible. I guess that the Bush administration was just so used to lying that at this point they just simply forgot how to tell the truth.

But why? If they would have just said that the only way to stop radical Islamic philosophy from spreading was to set up a working democracy in the heart of the middle east, would anyone disagree with them? Are Americans that dumb not to see radical Islam as a threat?

Usually, after digging through the bullshit that Bush puts up as reasons for his policy one finds motives of political gain or greed. In this case, the policy was a good one, but might have gotten a lot of Muslims upset and therefor is no good for the never ending campaign Bush is running.

The hidden motives of an administration that can’t fathom what it means to be truthful might never be reveled. If anyone is going to judge this war it should be based on the way it was carried out and its results.