Four years on
It has been almost four years.
Back in January 2003, I voiced this warning in my column in the Christian Science Monitor.
Everything we know about violence gives two clear lessons. First, the use of force always has unintended - often quite unpredictable - consequences. And second, war in the modern era always disproportionately harms civilians.
For these two reasons, there is a strong presumption in international law and international custom against any easy or voluntary recourse to war. War is still allowed in international law, yes - but only for self-defense, and only as a very last resort, after all avenues for peaceful resolution of differences have been exhausted.
Mr. President, you have no such justification for the war you now threaten against Iraq. There is still time to stand down the huge US expeditionary force and return to some version of the mix of containment and deterrence that has proved successful against Iraq until now - as it did against the much more threatening Soviet Union in an earlier era. Turn back from this war before its consequences come back to haunt you and the rest of the world.
And then, I noted the consequences that followed the decision that Ariel Sharon had made, when he was Israel's Defense Minister in 1982, to invade Lebanon:
At the military level, Sharon's warriors succeeded. Within two months, they controlled half of Lebanon including the capital Beirut. They forced Yasser Arafat's Palestinian guerrillas to leave the country, and "persuaded" Lebanon's parliament to vote in Israeli ally Bashir Gemayel as their new president.
Politically, however, Sharon's campaign did not go well. The continued presence of Israeli forces in the country catalyzed the birth of a new, much more militant Lebanese Muslim group called Hizbullah. Mr. Gemayel was assassinated.
Before 1982 ended, Israel was seeking to reduce its footprint in Lebanon. But it was unable to deal with the resistance that its presence provoked, and ended up staying in Lebanon an additional 18 years.
Israel (and Lebanon) bled profusely for all those years. (And the Palestinians? Their national movement simply changed its form. In 1987, it launched its first serious uprising - "intifada" - inside Gaza and the West Bank.)
No one in Israel today gives a favorable verdict to Sharon's 1982 campaign. One can only wonder how Americans 20 years from now will judge the results of a US war on Iraq.
In February 2003, I wrote this:
If the US blindly goes ahead with the threatened attack on Iraq, will that bring bin Laden closer to his goal, or further from it?
My judgment, based on more than 25 years of studying Muslim issues, is that it will bring bin Laden much, much closer.
The tragic irony in this is that, just days before the airing of the bin Laden tape, Secretary of State Colin Powell, in his presentation at the UN, significantly inflated the strength of the link between Saddam Hussein's regime and bin Laden's Al Qaeda. Now, as in the Yiddish folktale "The Golem," bad dreams seem to be taking on real substance.
In his Feb. 5 speech, Mr. Powell laid out the best evidence he had for the existence of what he called, "the potentially ... sinister nexus between Iraq and the Al Qaeda terrorist network."
But the case he made at that time for the existence of this nexus was thin and deeply unconvincing. To note this is not to stick up for Saddam Hussein. He's a very abusive ruler with a long record of deception on significant weapons-related issues. But prudence still dictates that the Bush administration needs to get its facts straight about the Baghdad-Al Qaeda nexus.
The threat to the UN system is already dire. Yes, the UN has made mistakes and still has many shortcomings. And yes, the US has sometimes had rocky relations with the UN over the years. But for the vast majority of the world's people, the UN represents an ideal of national equality, and embodies their desire that international conflicts be resolved without war. In thousands of places around the world, the UN delivers basic human services - nutrition, healthcare, water management, shelter - that governments are too weak or impoverished to provide. In explosive hot spots - including the Kuwait-Iraq border - UN peacekeepers help monitor and defuse otherwise deadly tensions.
President Bush has repeatedly said, "When it comes to our security, we don't need anybody's permission." That can only mean he's prepared to go to war against Iraq even without Security Council authorization. Make no mistake: If the president does that, he will start a cascade of actions and counteractions that could unravel the UN, all its good works and the ideals it represents, within months - not years.
... Many Americans remember a previous effort by a well-meaning president to use the US military's dominant position to forcibly impose democracy on another country. That was President Johnson, in 1968, in Vietnam.
In 2003, a similar effort to impose democracy on Iraq through force can similarly be expected to fail. This time though, the cost to global stability and human well-being would be much higher. Mr. President, turn back!
All of us urging Bush to turn back failed, and on March 19-20, 2003 the first waves of the US invasion force started pounding Iraq.
The carnage and social collapse that Iraq has seen since then have exceeded even my worst expectations,which had previously been 'seasoned' by having experienced six years of Lebanon's civil war up close and very personal in the 1970s.
There a number of reasons for that, I think. One is that the Lebanese have always, as a people relying on trade and on cultivation in the valleys of inhospitable mountains, been deeply distrustful of government, so many elements of their society never relied on the existence of a central government for very much of anything. Iraq, by contrast, is an ancient riverine culture in which central government regulation of many aspects of economic life is deeply engrained into the national culture. Add to that 30 years of Baathist authoritarianism (and 12 years of tough international sanctions), which between them deepended Iraqis' dependence on government for many basic necessities of life... And you can see how the collapse of central government had so much more drastic an effect on the lives of ordinary people in Iraq than an anlogous collapse had earlier had in Lebanon...
Secondly, the amounts and kinds of weaponry at the disposal of the local militias and fighting forces have been a quantum leap more lethal than anything the fighting parties in Lebanon ever had access to.
In both cases, external occupying powers have worked hard to stir the pot of internal divisiveness in pursuit of their own policies iof 'divide-and-rule'...
Anyway, just going back to what I was writing there in the early months of 2003, I'd like to note the following:
2. Where has been 'accountability' in all this?? The thing that rankles for me, most of all, is that the 'international community' (whatever that is) rewarded Paul Wolfowitz, who had been one of the pleading architects and implementers of the war, with an appointment as President of the World Bank. This is madness, madness-- if the 'world community' wants to say anything serious at all about (a) the strength of the norm it places on the avoidance of war, and (b) the value it places on the work of the World Bank.
The World Bank does much-needed work in many areas of the world where war is recent, or is a current and recurring threat. How can it have any credibility working in such zones-- on all its programs for the 'peaceful resolution of conflicts', etc etc-- if it has at its head a man so terribly tainted by the forceful role he played in fashioning and carrying out a policy of unbridled militarism in Iraq?
(I could also ask how much his salary is in that very comfortable and powerful perch... compared to the pathetic little shreds of income that I and most other consistent critics of the war policy are currently able to pull in.)
Of course, most other architects of the war policy have also been well rewarded, going on to think-tanks, universities, and consultancies (oftentimes, with arms manufacturers or arms dealers) that pay them well. Those facts hurt, yes, but they have less to tell us about the values of the 'international community' of which the World Bank is a part than does Paul W's continuing employment there.
3. I did write in early 2003 about the dangers that the Bushites' unilateral and quite unjustified invasion of Iraq posed to the functioning and integrity of the United Nations system. That is still a strong concern for me, though the unraveling of the UN has not been as serious or as speedy as I had feared.
However, the weakness of the UN is already quite serious enough that the many pleas I have voiced that the UN be given a serious role in helping to de-escalate the conflict in Iraq and provide a politically 'legitimate' framework within which the US can pull out its troops do seem less convincing, and more problematic, than they otherwise would. Of course, the fact that the Bushites have been able to suborn the UN into acting as their junior partner in some key aspects of Middle East diplomacy-- primarily by enlisting the UN as a junior partner in the time-wasting, doomed-to-failure 'Road Map' scheme-- has also considerably underrmined both the integrity of the UN process and the political credibility it is able to project within the Middle East.
Evidently, the UN is at a slowly evolving turning-point. The Bushites' actions have forced the world's other powers to make a choice: Do they want a world that is, in fact, ruled by a single American hegemon, or do they want to try to revive the rules-based, international equality-based approach of the earlier UN? (Put crudely: When will the Chnese, the Russians, and the other powers call in their chips, sell their large stores of US Treasury bills, and push the US back to punching at its own weight in international affairs-- which on a population basis, is around 5% of the total? This is unlikely to happen soon-- the other big powers are doing nicely with the world economy the way it is; and they have little interest in giving Washington too much help to stop the diminution of US military power that is continuing at a fast rate, day by day, inside Iraq... It is only the poor bloody Iraqis who are suffering, for now.)
In those other instances, that I had failed to mention in the columns, the setbacks experienced during one discrete military-imperial adventure had consequences for the military-imperial power that were considerably broader than in just that single territory they had attacked.
I definitely need to do a more serious study, sometime, of this phenomenon of imperial over-reach leading very rapidly to imperial rollback or even the collapse of empire.
How far will the rollback of US power extend in the wake of this still-ongoing debacle in Iraq?
(I have other things I need to write about too... including, what the exact motors are of the current political developments inside Wasington DC... something that, I have found in my travels, many non-Americans seem to have only a rather fuzzy notion about... But for now, I have to run... Back posting here again soon, I hope.)
Hi Helena,
I am here via juan cole. I lvoe your blog. About looking into the history of American over reach. I am reading Robert Fisk's War for Civilization (or something close to that). It is sad and amazing to see the exact same people use the exact same arguements for the exact same results.
Cheers,
Glenn
The comparison of Iraq and Lebanon, and why Iraq is worse.
From my reading, I would say the problem in Iraq is its sad history since medieval times. It is difficult to demonstrate logically why history repeats itself. But it is certainly true that the current events in Iraq have many comparisons with past history in the country. The self-destructive infighting of Iraqi politicians today, with no vision of the future, recalls the similar destructive infighting during the collapse of the Abbasid Caliphate in the 10th century and later.
The conflict was over a similarly rich, but declining resource. In that case, it was the irrigation agriculture of Iraq, which was fragile, but yielded enormous government revenues.
The fame of the possibilities led to foreign invasions, such as the Mongols in the 13th century, who did nothing to revive the country (Does it remind you of the US?). The Ottomans later simply left Iraq in a wrecked state.
I don't see any reason why history should repeat itself, but the similarities are clear. A great resource (irrigation agriculture or, today, oil) fought over, without regard for its preservation.
One of my colleagues once said, and it is very true, that Iraq is a country that has the longest history of civilisation, but is also the one that has been the most affected by human activity, and thus ruined.
From my reading, I would say the problem in Iraq is its sad history since medieval times.
Frankly, what are you trying to say here ? that the poor situation with which Iraqis are struggling since the US invasion is of their own making ? That the guilt doesn't rest with the Americans ? Come on, don't try to avoid your responsibilities. Why did the US invade Iraq in the first place ?
Christiane
Don't get me wrong. In no way would I say the Iraqis were responsible for the invasion of 2003. The fact that Iraq has had so many invasions, of which 2003 is the latest, is mainly a function of the geography. The flat land is quite open to being invaded.
The idea I was trying to get across is that it is curious that similar events occur in the long ago past. I don't know why it is, and it is a subject to discuss. Helena says things went better in Lebanon because of the mountains and the community structure; so in Iraq it is the geography, the economic situation and other factors which it would be worth thinking about.
Why did America invade Iraq in the first place?
Well. As the "liberal hawk" New York Times pundit Thomas Friedman explained: "We had to hit somebody."
So, there you have it. The awful truth that most Americans have not yet begun to face and accept. "Somebody" hurt America on 9/11/2001, so America had to hit back at "somebody." And since America had the military power to hit "anybody," it did. We had to hit "somebody" and we could so we did. Simple, atavistic vengeance against no one in particular as long as we excluded from our target list the Saudi Arabians, Egyptians, and Pakistanis actually involved in hitting us. (Our own government immediately covered up for these "allies" of ours -- especially the Saudis). So, substitute "Iraq" for "somebody" and you have all the "explaining" that vengeful, frightened Americans needed.
Not a pretty picture, nor one that most Americans will willingly accept, despite its now incontrovertible obviousness.
Yet, as my fellow Vietnam Veteran and famed "Pentagon Papers" whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg succinctly put it, "America invaded Iraq three reasons: oil, Israel, and domestic politics." Naturally, none of these true "reaons," entered into America's pathetic public "debate" (what little of it actually happened) before The War to Let Little Dubya Bush Play Commander-in-Chief Like Dick Cheney Knew He Always Wanted (for reactionary Republican domestic political purposes) began as longed-for and previously scheduled. With their own government cynically taking advantage of primitive, incoherent American blood lust, duped and betrayed Americans now have had to witness all the phony, stated excuses (or "fixing the intelligence around the policy") evaporate one after another precisely because these bait-and-switch, snake-oil sales promotions never really touched on the nation's truly needed discussion about its looming fate in the first place. The Ugly American now has a hard time not seeing his own rueful reflection in the warped, fun-house mirror sold to him on the nation's stolen credit card by America's own reckless, discredited government.
So, now, four years into an utter disaster, we find ourselves wondering if perhaps we ought to start thinking about why we have done such an inexcusably dumb, destructive, and self-defeating thing. I agree totally with retired general Tony McPeak who said that America has embarked upon an experiment to validate the proposition that it really doesn't matter whom we elect President; except that when we elect someone really stupid, it matters very much. America now justifiably looks dumber than dirt and too stupid to stipulate. I wonder if we will ever manage to regain a semblance of reason and responsibility again. Sad to say, prospects do not look promising. Few nations will ever voluntarily admit to their own venal viciousness or the corrupt and disreputable purposes to which their own fraudulent government will direct those dark, unexamined impulses at any and every opportunity.
Helena,
For a succinct description of "the motors" that impel national self-destructiveness in Washington, D.C., see Barbara Tuchman's classic March of Folly (i.e., "pursuit of policy contrary to self-interest") where she wrote:
"The American government react[s] not to the Chinese upheaval or to Vietnamese nationalism per se, but to intimidation by the rabid right at home and to the public dread of Communism that this played on and reflected. [In the] social and psychological sources of that dread ... lie the roots of American policy in Vietnam."
Short, Mnemonic Version: "Intimidation by the Rabid Right at Home." This fascist force drives what H. L. Menken called "The Strife of the Parties at Washington." Pretty much a one-sided strife, actually, with the rabid Republican Party and the senior ranks of the American military machine doing most of the intimidating. For a particularly cheesy example of this intimidation, see W. Patrick Lang's recent threats to Democrats that the future will hold them "at least partly accountable" (meaning "to blame") should they dare to "interfere" with the current commander-in-chief by bringing his stupid, bloody vendetta against the now-dead-and-gone Saddam Hussein to a rapid and long-overdue conclusion. Ham-handed attempts at political intimidation such as this reflect nothing so much as a sad, bedraggled "who lost China and/or Vietnam?" replay of the ridiculous presumption that the adverse consequences of wars flow from the ending rather than the starting of them. As we said in Vietnam: "We lost the day we started. We won the day we stopped."
To combat ridiculous rhetorical assaults like ex-Colonel Lang's, the Democrats can and should "take the credit" for winning-by-stopping-the-stupid rather than caving in to right-wing-militarist canards that in reality only seek to go on "losing by starting and continuing." To its shame, the Democratic Party let the red-baiting, "who lost China!" (not a question) rabid right in America bully it into deepening America's escalating violent intervention in Vietnam's reunification struggles. To its eternal credit -- and gnashing of rabid Republican/militarist teeth -- the Democratic Party then came to its senses and helped end the stupid Vietnam War by cutting off funding for bombing Cambodia and then for any further air war against Vietnam after the removal of American ground forces supposedly neutralized anti-war opposition (it didn't) in America. The pathetic Republican "We'll blame you for once again losing what we don't and never have owned if you stop us from wrecking the Iraqi village in order to save it" line of crap really ought not to dissuade any Democrat from boldly and proudly taking the historical credit for once again stopping a stupidity. Someone has to drive a stake through the heart of this un-dead, slanderous canard once and for all. The time of the war-stoppers has arrived. The war-starters and war-continuers have had their chance and blown it thoroughly once again.
At any rate, James Carroll, in his book Crusade: Chronicles of an Unjust War uses the term "Mystical Dread" to encompass politically exploitable public psychological Bogeymen like "Monoithic World Communism" and/or "Global Terrorism." I like to call this national emotional cattle prod "Abstract Angst" or, as FDR did, "Fear Itself." Quite simply, as Gore Vidal says, Americans, "the most easily frightened people on earth," just need a little quick, cheap fear instilled in them -- about Cuban construction workers in Grenada, for example -- and the Lunatic Leviathan will go rampaging off to bomb some more "safe houses," "bad weddings," or even the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. Generate some quick, easy fear in Americans and their government/military bureaucrats can get them to suppinely acquiesce to just about anything. Thus the "motor" of "Mystical Dread," "Abstract Angst," or just plain "Fear Itself" that the Rabid Right at Home in America employs to intimidate any and all "liberal" opposition to creeping (now lunging) fascism. What I call Warfare-Welfare and Makework-Militarism energizes and drives what I call the Lunatic Leviathan. The founders of our Republic called this mindless monster "a large standing army" and correctly foresaw that it would lead to kingly aspirations by Presidents and the demise of our Constitutional government unless regularly defunded at two-year intervals, Congress after Congress, forever. The time for such a theraputic defunding of the Lunatic Leviathan has now, by far-seeing design of our Republic's founders, arrived. Naturally, the champions and beneficiary camp-followers of the Lunatic Leviathan see any cut-off of its insatiable appetites as anathema. Hence the threats to "blame" Democrats for putting the beast on a severely restricted diet, if not starving it down to a size where generally accepted accounting practices can tell us where each and every dollar of our looted and blown incomes has gone, and for what, if anything.
the current political developments inside Wasington DC... something that, I have found in my travels, many non-Americans seem to have only a rather fuzzy notion about...
No surprise it’s exactly as a " political inside Washington DC" many Americans seem to have only a rather fuzzy notion about other nations and countries.
So that why “political inside Washington DC” makes heavy use of lies to drive US citizens for their political goals
And now, we are here...
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,2036590,00.html
"Many Americans seem to have only a rather fuzzy notion about other nations and countries.
So that's why “political inside Washington DC” makes heavy use of lies to drive US citizens..."
Worse than that, many political insiders have a weak grasp of overseas geopolitics. Polls of US congressmen show that most of them couldn't tell you the difference between Shi'is, Sunnis and Kurds.