The Case for Opposing a U.S. Invasion of Iraq
With 200,000 U.S. soldiers, sailors, and marines now “leaning forward” in the Persian Gulf and President George W. Bush firmly asserting his intention to “disarm Iraq” by any means necessary, it is now a virtual certainty that the United States will invade Iraq in early March of this year. Since this war will represent the first time the US will preemptively invade a foreign country, and as it will, in all likelihood, do so without the sanction of the UN Security Council, it is important to analyze the actual threat posed by Iraq and to speculate on what this war will, and will not, accomplish.
The Threat Posed by Iraq
While it is undeniably true that Saddam Hussein is a brutal dictator prone to dangerous adventurism, it is also quite clear that Iraq is, at present, completely contained. With UN inspectors roaming the country at will, frequent U-2 surveillance flights photographing sites of dubious intent, and several Western intelligence agencies mining their assets in the area, the world, and the US, can be assured that the Iraqi regime does not have the ability to strike out at any of its neighbors, let alone the United States.
In recent weeks there has been much discussion and consternation in the international community over the Iraqi Al-Samoud missile. According to the Iraqi declaration, which was handed over to the U.N. in December, this missile has a range that exceeds the allowable limit of 150 kilometers by some 17 kilometers. To put all this in perspective, North Korea’s Tae-po Dong 2 missile can, at present, reach Hawaii and Alaska. The Tae-po Dong 3, which is under development, will reach Seattle and the West Coast of the United States. To make matters worse, Kim Jong Il, unlike Saddam Hussein, has the nuclear weapons with which to arm them. As brutal a dictator as Hussein may be, he is not irrational, something that cannot be said of Pyongyang’s “Beloved Leader.”
Whatever can be said and is true of Saddam Hussein, the sad fact is that brutal and ruthless autocrats abound in the Middle-East and South Asia regions. Prevez Musharraf (Pakistan), Hosni Mubarak (Egypt), King Abdullah (Jordan), and the Saudi Royal Family come to mind, each with their own history of repression and disregard for their own people. But they are all allies. Or so it would seem.
It is alleged, but not yet proven, that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. Other nations in the region make no secret that they possess WMD’s. Some in the region have long-standing geo-political goals that can destabilize the region. The Pakistanis and the Indians, both members of the “nuclear club,” have mutually exclusive claims to Kashmir. Israel has occupied the West Bank and continues to promote settlements therein, all in material breach of several UN Security Council Resolutions. Iran and Iraq fought a border war a decade ago in which one-million died. And the Turks have ambitions of occupying northern Iraq to preclude the creation of an independent Kurdish state, ambitions that now have tacit US support.
In this context, no thoughtful person would suggest that Iraq poses such a grave and imminent threat to the security of the United States as to warrant the regional and international risks of going to war hastily, without the support and sanction of the international body we have ordained and chartered to have jurisdiction over matters of war and peace.
The Link Between Al-Qaeda and Iraq
Al-Qaeda has found many hospitable environments in which to spawn its terrorist ideology in the Middle East and Asia. The repressed and economically deprived populations of Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Afghanistan became the target of Al-Qaeda’s recruitment drives while the Taliban-led regime in Afghanistan offered them refuge and support. But, in the desperate search for incriminating evidence of Iraq’s complicity in the events of September 11, 2001, the U.S. intelligence apparatus has come up empty-handed. Iraq, it would seem, is the least culpable nation in the region in terms of its role in Al-Qaeda’s bloody jihad.
The inconvenient fact is that not even the US and British intelligence professionals believe there is a link between Iraq and Al-Qaeda. In any event, it strains credulity to imagine Osama bin-Laden making common cause with Baghdad when his latest tape labels Hussein’s government as an “infidel regime.” Secretary Powell’s recent revelation of an Al-Qaeda camp in Iraq later turned out to be located within the northern no-fly zone, beyond the reach and control of Saddam Hussein and in an area that allied planes could easily have destroyed on any of their many recent bombing runs. Reporters who later visited the camp found only a few dilapidated shacks without indoor plumbing or electricity, hardly the kind of facility that could produce weapons of mass destruction.
The Threat of Regional Destabilization
A decent regard for the principle of “unintended consequences” should make us all wary of invading Iraq. Will the Kurds in the north seize the opportunity to declare independence, using the existing Kurdish governing structure in the northern no-fly zone to assert sovereignty and seek UN membership? Will that government have irredentist claims on the predominantly Kurdish area of southeastern Turkey? Will a US-sponsored Turkish occupation of northern Iraq embroil Ankara in a guerilla war with Kurdish separatists? In the south, will the Shiite minority in the southern no-fly zone further sunder the Iraqi State by going its own way? If Iraq splits apart, will the Ayatollahs of Iran take advantage of the power vacuum to resume Persia’s ancient thrust for expansion to the west? Across the Muslim world, will the defeat of Iraq by what will be depicted as the new Crusaders ignite the kind of popular fury that might topple Musharraf, thus placing nuclear weapons in the hands of a Muslim fundamentalist regime? Will the fervor of anti-regime Saudi Wahabbism finally bring down the corrupt and brutal House of Saud and replace it with some of Osama bin-Laden’s spiritual and political kin? Will al-Jezeera paint a lurid picture of occupied Iraq as a mere military satrapy whose real purpose is to secure cheap oil for gas guzzling American SUV’s? And, could anything be more inflammatory than President Bush’s linkage of regime change in Baghdad to a peace settlement between Israel and a “democratic Palestine?”
The Radical Doctrine of Preemptive War
Hawkish advisers (Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and Perle) in and around the Administration have decisively defeated those who oppose this completely new doctrine of US defense. Colin Powell and his allies have surrendered and are now loyally marching to the drumbeat of the new centurions. When a nascent version of the “Preemptive War” policy was first proposed in 1992 by Wolfowitz and Perle during the presidency of George Herbert Walker Bush it was quickly suppressed as being unacceptably radical and aggressive. Today, the doctrine of preemptive war is the anointed policy of the United States of America. Bluntly, it is now official US policy to attack any country that might pose a threat to our security, with or without international sanction. Does any sane person believe that shooting your neighbor is okay if you happen to believe that your neighbor might threaten you? What if that neighbor is ten miles away and his house is under close police surveillance, with detectives actively searching the place on a daily basis?
There are, furthermore, indications that the use of preemptive military force is being seriously discussed in contexts other than Iraq. Logically, the doctrine can easily be applied to Syria, Iran, Libya, and North Korea. Ominously, Kim Jong Il has already declared his right to attack the US preemptively citing the new American policy as precedent. However outlandish this may seem today, we should all recall how foolish a preemptive military invasion of Iraq would have seemed just two years ago.
Preemptive war violates the Charter of the United Nations and there is no other adherent to this aberrant doctrine among the permanent members of Security Council, NATO, or the European Union. Most of these nations officially regard preemptive war as the ruse of an aggressor nation, which should then be subject to the restraining threat of collective security arrangements. Only North Korea publicly admits to sharing this aberrant defense doctrine.
U.S. Isolation and the Threat to its Security
The United States is already dangerously isolated from the mainstream of international comity and the accepted norms of global interdependence. The US has thumbed its nose at the Kyoto Protocol on global warming and has refused to sign the international treaty banning land mines, joining Iraq, North Korea, Russia, China, and Libya. The US refuses to accept the jurisdiction of the International War Crimes Court and it has unilaterally withdrawn from the ABM Treaty. It embarrasses itself at international meetings on family health with its obstructionist insistence on sexual “abstinence” and steadfastly refuses to condition its aid to Israel on compliance with the Oslo Agreements or the numerous UN Security Council resolutions that it continues to flout. In an inter-dependent world, prudence counsels nations to nurture and strengthen alliances and partnerships rather than destabilizing them by stating openly an inclination to roguish behavior.
Public opinion worldwide opposes a US invasion of Iraq. 85-95% of Turks oppose a war. Overwhelming majorities of French (64%), Germans (71%) and Russians (79%) oppose a war, especially one that might be launched without the specific sanction of the UN Security Council. Similar opposition is found in Britain, Italy, Spain, Greece, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and the Netherlands. Most of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council (France, China, and Russia), all of whom wield veto power, currently oppose military action. Even NATO cannot bring itself to support an invasion of Iraq. A recent study by the non-partisan Pew Research Center, with 38,000 respondents in 44 nations, found that “pluralities in most of the countries surveyed complain about American unilateralism.” And, make no mistake about it, in a world of expanding democracy, public opinion equals power.
The Economic Cost of a War with Iraq
While the Administration steadfastly refuses to estimate the true cost of a war with Iraq, most analysts, including President Bush’s own former top economic adviser (Larry Lindsey) put the figure in the range of $100-200 billion. This does not include the ancillary costs of bribing Ankara to allow the use of its territory to open a northern front in Iraq ($15 billion, $6 billion in cash now and the rest later) or the long-term cost of reconstruction and “nation-building” in the wake of a certain Iraqi defeat. That cost will add another $25 billion/year for the next decade, at least. All this occurs as the U.S. fiscal deficit approaches $305 billion, the largest in history without including the cost of the war. No wonder investor and consumer confidence has hit rock bottom, economic recovery remains elusive, and Wall Street securities steadily lose value.
The Human Cost of a War with Iraq
The prospect of killing a few hundred thousand Iraqis in a war that is clearly unnecessary should stay the hand of any Commander in Chief; particularly one who continually characterizes himself as a “compassionate conservative.” Half the Iraqi population is reported to be under the age of 15. The U.N. estimates that at least one million children under the age of five will be “at risk of death” due to malnutrition as a result of the war. Thousands will die more quickly, victims of “collateral civilian damage.” Many more will succumb to death by default as a population already weakened by more than a decade of economic sanctions is denied food, clean water, shelter, and power.
Although US losses are predicted to be small, this is far from certain. If US ground troops get ensnared in urban warfare in Basra and Baghdad, casualties will mount. House-to-house fighting is the great equalizer of modern warfare as it all but nullifies the advantages of air power, mobility, and high-tech gadgetry.
The Increased Threat of Terrorist Attacks
The F.B.I. recently conceded that war with Iraq is likely to motivate more terrorist attacks against U.S. targets. Angry “lone wolves” will be tempted to strike out against the “aggressor.” Consider, for example, how easily this country could be brought to its knees by a few well-trained snipers who might not leave Tarot calling cards in the wake of their crimes. Intelligence agencies will have little success in defending against these kinds of attacks that have little or no organizational base.
Organized terror is also likely to increase as anger around the world boils over when the slaughter of Iraqis begins. (The Pew survey finds a high degree of concern that war with Iraq will increase the risk of terrorism in Great Britain, France, Germany, Russia, and especially in Turkey.) It would seem that the best defense against this kind of terror is good international citizenship and a sophisticated foreign policy, not an attack on a nation that has not, and cannot, attack the United States.
The Threat to Civil Liberties
The Patriot Act of 2001 is already viewed by most civil libertarians and jurists as the single greatest threat to personal freedom and privacy in America since the internment of Japanese-Americans during WW II. The Patriot Act II promises an even more robust assault on traditional American liberty. The most fundamental and time-honored principle of Anglo-American common law, habeas corpus, has already been breached severely. Today, the executive branch of the federal government, acting on secret information and propounding its case merely by assertion, can designate any person as an “enemy combatant” and imprison them indefinitely, without access to an attorney. No charges, no arraignment, no due process, no appeal.
This ominous trend will not be reversed in the jingoist and super-patriotic atmosphere of a shooting war. The Al-Qaeda terrorists have succeeded beyond their wildest imagination in damaging the fundamental freedoms that have set this country apart from much of the rest of the world, and they have done it with the active support of the President and the Congress of the United States.
Conclusion
While the U.S. Congress clearly has the power to rescind the resolution it passed giving the President carte blanche in the war on terrorism in the wake of the September 11 attacks, the political reality is that nothing can, or will, now stop President Bush from ordering an attack on Iraq within the next few weeks. Saddam Hussein is wily enough to know this and therefore has absolutely no incentive to disarm. He, and the Iraqi people, are now preparing for the bombardment that will soon begin.
So, what can be done? The appalling and cruel truth is that virtually nothing can be done to change U.S. political/military policy until there is a “regime change” in Washington, D.C. That responsibility will fall squarely on the shoulders of the eligible voters of the United States in November 2004.
In the meantime, we can only hope that this war will be short and that the casualties, both American and Iraqi, will be mercifully few. It is also supremely important for as many Americans as possible to declare publicly to their fellow citizens, to their elected representatives, and to the world beyond our borders that the current government of the United States is not co-terminus with the people of the United States. It is crucial to this nation’s long-term future that it be understood, today, before the shooting starts, that this war does not have the support and blessing of the people. Most inhabitants of this planet have historic and first-hand experience that inclines them to understand that governments often do not reflect the values and aspirations of their citizens. We can rely on this sophisticated understanding to get us through this time; but only if the people reclaim their rights to leadership, and assert clearly and consistently an aversion to the war policy of the current government and renew their commitment to the international legitimacy that is the firmest pillar of our national security.
