Why We Went to Iraq

[bluebb]

from the Wall Street Journal.

By FOUAD AJAMI
June 4, 2008

Of all that has been written about the play of things in Iraq, nothing that I have seen approximates the truth of what our ambassador to Baghdad, Ryan Crocker, recently said of this war: "In the end, how we leave and what we leave behind will be more important than how we came."

It is odd, then, that critics have launched a new attack on the origins of the war at precisely the time a new order in Iraq is taking hold. But American liberal opinion is obsessive today. Scott McClellan can't be accused of strategic thinking, but he has been anointed a peer of Zbigniew Brzezinski and Brent Scowcroft. A witness and a presumed insider – a "Texas loyalist" – has "flipped."

Mr. McClellan wades into the deep question of whether this war was a war of "necessity" or a war of "choice." He does so in the sixth year of the war, at a time when many have forgotten what was thought and said before its onset. The nation was gripped by legitimate concern over gathering dangers in the aftermath of 9/11. Kabul and the war against the Taliban had not sufficed, for those were Arabs who struck America on 9/11. A war of deterrence had to be waged against Arab radicalism, and Saddam Hussein had drawn the short straw. He had not ducked, he had not scurried for cover. He openly mocked America's grief, taunted its power.

We don't need to overwork the stereotype that Arabs understand and respond to the logic of force, but this is a region sensitive to the wind, and to the will of outside powers. Before America struck into Iraq, a mere 18 months after 9/11, there had been glee in the Arab world, a sense that America had gotten its comeuppance. There were regimes hunkering down, feigning friendship with America while aiding and abetting the forces of terror.

Liberal opinion in America and Europe may have scoffed when President Bush drew a strict moral line between order and radicalism – he even inserted into the political vocabulary the unfashionable notion of evil – but this sort of clarity is in the nature of things in that Greater Middle East. It is in categories of good and evil that men and women in those lands describe their world. The unyielding campaign waged by this president made a deep impression on them.

Nowadays, we hear many who have never had a kind word to say about the Iraq War pronounce on the retreat of the jihadists. It is as though the Islamists had gone back to their texts and returned with second thoughts about their violent utopia. It is as though the financiers and the "charities" that aided the terror had reconsidered their loyalties and opted out of that sly, cynical trade. Nothing could be further from the truth. If Islamism is on the ropes, if the regimes in the saddle in key Arab states now show greater resolve in taking on the forces of radicalism, no small credit ought to be given to this American project in Iraq.

We should give the "theorists" of terror their due and read them with some discernment. To a man, they have told us that they have been bloodied in Iraq, that they have been surprised by the stoicism of the Americans, by the staying power of the Bush administration.

There is no way of convincing a certain segment of opinion that there are indeed wars of "necessity." A case can always be made that an aggressor ought to be given what he seeks, that the costs of war are prohibitively high when measured against the murky ways of peace and of daily life.

"Wars are not self-starting," the noted philosopher Michael Walzer wrote in his seminal book, "Just and Unjust Wars." "They may 'break out,' like an accidental fire, under conditions difficult to analyze and where the attribution of responsibility seems impossible. But usually they are more like arson than accident: war has human agents as well as human victims."

Fair enough. In the narrow sense of command and power, this war in Iraq is Mr. Bush's war. But it is an evasion of responsibility to leave this war at his doorstep. This was a war fought with congressional authorization, with the warrant of popular acceptance, and the sanction of United Nations resolutions which called for Iraq's disarmament. It is the political good fortune (in the world of Democratic Party activists) that Sen. Barack Obama was spared the burden of a vote in the United States Senate to authorize the war. By his telling, he would have us believe that he would have cast a vote against it. But there is no sure way of knowing whether he would have stood up to the wind.

With the luxury of hindsight, the critics of the war now depict the arguments made for it as a case of manipulation and deceit. This is odd and misplaced: The claims about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction were to prove incorrect, but they were made in good faith.

It is also obtuse and willful to depict in dark colors the effort made to "sell" the war. Wars can't be waged in stealth, and making the moral case for them is an obligation incumbent on the leaders who launch them. If anything, there were stretches of time, and critical turning points, when the administration abdicated the fight for public opinion.

Nor is there anything unprecedented, or particularly dishonest, about the way the rationale for the war shifted when the hunt for weapons of mass destruction had run aground. True, the goal of a democratic Iraq – and the broader agenda of the war as a spearhead of "reform" in Arab and Muslim lands – emerged a year or so after the onset of the war. But the aims of practically every war always shift with the course of combat, and with historical circumstances. Need we recall that the abolition of slavery had not been an "original" war aim, and that the Emancipation Proclamation was, by Lincoln's own admission, a product of circumstances? A war for the Union had become a victory for abolitionism.

America had not been prepared for nation-building in Iraq; we had not known Iraq and Iraqis or understood the depth of Iraq's breakdown. But there was nothing so startling or unusual about the connection George W. Bush made between American security and the "reform" of the Arab condition. As America's pact with the Arab autocrats had hatched a monster, it was logical and prudent to look for a new way.

"When a calf falls, a thousand knives flash," goes an Arabic proverb. The authority of this administration is ebbing away, the war in Iraq is unloved, and even the "loyalists" now see these years of panic and peril as a time of exaggerated fear.

It is not easy to tell people of threats and dangers they have been spared. The war put on notice regimes and conspirators who had harbored dark thoughts about America and who, in the course of the 1990s, were led to believe that terrible deeds against America would go unpunished. A different lesson was taught in Iraq. Nowadays, the burden of the war, in blood and treasure, is easy to see, while the gains, subtle and real, are harder to demonstrate. Last month, American casualties in Iraq were at their lowest since 2003. The Sunnis also have broken with al Qaeda, and the Shiite-led government has taken the war to the Mahdi Army: Is it any wonder that the critics have returned to the origins of the war?

Five months from now, the American public will vote on this war, in the most dramatic and definitive of ways. There will be people who heed Ambassador Crocker's admonition. And there will be others keen on retelling how we made our way to Iraq.

Mr. Ajami, a Bradley Prize recipient, teaches at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University.

[nmap]

Originally Posted by bluebb

Nowadays, the burden of the war, in blood and treasure, is easy to see, while the gains, subtle and real, are harder to demonstrate.

An important point, Sir.

And if I may add, the possible future gains and risks are even more difficult to see. I do wonder if the voters have considered that Iraq is next door to Saudi Arabia, from which comes a great deal of oil. If Iraq were to become a failed state, I suspect today's gasoline prices would seem like a bargain.

[Richard]

How about support of UNSCR 1441?

• Called for the immediate and complete disarmament of Iraq and its prohibited weapons.

• Iraq must provide UNMOVIC and the IAEA full access to Iraqi facilities, individuals, means of transportation, and documents.

• States that the Security Council has repeatedly warned Iraq and that it will face serious consequences as a result of its continued violations of its obligations.

Isn't this what Congress voted to support?

Richard

[Richard]

Here's the position presented to Congress for a vote.

Richard

A Decade of Deception and Defiance

Washington, DC
September 12, 2002

White House Background Paper on Iraq
September 12, 2002

"A Decade of Deception and Defiance" serves as a background paper for President George W. Bush's September 12th speech to the United Nations General Assembly. This document provides specific examples of how Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has systematically and continually violated 16 United Nations Security Council resolutions over the past decade. This document is not designed to catalogue all of the violations of UN resolutions or other abuses of Saddam Hussein's regime over the years.

For more than a decade, Saddam Hussein has deceived and defied the will and resolutions of the United Nations Security Council by, among other things: continuing to seek and develop chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons, and prohibited long-range missiles; brutalizing the Iraqi people, including committing gross human rights violations and crimes against humanity; supporting international terrorism; refusing to release or account for prisoners of war and other missing individuals from the Gulf War era; refusing to return stolen Kuwaiti property; and working to circumvent the UN's economic sanctions.

The Administration will periodically provide information on these and other aspects of the threat posed to the international community by Saddam Hussein.

Saddam Hussein's Defiance of United Nations Resolutions

Saddam Hussein has repeatedly violated sixteen United Nations Security Council Resolutions (UNSCRs) designed to ensure that Iraq does not pose a threat to international peace and security. In addition to these repeated violations, he has tried, over the past decade, to circumvent UN economic sanctions against Iraq, which are reflected in a number of other resolutions. As noted in the resolutions, Saddam Hussein was required to fulfill many obligations beyond the withdrawal of Iraqi forces from Kuwait. Specifically, Saddam Hussein was required to, among other things: allow international weapons inspectors to oversee the destruction of his weapons of mass destruction; not develop new weapons of mass destruction; destroy all of his ballistic missiles with a range greater than 150 kilometers; stop support for terrorism and prevent terrorist organizations from operating within Iraq; help account for missing Kuwaitis and other individuals; return stolen Kuwaiti property and bear financial liability for damage from the Gulf War; and he was required to end his repression of the Iraqi people. Saddam Hussein has repeatedly violated each of the following resolutions:

UNSCR 678 - November 29, 1990

UNSCR 686 - March 2, 1991

UNSCR 687 - April 3, 1991

UNSCR 688 - April 5, 1991

UNSCR 707 - August 15, 1991

UNSCR 715 - October 11, 1991

Iraq must cooperate fully with UN and IAEA inspectors.

UNSCR 949 - October 15, 1994

UNSCR 1051 - March 27, 1996

UNSCR 1060 - June 12, 1996

UNSCR 1115 - June 21, 1997

UNSCR 1134 - October 23, 1997

UNSCR 1137 - November 12, 1997

UNSCR 1154 - March 2, 1998

UNSCR 1194 - September 9, 1998

UNSCR 1205 - November 5, 1998

UNSCR 1284 - December 17, 1999

In addition to the legally binding UNSCRs, the UN Security Council has also issued at least 30 statements from the President of the UN Security Council regarding Saddam Hussein's continued violations of UNSCRs. The list of statements includes:

UN Security Council Presidential Statement, June 28, 1991
UN Security Council Presidential Statement, February 5, 1992
UN Security Council Presidential Statement, February 19, 1992
UN Security Council Presidential Statement, February 28, 1992
UN Security Council Presidential Statement, March 6, 1992
UN Security Council Presidential Statement, March 11, 1992
UN Security Council Presidential Statement, March 12, 1992
UN Security Council Presidential Statement, April 10, 1992
UN Security Council Presidential Statement, June 17, 1992
UN Security Council Presidential Statement, July 6, 1992
UN Security Council Presidential Statement, September 2, 1992
UN Security Council Presidential Statement, November 23, 1992
UN Security Council Presidential Statement, November 24, 1992
UN Security Council Presidential Statement, January 8, 1993
UN Security Council Presidential Statement, January 11, 1993
UN Security Council Presidential Statement, June 18, 1993
UN Security Council Presidential Statement, June 28, 1993
UN Security Council Presidential Statement, November 23, 1993
UN Security Council Presidential Statement, October 8, 1994
UN Security Council Presidential Statement, March 19, 1996
UN Security Council Presidential Statement, June 14, 1996
UN Security Council Presidential Statement, August 23, 1996
UN Security Council Presidential Statement, December 30, 1996
UN Security Council Presidential Statement, June 13, 1997
UN Security Council Presidential Statement, October 29, 1997
UN Security Council Presidential Statement, November 13, 1997
UN Security Council Presidential Statement, December 3, 1997
UN Security Council Presidential Statement, December 22, 1997
UN Security Council Presidential Statement, January 14, 1998
Saddam Hussein's Development of Weapons of Mass Destruction

http://www.state.gov/p/nea/rls/13456.htm

Richard

[echoes]

Originally Posted by Richard

How about support of UNSCR 1441?

• Called for the immediate and complete disarmament of Iraq and its prohibited weapons.

• Iraq must provide UNMOVIC and the IAEA full access to Iraqi facilities, individuals, means of transportation, and documents.

• States that the Security Council has repeatedly warned Iraq and that it will face serious consequences as a result of its continued violations of its obligations.

Isn't this what Congress voted to support?

Richard

Richard Sir,

Very well said Sir.

IMVHO, the "UN Securit Council" has about as much weight as a hog-wash.

Holly