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ANOTHER VOICE
Why the world would be better
off if Saddam were still in power Matthew Parris What would you have done? Would you have left Saddam
Hussein in power? The inquiry, familiar to all of us who opposed the
war, is put in a finger-stabbing sort of way — as though that
clinched it; as though the answer is so obvious that the peaceniks
can only stammer. Just ask them what they would have done and watch
them squirm!
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‘It isn’t football hooliganism,
it’s a cultural clash.’ | Elsewhere, the tactic is more typical of
left-wing polemicists than of the Right. ‘How could you stand by and
see...?’ is a favourite way of arguing for state intervention (and
taxpayers’ money) for any amount of expensive interference with
nature. Any Tory with guts learns to summon them when reminded of
dying patients, hungry jobseekers, sinking industries, failing
railways or freezing pensioners, and asked, ‘What would you do?’ We
answer ‘nothing’ and duck the flying eggs. But when it comes to what
should be done about Saddam, we who answer ‘nothing’ face the
missiles from the Right, newly converted to the Something Ought To
Be Done brigade. On Iraq, neoconservatives deploy the gambit much as
a warrior confronts a pacifist by demanding to know what he would do
if somebody tried to rape his sister.
I cannot answer the
rape question for pacifists, not being one. But as someone certain
that the invasion of Iraq was a blunder, perhaps I should say what I
would I have done.
Now let me oblige my interrogators by
squirming. I should count it a mark of humanity to squirm. In some
disputes I do not find the answers easy or (a different thing) easy
to proclaim. If I were not troubled by the existence in the world of
tyrants, troubled to know how far it is our duty to remove such men,
and embarrassed to put into words the conclusion that it may not
always be my duty, I would not be human.
Yet the bare
question — What would I have done? — presents no difficulty at all.
The ‘I’ in question being M. Parris, Times columnist and Another
Voice in The Spectator, what I would have done is to write articles
inveighing against the invasion of Iraq. I did. Question answered.
‘What would you have done?’ is an inchoate inquiry unless the ‘you’
is tied down. What I would have done if I were me is what I did do.
What I would have done if I were Tony Blair is what Tony Blair did
do. What my interrogator is probably after, however, is an answer to
a question like, ‘If the decision were up to you, what would you
have done?’
But still that is not enough. Which decision?
Iain Duncan Smith’s? Jack Straw’s? Tony Blair’s? The United States’
President’s? Mark Steyn’s? God’s? Taking those cases one by one, let
me tell you what I would have done if I had been able to dictate the
decision each took. It would be different in each case. A tug may
pull hard to starboard in order fractionally to moderate a liner’s
course.
I am not sure that the leader of the Conservative
party — any leader of the Conservative party — should get himself
into the position of pitting the Opposition against a war which his
country is plainly set to fight. Had I been Iain Duncan Smith, but
inhabited by the conviction which inhabits Matthew Parris — that war
was the wrong policy for Britain — I should have fired at the
government a stream of questions about the reasons and the evidence
for their decision. My aim would have been to leave the country with
the impression that HM Opposition was deeply sceptical: unconvinced
rather than actively opposed. Every Tory statement would have ended
with a question-mark, and when asked whether my party in government
would have joined the war, my reply would have been that it was
impossible to say without knowing what the PM claimed to know.
Had I been the Foreign Secretary — but inhabited, etc. — I
would probably have resigned when Robin Cook did. This might have
toppled the Prime Minister, but the threat beforehand might,
equally, have headed him off.
Had I been Prime Minister of
the United Kingdom — but inhabited, etc. — I should nevertheless not
have gone so far as to side with France and Germany, even though I
privately agreed with them. I would have positioned Britain
delicately but firmly on the fence, agreed to honour existing
understandings about the US use of British facilities, ‘understood’
the American position, ‘understood’ the French position, undertaken
to keep open lines of communication with friends on all sides, and
found that present demands on British armed forces made it
impossible that we should send troops ourselves. This would have
been an awkward and unsatisfactory business, was probably the
Foreign Office’s preferred policy, and would best have served
British interests.
Had I been President of the United States
I would not have invaded. This means Saddam Hussein would still be
in power, but given what we now know about the state of his armed
forces, his grip might not have held for much longer. Hans Blix and
his inspectors would have been sent back; and months, perhaps years,
of blowing hot and cold on both sides would have resumed.
International law would not have been violated,
swollen-headed neocons would not have gained sway, the yee-hah
tendency in US foreign policy would have been restrained, precedents
for future unilateral regime-changes would not have been set, Nato
would be intact, the UN Security Council would not have been
damaged, America’s relationship with Europe would have remained
good, and Britain would still be on speaking terms with our EU
partners. The multitudes killed by Saddam would still be dead, but
this war has not resurrected them. If he had resumed his massacres,
the world could have debated the wisdom of threatening force on
honest humanitarian grounds rather than trumped-up charges about
WMDs.
If I had been Mark Steyn — but inhabited, etc. — I
would have reflected that rude neoconservatism was what I did and I
had better carry on doing it. But it would have struck me that,
being Britain’s window into that uncouth world, the occasional wink
as I explained it to them would not go amiss with readers who would
like me all the more for being a witty guide with an eye and ear not
only for the vanities of my opponents, but for folly on my own side
too.
And if I had been God, I would not have created Saddam.
Matthew Parris is a political columnist of the Times.
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