Ground Zero
by Scott McConnell
Antiwar.com
March
19, 2002
Attacking
Iraq Would Be Bad For America
Vice
President Cheney received an earful of warnings against a US attack on Iraq
during his Mid East tour, the same thing the administration has already heard
from Europe. Yet there remains speculation that European governments and Arab
allies have given up on influencing Washington and resigned themselves to an
American military campaign against Saddam.
For
its part, the administration has made gestures to accommodate global opinion.
The President isn't speaking about the "axis of evil" any more and the author
of the phrase is no longer in White House employ; Bush has made some measured
criticisms of Ariel Sharon's assaults on Palestinian towns, and (as of this
writing) General Zinni is pressing for an Israeli-Palestinian cease-fire and
meaningful political negotiations.
Even
the hawk's hawk, deputy defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, acknowledged last
week the truth that most laptop warriors desperately deny: that there is a powerful
connection between the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the general difficulties
the United States faces in the Muslim world, including terrorism.
It's
an obvious point, however unlikely one is to read it in National Review
or the Wall Street Journal's editorial page.
The
logical reason for Bush's shifts is that the administration is still intent
on attacking Iraq, and is trying to prepare the way by showing a more reasonable
face to the world. It's enough almost to tempt people like myself – incorrigible
seekers of common ground – to say "Let them have their war against Saddam
– at least they're not going to start wars all over the place, and they're finally
trying to do something about the Israel-Palestinian question."
But
the fact is that an American military move against Iraq would be a mistake,
probably a grievous one. It would not be a prelude to a new era of stability
but the stage-setter for a more vicious and more anarchical international system.
The
United States has had a remarkable degree of international sympathy and support
for its campaign against Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Its action sent to the world
a clear message: if a government shelters people who attack American civilians
on American soil, America will destroy it. Plain and simple, something that
everyone can understand.
But
Iraq is another matter. There is no credible evidence of an Iraqi link to the
9/11 attacks, despite extensive efforts to find one. There is of course a thuggish
regime in Baghdad that the Bush administration has called "evil." But it is
one thing to strike at regimes which have been involved in attacks on your citizens,
another to order preemptive attacks on a government you don't like, one that
has never attacked or even threatened Americans in their homeland.
Most
foreign states and many Americans would see such a move as a reckless, aggressive,
and lawless act. The attack would spur a frantic push by more nations to develop
nuclear weapons, or any weapons which would deter unilateral American military
action. International diplomatic and police cooperation against Al-Qaeda – that
is, against the terrorists who really are trying to kill us – would be adversely
affected or dry up entirely. And the actual fighting would be problematic, even
if the logistical problems could be solved. Either the US bombed extensively,
causing massive widely reported Iraqi civilian casualties in a highly ambiguous
cause; or it would send in troops who would face far stiffer resistance than
in Afghanistan.
Either
course would be morally dubious, generate rage against the United States and
its citizens all around the world – undermining the war on terror rather than
bolstering it.
Perhaps
because they lack good answers to arguments like these, neoconservative pundits
have begun to spin their push for war against Iraq in a new way – as a war for
democracy, a war to save the long suffering Iraqi citizenry from Saddam's tyranny.
The quality of Iraqi civic life has never been much of a concern for them before
– even when there were widespread reports (affirmed by Madeleine Albright) that
United Nations sanctions had killed half a million Iraqi children. Now all of
a sudden, the Iraqi yearning to cast free ballots is up there with family values
and apple pie. On "Meet the Press" Sunday, The Weekly Standard's William
Kristol made the Iraq campaign sound as if it was a proposal for liberation
of the European captive nations, circa 1956.
There
are many reasons why it would be difficult for the United States to impose democracy
on Iraq through military occupation – on the model of post-war Germany and Japan.
But what if it could be done? Most War Party pundits would, if pressed, acknowledge
that their real problem with Iraq is not its lack of democracy but the Saddam
regime's pursuit of weapons of mass destruction. How would a democratic Iraq
solve that?
Answer:
it wouldn't. The current nuclear balance in the Mid East is: Israel has lots
of nuclear weapons; the Arabs and Iran have none. This may be a good thing,
but it is inevitably something that several Middle Eastern governments hope
to change over the next generation, either through a serious United Nations
sponsored nuclear disarmament program (which Israel would never agree to) or
by acquiring nuclear weapons of their own. Try as I might, I can't envision
the Iraqi presidential candidate (or the Iranian one) who will campaign for
continuance of Israel's regional nuclear monopoly, or acquiesce to it.
In
short, we have heard war against Iraq advocated because of Saddam's pursuit
of weapons of mass destruction, then because of Iraq's fanciful link to 9-11,
finally because the Iraqi people are crying out for democracy. Under scrutiny,
the reasons all collapse. Starting such a war is against America's interest.
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