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Why Iraq 2.

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During the run-up to the attack on Iraq, the Bush Administration insinuated that Saddam Hussein had covert ties to al Qaeda and that Iraq had been involved in the 9/11 attacks.  The administration more forthrightly claimed that Iraq’s stockpile of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) had to be put out of potential action.  So either retribution or pretribution.  Later on, both of these justifications were proved false.[1]  Deputy Secretary for Defense Paul Wolfowitz is the villain in many accounts.  He felt confident–without any hard evidence–that Iraq bore guilt for the 9/11 attacks.  Early on, Wolfowitz seems to have talked President Bush into sharing this belief.  The inability of the intelligence agencies to find significant evidence to support this belief then led to a manipulation of the intelligence that did exist.  Then the WMD justification surged forward.  Most of all, group-think and hierarchy led to a spreading certainty that Iraq posed a danger.  Later in his time as president, George W. Bush, battered and enlightened by experience, might well have stopped this “log roll.”  In the first years of his crisis-ridden presidency, however, he lacked the maturity and the experience needed to do his job. 

One striking element in the movement toward war came in the lack of push-back from responsible quarters.  In the House, 81 Democrats voted for the 2002 Authorization for the Use of Military Force, while only 6 Republicans voted against it; in the Senate, 29 Democrats voted for it, while only one Republican voted against it.  When the war went wrong, many people weaseled.  Furthermore, the claims about Iraq-al Qaeda contacts and Iraq’s possession of WMD went largely unchallenged by the media.  Later, feeling twice deceived by “lies and the lying liars who tell them,”[2] journalists and academics rejected out of hand the war-for-democracy claims.  They went in search of other motives for war.  They suggested an attempt to dominate the world oil industry,[3] faulty or manipulated intelligence gathering and analysis, and the effect of “victory culture.”[4]  What they didn’t do was to look at the history. 

After the first two justifications collapsed (along with the careers of some of the people who had offered the justifications), the Bush Administration began to claim that the war’s purpose had always and only been to replace tyranny with democracy in Iraq.  From there it would spread to the rest of that benighted region.[5]  Why hadn’t they led with this argument, since it was so close to what they actually believed? 

Perhaps the “neo-cons” believed that Americans would not support a war for democratization, while they would support a war for vengeance.  If so, they were ignoring the arguments of an eminent predecessor, both scholar and presidential adviser, Robert E. Osgood.  Osgood had believed that Idealism and Self-Interest could be reconciled in foreign policy.[6] 

[1] The former had been incredible from the start.  Saddam Hussein’s Iraq was a secular state and equal-opportunity oppressor.  Al Qaeda was a movement of Sunni zealots.  When Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait and threatened Saudi Arabia, Osama bin Laden had offered to lead an Islamist foreign legion against him in defense of Islam’s holy places.  Nor could the intelligence community offer much in the way of evidence supporting tales of contact between the two enemies of the United States.  The second justification seemed to have more substance.  The United Nations weapons inspectors for Iraq believed that Hussein’s government had concealed large stockpiles of WMD.  However, that is true of many anti-American countries (China, Russia, Pakistan, Israel).  Why attack only Iraq? 

[2] The title of Al Franken’s 2003 “fair and balanced look at the Right.” 

[3] A bunch of this material is displayed at Rationale for the Iraq War – Wikipedia 

[4] On the latter, see Tom Engelhardt, The End of Victory Culture: Cold War America and the Disillusioning of a Generation (2007). 

[5] Max Fisher, “Two Decades Later, a Question Remains: Why Did the U.S. Invade?” NYT, 19 March 2023.

[6] Robert E. Osgood, Ideals and Self Interest in America’s Foreign Relations (1953).  Got a copy on my shelf. 

Why Iraq 1.

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            Why did the United States invade Iraq in March 2003? 

Taking a historical view, the roots of the invasion might be found in the first decade after Western victory over the Soviet Union.[1]  Debating the question of what to do with victory in that struggle, most people wanted a “peace dividend.”[2]  Reduce defense spending and focus on domestic issues.  However, a small coterie of “neo-conservatives”[3] wanted to use America’s position as the sole super-power to push reforms abroad.  Poverty and tyranny held a tight grip in many parts of the world.[4]  It need not remain so. 

For example, the neo-cons seem to have made a correct diagnosis of the problems of the Middle East.  Those problems stemmed not from the existence of Israel, nor from being caught up in post-World War II international rivalries, but from 500 years of Turkish misrule.  Great landowners, rich merchants, and ambitious soldiers—all of them as crooked as a dog’s hind-leg—were deeply entrenched in Middle Eastern countries.  The “neo-cons” moved from a correct diagnosis to a spectacularly wrong cure.  Essentially, “people everywhere just want to be free.”[5]  Knock over a dictator, declare democracy, put up some big box stores, and stand back. 

They had a particular concern with Iraq.  President George H. W. Bush had led the United States and an international coalition in the First Gulf War.  Much of Iraq’s military forces were destroyed in this war, but the President had stopped the allied advance stopped close to the Kuwait-Iraq border.  He had not pursued regime change.  The President’s modesty and self-restraint left a savage dictator in power.[6]  In retrospect, the “neo-cons” wanted to correct this error.  They had lobbied President Bill Clinton “to aim above all, at the removal of Saddam Hussein from power.”  In 1998, Congress passed and President Clinton signed into law the “Iraq Liberation Act.”[7]  Still, he didn’t pay them no never-mind.[8]  Hussein remained in power.  Then came President George W. Bush; then came 9/11. 

[1] The Soviet Union abandoned Communism, abandoned its empire in Eastern Europe, disintegrated into many states, and ceased to oppose the United States around the globe.  If that isn’t victory, I don’t know what is.  At the same time, it may have given then Senator and now President Joe Biden the wrong template for understanding “victory” in the Ukraine War.  He’s affable as all get-out, but not an original or independent thinker. 

[2] They got what they wanted.  U.S. military spending | National Priorities Project (archive.org)  However, the “black budget” of the American intelligence community is linked to that of the Defense Department.  Cutting defense spending cut intelligence spending at the same time that expensive information technology systems were becoming vital.  This compounded the cuts in human intelligence expertise during the rise of Osama bin Laden.  Alas. 

[3] See: Neoconservatism – Wikipedia 

[4] Indeed, the United States had supported and co-operated with many such regimes.  As Franklin D. Roosevelt reflected on the Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista, “He may be a son-of-a-bitch, but he’s our son-of-a-bitch.”  It isn’t beyond imagining that the philosophically-inclined “neo-cons” concluded that we had got our hands dirty winning the Cold War, but now we should seek to undo that harm as best possible.  Of course, something “not beyond imagining” isn’t necessarily what happened. 

[5] See: The Rascals – People Got To Be Free – YouTube  To be fair, every decade has a lot to answer for. 

[6] The UN had authorized using force to evict the Iraqis from Kuwait, not to change the regime.  Other major powers, like Russia and China, would take umbrage if the United States changed the rules of the game unilaterally.  Iraqi society was a sectarian landmine whose explosion would lead to violence, suffering, and—in all likelihood–increased influence for Iran.  So, yes, modesty and self-restraint.  Where can we get some? 

[7] On which, see: Iraq Liberation Act – Wikipedia 

[8] He also didn’t pay any attention to the Rwanda genocide.  Americans, he thought, didn’t want another war.