Hitchens on Iraq

Christopher Hitchens also appeared last week on the Daily Show where he was confronted by the quick-tongued host on his continued support for the Iraq invasion. By my account, Stewart kicked his butt, but that doesn't mean Hitch doesn't have some valid points;

Iraq was a failed state. Whether it supported terrorists is beside the point (Stewart correctly pointed out that you can't swing a dead cat in any Middle-East country and not hit a handful of wanted terrorists - Iraq was nothing special in that regard), Iraq was definitely a serious threat to its neighbours, had a history of eggregious violence against its own people, and despite the lack of any WMD's, was nevertheless going to be pursuing them as soon as it could (which again is nothing really new for states in the ME). Further it was never going to transition into anything remotely like a democracy without first having it's leadership taken out.

My objections to the Iraq war were never about whether Iraq fit the criteria for being overthrown - it certainly did. Hussein was not the worst despot in the world, but he was certainly in the top 5. No, my objections to the Iraq invasion were based on a variety of other factors:

1. The importance of completing the Afghanistan invasion/rehabilitation first. If the US had concentrated more resources and efforts at rebuilding Afghanistan, and capturing Bin Laden, we wouldn't be seeing the gradual descent into 'warlordism' that characterizes what Afghanistan is currently going through, and the worlds most wanted man might be on trial right now.

2. There was no urgent reason to invade Iraq - it was certainly a tempting target (if only because it was relatively easy to knock over), but it was by no means one that had to be taken out immediately. However, both Iran and North Korea represented emerging and immediate NUCLEAR threats to the global order that Bush has left to simmer on the stove while he carries out his war in Iraq.

3. In the rush to war the planning for the invasion was either non-existent or based solely on the notion of defeating the Iraqi army and declaring victory. That the US would defeat the Iraqi forces was never in doubt for a second. How the US forces would hold the country together afterwards was apparently never considered.

4. My deep concerns (that IMO the evidence supports) is that the invasion was done more for domestic political gains then anything else. This concern was present in the prelude to Bush's first election campaign against Gore, and everything the Bush administration has done, including the calculated exploitation of 9-11 as a means of rallying for war in Iraq has confirmed it for me. Bush wanted to be a 'war-president', and so he is. He ran for re-election on a platform of equal parts security/homophobia and defeated a strong democratic candidate in the process - when if he had run on just his domestic agenda, I suspect that he would have been soundly defeated.

5. The utter failure to engage the rest of the world, including Canada, and the EU to partake in the efforts in Iraq essentially doomed the US efforts to failure. So long as it was a purely US/British enterprise, it was never going to have either International approval, popular support, or sufficient troops to complete the work necessary. This combination of flippancy, navel-gazing, and even open hostility to creating a genuine international coalition on the part of the Bush regime was so poisonous that it has all but ensured a disastrous result for the US and Iraq. If Bush could have eaten just a little crow (in private of course) and engaged them in a charm offensive instead of just being offensive, he could have put in place a global effort to invade and rebuild Iraq rather than a purely US/British one.

Related to these concerns about the invasion itself, is the disconnection between the stated PR of the Bush regime and the actual goals of the invasion. It was never about WMD's, but it has always been about establishing a permanent US military presence in the Middle East - conveniently located on top of about 20% of the world's oil. From a strategic perspective, this is completely sensible - not because the US requires the Iraqi oil for itself, but because controlling that level of oil supply gives the US incalcuable benefits as a tool of both foreign and domestic policy in the future (anyone who has played the CIV 3 game understands that once you have industrialized your economy and secured oil for oneself, it makes sense to also invade and control the other places where Oil is found - not because your nation needs it, but because everyone else does and you can extract all manner of goodies - including tech, money, and even territory from them for the excess oil you possess). I have no doubts at all that the actual nature and composition of the post-invasion Iraqi regime was of less concern to the military planners than the size, location and scope of the military bases they were planning to permanently plant on Iraqi soil, and the economic access to the oil they planned on enshrining in their happy new client state.

But you can't rally people for a war on the premise that it will preserve American global hegemony in the future - hence, the reliance on the narratives of; 9-11, 'fighting them over there, rather than here' (which Hitchen's correctly rebukes), 'war on terrorism', 'WMD's, bringing democracy to the middle-east, etc. etc. Those were never more than excuses and can't be taken seriously as the purpose for the war, any more than scholars take the 'Gulf of Tonkin resolution', or the death of a couple of marines in Panama seriously as the reasons for those wars (the actual reasons for Vietnam were the same as Iraq - to establish a permanent military presence and client state in a region otherwise bereft of one, and for Panama it was always about ensuring control over the Panama canal).

This PR failure is made even more clear when we see what the actual Iraqi constitution is going to look like (presuming things don't actually get worse and the nation descends into a full blown sectarian civil war - the outcome I actually expect to be most likely at the moment). With the establisment of Islam as the 'fundamental source' for the new laws and constitution, the 'democracy' that Iraq gets out of all of this will not look like any other we have ever seen - indeed, it looks suspiciously theocratic and undemocratic.

This wouldn't have been a problem except for the reliance on rhetoric that the US intended to establish something completely different from what is actually being delivered. Again, this is a complete failure to plan for and execute the actual rebuilding phase - a problem that could have been corrected or ameliorated by any of several ways, including making real efforts to get international approval and support.

So, while I share Mr. Hitchen's complete and justifable contempt for the Hussein regime, and while I continue to support the use of international law backed by force in removing despots and dictators from their regimes, I cannot and do not support the US invasion as it was conceived or conducted.

However, I also understand that the genie is already out of the bottle, and cannot be squeezed back in. The US cannot wave it's magic wand and re-establish Baathist control of the country, say 'sorry for the mess' and walk away. No, they must remain in-country until there is an Iraqi defense force (or in my humble solution, UN Peacekeepers backed by US air support - but that would again mean having to admit a mistake - and Bush simply won't do that) to keep the country and region from flying apart at the seams.

So the US will have to stay in Iraq, probably at least three or four more years.
And if there is any justice, it won't be the GOP in control of the senate, congress or the White House when the rebuilding of Iraq is complete.