Iraq and the United States
Policymakers and pundits in the US are struggling to understand Iraq. So are those members of the common citizenry who follow the news reports. Theories abound, many of them ill-informed. Over the next several weeks, I will try my hand at illuminating two important issues: how and why we should engage Iraq.
The recent coordinated attacks in Baghdad - five yesterday - on US troops, the Rashid hotel, the Turkish embassy and the Red Cross limn the difficulties and challenges facing the region. There are now about 25 attacks a day in Iraq (source: The Economist) and as the number of attacks grows, so does the concern that whatever it is that America hoped to get out of Iraq just isn't worth it. Concurrent with this concern is the troubling lack of proactive steps to alleviate the difficulties.
The truth is that the United States engagement in Iraq is worth it. The reasons for this are multifold. In some cases, they also differ substantially from the public statements of casus belli put forward by the Bush and Blair administrations.
Furthermore, there are steps that can and should be taken by coalition forces to repair and rebuild the stability in Iraq. These steps sometimes deviate from the stated policy goals of the Bush and Blair administrations.
Over the next several weeks, I will make the case for engagement in Iraq as well as provide a course of action that will help to stabilize the region.
One final note: I opposed the United States going to war when and in the manner that it did, but do not oppose war on general principles, with Iraq or anyone else.
Comments
are you for real yankee doodle?
Posted by: cailinban | October 29, 2003 5:25 PM
I am indeed a Yankee doodle, with a feather stuck in my cap that I call macaroni. I'm an American, born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, raised partly in Hill Cove on East Falkland and partly in Mentor, Ohio.
Posted by: Nathan Dornbrook | October 29, 2003 5:27 PM
What are your thoughts now? the latest reports say that the US will be paying republican guards and ex convicts to control Feluga, What happened to the Marines?. I thought that the idea was to remove the regime and put in place a democratic example for the rest of the Arab would to follow?(not just for the control of the oil)
Posted by: Russell | May 2, 2004 8:51 PM
Hey, Russell!
I change my viewpoint as new information becomes available. What do you do?
That being said, my viewpoint has changed very little in part because I believe principles have value.
One value of principles is that they allow us to engage with the world in an ethical manner. And one principle that I use is that governments must possess Legitimacy and Authority (although my contemporaries like to use the word power instead of Authority - but they're wrong).
Iraq's pre-war government posessed Authority but most likely not Legitimacy. Moreover, it had reached a stable state in which it's position was entrenched - and from which it could not easily emerge without outside intervention.
The correct calculation on the part of the United States should have been: "Will this action benefit me and mine more than it will cost us to engage?"
These were (and are) difficult quantities to pin down. Measurements were hard to come by and units of benefit were hardly standardized.
In any event, I'm still convinced that giving Saddam Hussein a push was a good idea; the manner in which it was done was so awkward that more harm than good was done to America and her allies.
It's important to note that in a uni-polar but multi-civilizational world, the leader nations have a responsibility to look after the best interest of their kindred nations, or they will lose their position.
The United States has failed to adequately take up the mantle of leader of the Western world. By failing to listen to her kindred groups, she has lost some legitimacy. I'm not alone in thinking this; policy analysts as diverse as Robert Kagan and Samuel Huntington agree that the U.S. has a legitimacy problem and is exacerbating that problem through ham-handed, insensitive, talentless diplomacy.
In any event, Iraq may have already passed the point where the Western world can hope to salvage any dignity. We have sown the wind. To extend the agricultural metaphor, it will take an awful lot of herbicide to keep the whirlwind from coming around at harvest time.
We'd better start thinking about it now.
-Nathan
Posted by: Nathan Dornbrook | May 2, 2004 10:47 PM