The case for war

I'm more paleo- than neo- conservative. I don't want America to be an empire. I don't think it is our job to roam the world looking to right all wrongs and bring democracy everywhere. Still, I do think the case for war against Iraq has been made.

1. Containment works when time is on your side. But Saddam's insistence on developing WMDs means time is against us. Eventually, he will get what he wants and will find a way to use them against us.

1.a. From the moment he took power, Saddam worked to develop WMDs. The Israeli strike against the Osirak reactor disrupted his nuclear program. He used poison gas against Iran, but then those programs were set back by the Gulf War. All indications are that he immediately set to work rebuilding those capabilities. He did so, despite the fact that this meant Iraq would continue to suffer under sanctions. Hussein is not interested in changing his behavior, he wants to revise the correlation of forces.

2. Containment is expensive politically, militarily, and economically.

2. a. It promotes terrorism because it requires US forces to be stationed on the Arabian peninsula, near the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. This infuriates Islamists like UBL. Removing the threat from Iraq will let us move our troops out of Saudi Arabia, thus removing a major bone of contention between the US and Islam.

2.b. Forces containing Iraq are unavailable for other missions. As threats multiply, containment missions promote imperial overreach and reduces our strategic reserves. This limits our ability to respond to new threats. It will also tempt aggressive regimes to ratchet up their threats just as Japan sought to exploit Britain's death struggle with Germany by grabbing her Asian colonies in 1941.

2.c. Containment requires economic sanctions. Those sanctions punish the Iraqi people and are another recruiting point for UBL. Regime change means the sanctions can be lifted and some of the wind taken out of the terrorists's sails.

3. Deterrence is a cruel and problematic strategy to protect the US from a WMD attack.

3.a. Deterrence is cruel because we must be prepared to inflict massive punishment on the aggressor. There is nothing proportionate about it. Cold War deterrence promised the Soviets that we would incinerate Moscow, Leningrad, and dozens of other cities if the Red Army moved into West Germany. Millions would have died.

3.b. Cold War deterrence did not keep the Kremlin from forcibly expanding its empire via unconventional means and outside of Europe. Deterrence worked best when the tripwires and consequences were clearly defined and predictable. It kept the Red Army out of Western Europe. It did not prevent the Soviets from arming and encouraging North Vietnam's aggression against the South or Cuba's adventures in Africa. Is there any reason to think that Saddam would not try to work around the edges as well?

3.c. Deterrence works both ways. If Saddam is left contained but free to rebuild his military (including enhanced WMD capability) he could, at a moment of his choosing, retake Kuwait and then threaten to use his biological weapons if the US tried a desert Storm II

3.d. Deterrence is problematic because Saddam could use WMDs in a way that hides (at least for a time) his involvement or creates a level of doubt about that involvement. He could calculate that the US would not use massive retaliation after an attack if it took three months to achieve 80% certainty about his involvement. Such a calculation increases his willingness to use the weapons via false flags and third parties.

Imagine how difficult it would be for Bush to keep heavy forces in the Gulf if San Diego, Manila, and Brisbane were hit by biological terror attacks committed by groups associated with bin Laden. Saddam can see that as well. Helping terrorists, if he does not get caught, will be a great way to weaken the military cordon containing him.

4. I do believe that Iraq has extensive ties to terrorist groups.

4. a. Laurie Mylroie's The War against America makes a persuasive, if not conclusive case that Iraq was involved in the first bombing of the WTC, the embassy bombings in 1998 and other bin Laden activities.

4. b. According to Mark Riebling in Wedge Saddam joined with Qaddafi and a group of clerics in 1993 to declare "a new holy crusade against Christian nations." Since some of the clerics were from Iran and all were fundamentalists, this should put to rest the notion that Saddam and bin Laden could never work together because of religious and ideological differences. Both sides are flexible enough to co-ordinate against a greater enemy.

No surprise. After all, Churchill partnered with Stalin against Hitler despite his long-standing opposition to Bolshevism.

4.c. Saddam has close ties with Palestinian terrorists and provided support and safe haven to Abu Nidal and Abu Abbas. So he and his intelligence agencies have experience protecting and dealing with (if not controlling) non-state aggressors.

5. The opposition of France and Germany does not mean that we are acting unilaterally. Further, their opposition is not conclusive evidence that the case against Iraq is weak or that the Bush administration is "rushing into war." There are other, less savory reasons for them to oppose the US/UK position.

5. a. France has been forthright in her belief that Europe should serve as a balance to the US "hyperpower". What is important to them is that we be restrained. The accuracy of our Iraq assessment is secondary to the development of the European counter-weight.

Their policy reflects, in part, a strong strain of domestic anti-Americanism. And as Walter Russell Mead notes, this anti-Americanism springs from our "success, American power, and America's ability to thwart the ambitions of other states." So it is not only a matter of how we use our power, but also that we have so much power .

5.b. Both Germany and France have been willing to cut deals with terrorist to protect their own citizens even if that left the terrorists free to attack other innocent parties. It is possible that in opposing the US and UK they are trying to deflect Islamic anger away from them while leaving Americans and others as targets.

5. c. It is quite possible that Paris and Berlin fear that the overthrow of Saddam will reveal to the world that these two countries helped Iraq in its pursuit of WMD. Saddam's Bomb Maker claims that they did just that. And we know for certain that the French built the reactor that was destroyed in 1981.

Steven Den Beste has laid this case out at great length and I find his reasoning pursuasive.

5.d. If the French and Germans truly believed that containment/deterrence was the best policy, why have they not offered larger forces for that long, expensive mission? They propose a policy, but expect the US/UK to pay for it. At the least, this suggests that they are not serious. At worst, this could be a calculated attempt to promote overreach and reduce American global power.

5. e. During the 1998 crisis with Iraq, Chirac asked Kofi Annan to convey his [Chirac's] "personal greetings" and great esteem" to Saddam when the UN leader was trying to convince Iraq to continue inspections. These are not the acts of a nation trying to help the UN compel compliance of a recalcitrant state.

6. This is not a war about cheap oil.

6. a. If all we wanted was cheap oil, we would remove the sanctions and let Saddam flood the world market with crude as he grabbed hard currency to buy new military hardware.

6.b. The 'no war for oil' crowd never asks if France's appeasement policy is related to the billions in oil contracts that nation has gotten from Hussein in the last few years.

6.c. If we really wanted Iraq's oil fields, why didn't we keep them in 1991?

7. Attacking Iraq can be a wise move, despite the fact that al Qaeda carried out the 9-11-01 atrocity and the possibility that North Korea has a more developed nuclear capacity.

7.a. In some ways it is analogous to the Allied strategy in 1943. The US was attacked by Japan, not Germany. The US/UK agreed (even before Pearl Harbor) that our grand strategy would be "Germany First". Yet the US Army went into action against the Vichy French in North Africa and then invaded Italy before aiming for Germany.

It was not that Italy was the biggest threat to the US. Rather, the Mediterranean theater was where we could do the most in 1943. And by defeating the Afrika Korps and knocking Italy out of the war the Allies depleted German forces, stretched their defensive perimeter, gained combat experience, and opened up bases.

7.b. Most of the units required to root out al Qaeda are not required for a conventional war in Iraq. So attacking Iraq will not put the war on terror on hold. Even during the build-up of heavy forces in the Gulf we have captured key terrorist leaders.

7.c. North Korea has strong ties to Russia and China. Its other neighbors, South Korea and Japan, are modern nations with high-tech economies, modern militaries, and large populations. These factors open up avenues for diplomacy, deterrence and containment. Most importantly, containment does not fall solely on the shoulders of the US.

7.d. Iraq is a conventional threat to most of her oil-rich neighbors. They have small populations and limited military strength. As we saw in 1990, they can be over run easily.

Even before the build up in the Persian Gulf, substantial US forces were tasked to keep Saddam in check. Dealing with Saddam will free up forces to meet other threats.

7.e. Again, if France and Germany really believe that containment is the best option, they should back up their position by committing more of their land, sea, and air forces to that open-ended mission.