Rethinking Iraq, Pt. I

It seems to me that confusion has abounded in articles and dialog about the recent U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. Hence I'll be devoting several “installments” to revisiting many of the issues which have been debated over the past months.

With reservations, I supported the invasion, even though by inclination I am an “isolationist.” Some “cynical” isolationists frame their position by stating in effect, “We have no right to poke our nose into other people's business.” By contrast, my concern is whether many conflicts to which we have been a party have really been worth the costs to our nation in terms of lives, money, morale, and so on.

Our engagements have often provided fodder for the countless ill-wishers this country has, and - of late - our efforts don't seem to have been particularly welcomed or appreciated even by their intended beneficiaries. Granted that even the most necessary and well-intentioned actions abroad unavoidably entail unforeseeable and harmful epiphenomena, surely here we ought to tread most gingerly.

The volatile Middle East – the “Un-Holy Land,” in Christopher Hitchens' biting phrase – seems to be an outstanding case-in-point. If there was some way for us to extricate ourselves from that accursed region, a large part of me would welcome it. I especially would have welcomed it in the mid-90s, when it seemed more practicable than it is now.

However, no one ought to entertain such a thought lightly: without our precariously “stabilizing” influence, I fear a nuclear show-down between Israel and its enemies would almost assuredly be in the offing, probably preceded or accompanied by a mass expulsion of the inhabitants of the West Bank and Gaza. Any thought of “democratic reform” in the Middle East would be a much greater pipe-dream than it is now, and yes – pace Leftists – the Gulf's disproportionate share of the world's known oil reserves (upon which Mother Europe is much more dependent than are we) would be even more vulnerable to the machinations of the despot du jour.

In briefest essentials, I supported the invasion because in my view the conflict with Iraq should have been definitively resolved long ago. After 9/11, our options narrowed and a firm resolution took on much greater urgency. Perhaps ironically, I did not look favorably on the '91 Gulf War. But there's nothing inconsistent in opposing an undertaking while recognizing that, once begun, a grave endeavor ought to be brought to an effective conclusion.

Ultimately, the United States and Britain have been at-war with Iraq since 1991; not a full-scale war, to be sure, but an oscillating or intermittent conflict involving state-to-state combat and warfare. That this is true de facto is hardly disputable; that it's true de jure is evinced by the fact that Iraq repeatedly and flagrantly violated the armistice agreements it signed in 1991 – the cessation of hostilities being predicated upon the agreements' fulfillment. If any doubts remain, the claim may be proved indirectly by considering the question, “is partitioning a country into three zones and constantly patrolling their intersection by air (involving non-exceptional bombardment of targets in their proximity) compatible with any state of affairs other than a kind of war?”

(Note that many opponents of U.S. policy towards Iraq viewed the no-fly-zones as unwarranted acts of aggression by the United States and Britain [and, recall, France], “illegal” because not explicitly approved by the United Nations Security Council. On the contrary, I believe our initial and central involvement in the Gulf War and Saddam Hussein's subsequent threatening actions, wiles and tergiversations had a “logic” of their own. Events thus "organically" begat on-the-fly makeshifts such as the [humane] partitioning of the country to protect the Shi'ites in Southern Iraq and the Kurds in the North).

Hence, It's grossly mistaken to represent recent events as if the U.S. simply decided, more or less arbitrarily (that is, casting about for a target), to “go to war against Iraq.” The United States and Britain, with a view to their own interests, (and certainly not inimical to the interests of anyone in the Middle East who opposes tyranny), elected finally to finish, drastically, a conflict to which they were the primary parties. Therefore, the recent conclusion of the original conflict, it seems to me, is best understood as low-level, “subdued” warfare shifting to an explicit state of full-fledged war.

But, one might object:

“The conflict with Iraq has really been between it and the United Nations; the U.S. and Britain must in this particular adhere to the collective will of the United Nations, as embodied in the security council”

Could anyone really say, with a straight face, that Saddam Hussein believed he was primarily assailed not by the United States and Britain but by the United Nations? Since he understood who the real powers were which had boxed him in, it would be sheer folly to pretend that he was/is not our enemy.

In my view, the United Nations practically is at best a forum within which nations may meet and discuss matters of pressing, mutual concern. Its internal contradiction from the start – at least for those who really believed its founding rhetoric – has been that, without any genuine corporate agency and any true executive power(s) (viz., without being a world government), its pronouncements are almost guaranteed to be ineffectual. Another way of saying this is that “might makes right” -- not, vulgarly, in the sense that naked power is its own justification, but rather that, without the capacity for protection and enforcement, “right” is in a perpetually precarious state.

Because it lacks any substantive corporate agency, it really makes no sense to speak of “The United Nations being at war” with such-and-such. This was amply illustrated in the '91 Gulf War when, in the run-up to it, the U.N. of necessity “delegated” enforcement of resolution 678 -- “and all subsequent, relevant resolutions” -- to the assembled “coalition,” under the command of the United States. From that moment on – when the U.S. assumed the central role of putting the nation's blood and treasure on the line – practically and morally the fight it had assumed/accepted was its own to see through in accordance with its own prudential judgments and interests.

Note that there was no U.N. “high command” with which U.S. commanders interfaced, in the way that U.S. field commanders communicate with and receive orders from CENTCOM. Hence, while the U.S. was undeniably operating with a U.N. “blessing,” there was no implication that it was under or beholden to continued U.N. control; although certainly its actions had to be “in the spirit of” the broad aims which set its engaging of Iraq in motion in the first place (stopping a dangerous aggressor, repelling an invader, etc.).

For those who believe that the U.S. was wrong to act “unilaterally” against Iraq this past spring, an important question to address is: “would a unilateral withdrawal of U.S. forces from the region, in, say, 1998 (perhaps in the wake of Operation Desert Fox), have been a legitimate choice in principle for the U.S.?”

If the answer is yes, then what distinguishes such unilateralism from the allegedly blameworthy variety which the U.S. has practiced lately? After all, in both cases, a nation which had become party to a conflict would be choosing to resolve its entanglements in accordance with an assessment of its own inherited options and interests. It's easy to imagine a situation – if “the U.N.” was really serious about its policy towards Iraq – in which a withdrawal of U.S. forces could be considered a betrayal of its assumed obligations to “the international community.”

If the answer is no, then, while consistent with opposition to the U.S.'s “unilateral” invasion, (the exact character of which is debatable and should be parsed with care), the plain suggestion is that the United States had spearheaded “collective defense” vis a vis Iraq at the cost of its own sovereignty. But no nation does, or would, volunteer for such risky U.N. service under that condition.

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