Posted on 03/11/2003 2:31:44 PM PST by knighthawk
If I am not for myself, who will be? And if I am only for myself, who am I? And if not now, when? -- Hillel, Jewish sage of the First Century B.C.
At this grave moment, America and her loyal allies find themselves on the verge of war with Iraq. If all goes according to plan, they will be the ones to begin hostilities. There is, not surprisingly, a strong prejudice in international law against so doing. There is also, however, a range of possible justifications for it. One of these goes by the name of pre-emption. That term denotes a first strike which is legitimate only because it is necessary for the sake of self-defence. Is the impending war justifiable on these grounds? Legally, that question remains in doubt, for the law has not yet evolved to cope with the world after September 11. I believe, however, that a strong political argument can be made for it in the context of that world.
Not, of course, that pre-emption offers the only case to be made for the war. There are other persuasive grounds and the allies have pressed them. But it is the case for pre-emption that I will consider here.
As instances of pre-emption go, this is a most unusual one. Your typical case features a single state with its back to the wall acting simply to guarantee its own security. Two classic episodes have involved Israel. The first of these was in 1967 when it broke an Arab hammerlock by initiating the Six Days War. The second took place in 1981, when Israeli bombers destroyed Iraq's Osirak reactor, thus eliminating Saddam Hussein's infant nuclear weapons program. In both these cases Israel was fighting its own battles only.
America today, by contrast, bears unprecedented responsibility not only for its own security, but for that of the entire world. And Saddam Hussein, conversely, is a crucial player in a genuinely global threat -- global alike in its reach and in the dimensions of the destruction to which it aspires. It is neither a state nor an alliance of states but a far-flung web of international conspiracies in which, however, states remain crucial players. The notion that the main threat is al-Qaeda, with Iraq just some kind of sideshow, just won't wash. Strong evidence links Iraq with a range of terrorist organizations including affiliates of al-Qaeda. The real story of their relations has yet to be written: The pioneering work of Laurie Mylroie suggests massive penetration of al-Qaeda itself by Iraqi intelligence. In Saddam's Iraq all three elements of the global threat converge: a rogue state, links with worldwide terror networks, and the presence of weapons of mass destruction. Saddam's charming son Uday has warned the United States of attacks orders of magnitude worse than September 11, a threat that is perfectly credible. But again the threat is not just to the United States, but to the entire world. The current terrorism thrives on targets of opportunity -- if Westerners are more vulnerable abroad than at home, that is where it will strike them.
The Americans thus find themselves in an historically unprecedented situation, in which pre-emption exercised in their own behalf will cast the longest possible shadow. They must proceed by means of pre-emption because the military aspect of the war on terror does not lend itself to other means. This was the premise of the comprehensive U.S. National Security Strategy Paper issued last fall, and it is irrefutable. The conventional means of warding off harm among nations is through the practice of deterrence. September 11, however, signaled a colossal failure of deterrence. Neither al-Qaeda nor its then-state sponsor the Taliban had proved amenable to it. This is a problem with terrorism generally. What with the murkiness of the struggle, the difficulty of laying a terrorist act at the door of the state (or states) that colluded in it (often only at several removes), and the fanaticism of the front-line participants, deterrence simply won't suffice.
This problem is intensified by the proliferation of the third element of the sinister triad, weapons of mass destruction. Possession of these can render you largely deterrence-proof. If Saddam had waited to invade Kuwait until he actually possessed those nuclear weapons whose development the Israeli strike had retarded, he would still be perched there today. When you're that big, everybody calls you Mister. Just look at Kim Jong-il. People who ask why the United States is attacking Iraq when North Korea's the more dangerous of the two have just answered their own question.
What the present situation thus requires is a policy of ongoing pre-emption, on every level of the struggle. We must seek to keep the enemy constantly off balance, occupied with defending himself rather than with attacking us, while denying him the human, material, and organizational resources necessary to accomplish his goals. The traditional distinction between "pre-emptive" war, directed at countering an immediate threat, and "preventive" war, directed at averting an eventual one, loses most of its relevance. The world's wild garden requires constant weeding, and the yardman would be crazy to wait until each weed has grown to maturity.
Even apart, then, from Saddam's conventional means of delivering his chemical and biological weapons (most of which vehicles still remain unaccounted for) his very possession of them qualifies as a global threat. He has used these weapons before and he foresees using them again. Otherwise he would not have sacrificed so much in order to hang onto them. As noted by Robert Fulford in these pages on Saturday, Saddam has always been the least deterrable of living leaders. This reflects both his megalomania and his long love affair with doomsday weapons. He dreams that if he just keeps plugging away at them some day he will dictate to the world.
But even if you grant that the case for pre-emption is compelling, you may feel some misgivings. Some say that by resorting to it the United States sets a dangerous precedent for less scrupulous regimes. These, this complaint runs, will now couch their aggressions as pre-emptions. But tell me. Have you ever yet heard of a would-be aggressor who stayed home moping because he couldn't come up with a pretext? That's one crop that even North Korea knows how to grow. One thing only deters aggression in the international sphere: the discipline enforced by stronger on weaker. These days that pretty much means by the Americans on everyone else. That discipline would be weakened, not strengthened, by an American retreat from the brink in Iraq.
As I mentioned earlier, pre-emption is only one of several valid grounds for going to war with Iraq today. First among these is of course the repeated resolutions of the UN Security Council that Saddam is a menace to international society who as such must be forcibly disarmed. Saddam is indeed such a menace; unfortunately several Council members have vested interests in preserving him. They're all for passing resolutions against him, so long as they can subvert their enforcement. For all their indignant frothing they've proved just a little weak on the follow-through.
That leaves America and Britain. Hung out to dry by the other permanent members, theirs is the thankless task of vindicating the international rule of law despite them. I wouldn't worry too much about this paradox. Assuming that the Security Council continues to remain aloof from the war, it will have seen the last of the Americans. The prestige of the UN will slip to its normal levels in America --that is, as low as it deserves -- and the French will have to amuse themselves by vetoing the plans of the Germans.
A final reason to go to war is Saddam's monstrous treatment of his own citizens. By itself this could not have been decisive -- this war is too serious for America to have undertaken it for any necessities but its own -- but it matters. As I've supported lesser humanitarian interventions, so I support this mother of them. That the Left has so loudly taken to the streets to protect the Butcher of Baghdad? Why, that would be completely astonishing if it weren't so utterly predictable.
There are only two possibilities, lefties. Saddam either goes, or he stays. "Objectively speaking," as you like to say, you're on the side of his staying. And he loves you for it. That the Americans will oust him in spite of you is good news for his suffering subjects, bad news only for Noam Chomsky. If you too would prefer the continued oppression of the Iraqi people to the galling spectacle of their liberation at the hands of the Americans, I have a prize for you. It's a trip to meet Mr. Chomsky -- in the circle of hell you'll share with him.
Clifford Orwin is a professor of political science at the University of Toronto.
We are actually only now enforcing the terms of the armistice signed by Iraq after they invaded Kuwait "first." The action is overdue, but certainly not "first."
Perfect.
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