Posted on 02/20/2003 2:27:50 PM PST by AnalogReigns
Ted Galen Carpenter is vice president for defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute.
President George W. Bush, his surrogates, and the White House's pro-war allies in Congress and the media routinely cite an array of reasons a U.S. military campaign to overthrow Saddam Hussein is a good idea.
Four reasons are especially prominent in the arguments of the pro-war camp. But all of them have major, obvious flaws.
Saddam Hussein is an evil ruler who represses, tortures and murders his own people. His overthrow would be an act of liberation.
There is no doubt that Saddam is a murderous tyrant. But that characteristic does not distinguish him from several dozen other rulers around the world. If overthrowing a dictator is sufficient reason for the United States to go to war, one must ask how many other holy crusades are in our future. When does the United States attack North Korea's Kim Jong Il, Cuba's Fidel Castro, Sudan's genocidal slave-masters or Burma's murderous military junta - to name just a few of the world's most odious regimes?
The United States is supposed to be a constitutional republic. As such, the job of the U.S. military is to defend the vital security interests of the American people. U.S. troops are not armed crusaders with a mission to right all wrongs and liberate oppressed populations. American dollars are too scarce and American lives too precious for such feckless ventures.
Saddam's overthrow would trigger a democratic transformation in the Middle East, producing new regimes that would be far friendlier to both Israel and the United States.
That is a fantasy, not a realistic goal. It is highly improbable that overthrowing Saddam's regime and setting up a democratic successor in Iraq would lead to a surge of democracy in the region. Indeed, it probably wouldn't even lead to a stable, united, democratic Iraq over the long term. A U.S. occupation force would be needed for many years just to keep a client regime in power.
The harsh reality is that the Middle East has no history of democratic rule, democratic institutions or serious democratic movements. To expect stable democracies to emerge from such an environment is naive.
Moreover, even in the unlikely event that a wave of democratic revolutions swept the Middle East following the U.S. conquest of Iraq, the United States would probably not like the results. If free elections were held today in such countries as Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, they would produce virulently anti-American governments.
Overthrowing Saddam would weaken the terrorist threat and intimidate other regimes that might be tempted to cooperate with terrorists.
A war with Iraq is likely to have the opposite effect. It would serve as a recruiting poster for Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida. However much Americans might believe that an attack on Iraq is justified, it would be perceived throughout the Islamic world as aggressive U.S. imperialism. That perception would be intensified if the United States occupies Iraq for an extended period and takes control of the country's oil resources.
As far as intimidating other regimes is concerned, if the U.S. ouster of the Taliban government in Afghanistan did not show how perilous it is to harbor anti-American terrorists, it is not apparent how overthrowing the Iraqi government would convey that message with greater clarity.
If we do not oust Saddam, Iraq will someday use its weapons of mass destruction to blackmail the United States, or even worse, will pass along such weapons to al-Qaida, which will use them against American targets.
The United States successfully deterred the likes of Josef Stalin and Mao Zedong - two brutal and erratic rulers. And those dictators possessed nuclear, not just chemical and biological, weapons, whereas there is no credible evidence of an active Iraqi nuclear weapons program. The pro-war faction has never explained why the United States cannot deter a garden-variety thug like Saddam Hussein.
Saddam and the other members of the Iraqi political elite know that threatening, much less attacking, the United States would be an act of suicide. Young, useful idiots like the Sept. 11 terrorists may be suicidal, but rulers of countries almost never are. Iraq's rulers know that attacking the United States would lead to an annihilating counterstroke from the world's largest nuclear arsenal.
Nor is it likely that Iraq would pass along chemical or biological weapons to al-Qaida. Evidence of a connection between Baghdad and al-Qaida is flimsy at best.
Moreover, Saddam knows that he would be at the top of a very short list of suspects as the source of such a weapon if al-Qaida detonated one against an American target.
The only circumstance under which Saddam might pass a weapon to al-Qaida is if the United States invades Iraq because he would then have nothing to lose.
Going to war is serious business. The issue is not whether Iraq has cooperated sufficiently with U.N. inspectors or complied with U.N. resolutions. The issue is not whether the Iraqi people and the Middle East region would be better off without Saddam Hussein. The issue is not even whether Iraq possesses chemical or biological weapons. The only pertinent issue is whether Iraq poses a serious, imminent threat to the United States, thereby justifying pre-emptive war. The pro-war camp has utterly failed to make the case that Iraq poses such a threat.
This article originally appeared in The Orange County Register on February 2, 2003.
NK Venezula Iran Iraq
And someone kill that b****** Mugabe just for principle, please? Take volunteers from some CIA or Military hit team....
Until "Islam=Terror" bumper stickers go the way of the 8-track tape, yep.
And I don't mind being as whacko as President Bush on the issue of self-defense.
So, we should resume hostilities, until the government of Iraq complies with the terms.
One point - I would like a formal declaration of war by the congress, and I'm not sure if the resolution passed in late 2002 was a declaration of war or not. It seemed to me to say everything, short of, 'We declare a state of war to exist.' I would like the SCOTUS to rule on that issue.
No, he's looking into his little history book here. Remember what happened when we backed the Shah in Iran?
Go after Saddam because he hurt US, and screw the UN.
It would be an impossible task to try to overthrow every dictator in the world, unless the US is willing to commit to a constant state of war. That is DEFINITELY not in her interests.
I firmly believe that nations are in a constant state of cold or hot war. Call it hegemony, or diplomacy, but the US will constantly be trying to overthrow every dictator within its sphere of political and economic interests. Many dictators are outside of our sphere of interest that we will not deal with despite calls for our involvement and leadership.
I think one of the great characteristics of democratic government for international peace and security is the change of leadership. Like the weather, if you don't like the leadership or direction of a democratic nation, wait, it will change - or influence the change within the electorate. The only option for influencing a dictatorship is to support an internal coup or a forced regime change. These are often more susceptible to the law of unintended consequences.
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