An Unnecessary War

Foreign Policy Magazine ^ | January, 2003 | John Mearsheimer

[Torie]

This piece is fairly tightly reasoned, but it fails to grapple with balancing the long term costs of containment (as well as the feasibility, particularly when it comes to the neighborhood rather than the US itself), with the cost of a "final solution" now. Beyond that, the piece is more of an article of faith when it addresses the transfer issue, and fails to deal at all with a transfer of bio weapons which are even harder to detect as to their origin. Anthrax anyone?

I would just love debating this guy. He is good enough to be worthy of my efforts. Cheers.

Yes, I appreciate that if a newbie posted this, the thread would probably have a short half life. It may anyway. We shall see.

[Torie]

More Mearsheimer for ya.

[Torie]

FYI.

[AFPhys]

Wish I had time to read this all now... I'll be back Tuesday or so with a response, but this certainly does look like it written by someone worth debating. Have fun, all.

[jwalsh07]

However, the likelihood of clandestine transfer by Iraq is extremely small.

Hard to take him serioously with comments like this.

He ignores Abu Nidal, Abu Abbas, Zawahiri, Salman Pak and Iraq'a financial support of Hamas, Hezbollah and the families of homicide bombers.

In short, I am glad he has no influence in the matter.

[Torie]

Here is a lagniappe for you, to go with that steak.

[Sabertooth]

He ignores Abu Nidal, Abu Abbas, Zawahiri, Salman Pak and Iraq'a financial support of Hamas, Hezbollah and the families of homicide bombers.

He also overlooks colloidal silicon dioxide.

[AntiGuv]

This piece is fairly tightly reasoned, but it fails to grapple with balancing the long term costs of containment...with the cost of a "final solution" now.

Do you account for the human costs or are you only balancing the financial aspects of the equation?

[Torie]

I am a big picture broad gauge kind of guy actually. I always have been. It is not clear at all to me that containment will lead to a lower body count longer term, particularly among Iraqis. But yes, it is speculative.

[AntiGuv]

I am personally of two minds (perhaps even three or four ;) on the matter of balancing the 'human costs' of containment vs conflict. There are so many potential scenarios that it's difficult to make a judgment, IMHO. I was mostly just curious whether you had a position on that issue.

[Libertarianize the GOP]

http://www.freerepublic.com/perl/bump-list

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

ping!

[Luis Gonzalez]

Initial thought, and I'm going back and reading again, is that as a leader, Hussein has shown the willingness to initiate hostilities against others to gain political and economic advantage for bith himself, and his country.

It seems that the author is making the argument that far from being a madman, Saddam is actually a shrewd, calculating leader.

In that sense, the argument that the Bush administration is wrong in initiating a pre-emptive war against Saddam, runs in contrast with the general idea behind the article, because the one fact emerging about Bush, is that he is a shrewd, and calculating leader who is willing to take a hard-line in order to achieve great gains.

Defeating Hussein, and the inevitable occupation of post-war Iraq, will give the US a solid base of operations in the Middle East, one that at this time it does not have. It will allow the staging of troops for any and all future military activity in the war against terror without having to "ask" our ME "allies", as well as the ability to detain and interrogate detainees under more loosely structured circumstances than are available State side.

But then again, what the hell do I know?

[Alas Babylon!]

Well, the idea, and one of the authors' main points, is that because the USA is so much stronger than Saddam's Iraq he'd never try to use a WMD against us, because we'd crush him. Frankly, before Sept 2001, I would have been led by such an argument. SINCE September 11th, 2001, I KNOW that this is not a selling point anymore. I say we cannot afford to take that chance. Call me crazy, but better a dead Saddam and defeated Iraq than another 9/11.

[Jhoffa_]

I would just love debating this guy. He is good enough to be worthy of my efforts.

Personally, I think it's a stupid article and the authors aren't worthy of your toenail clippings.. much less a debate.

I quit reading when they tried to make the case that Saddam is only dangerous when his regime is threatened or venerable.. Then they go on to Kuawit, which wasn't doing things the way OPEC likes them to be done and refused to pay extortion money to Saddam.

Now, if that's all you have to do to get yourself in trouble with Iraq then I would certainly say he's unstable and cannot be trusted. What's the alternative? Make sure his regiem is always prosperous, stable and contented?

Further, choosing war over the disarmament he agreed to, twice, makes the case for "unintentionally suicidal" imho.

Further still, launching scud's at non-combatants and torching the enemies oil fields during a retreat are war crimes. There's enough instability here to keep Freud tied up for years...

[Torie]

I think the authors are trying to make the point that the policy of containment was not vigorously enough pursued before, and thus Saddam miscalculated. But I enjoyed your post nevertheless.

[Torie]

The article ends before it really grapples with a cost benefit analysis of containment versus peremption. That is its primary weakness in my opinion.

[Luis Gonzalez]

"There's enough instability here to keep Freud tied up for years..."

You think Saddam has...issues?

[Luis Gonzalez]

We pull troops put of Germany, South Korea, and Saudi Arabia, and create a megabase in Iraq.

How do you calculate the economic benefits of that?