Indiaâs leftists say itâs about oil. The VHP say itâs about the clash of civilisations. Everyone sees the US campaign against Saddam Hussein through their own prism. Itâs true oil has a role. So does Islam. And WMD and terrorism. When the US decides to let slip its dogs of war, it does so for multiple reasons, for such decisions require multiple interests to feel they have a stake.
| Okay. Got the generalities out of the way. Shall we move on? |
Before 9/11, only two groups in the US security establishment were gunning for Hussein. One group was a traditional, âwe-need-petrolâ school of thought. Under a policy going back to the Fifties, Washington took it for granted that any country in a position to disrupt the flow of oil through the Straits of Hormuz was a security threat. Invoking this principle, Bill Clinton embedded regime change into his Iraq policy. His reason: a nuclear-empowered Iraq could tip the balance of power in the Persian Gulf against the US forever. But this school was satisfied with sanctions and fomenting coups if it couldnât get war.
| Clinton was riding the success of the previouis Bush administration in this respect. Schwartzkopf had demonstrated that the Fourth Largest Army in the World® wasn't all that, so thumping them now and then provided an excuse for Bill to look tough without the risk of getting his nose bloodied... |
The other group was a Republican lobby that argued the biggest threat facing the US was a future convergence of two trends: WMD proliferation and a new breed of terrorists willing to use such weapons. They argued that the US had to respond with a radically different security strategy: missile defence, pre-emption and rogue State eradication. Of the last, Husseinâs Iraq was seen as the most obvious target. Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and Vice-President Dick Cheney are graduates of this school.
| Having been dramatically proven correct, they still don't have time to preen. But having their positions vindicated by events, they're more confident in implementing the rest of what they saw as needed... |
The newly-elected George W. Bush ignored Hussein. He wanted a second term and a risky overseas mess was a no-no. The CIA and State Department argued Iraq was a nuisance, not a crisis. The oil industry went further: they wanted sanctions against Hussein lifted. His national security advisor, Condoleezza Rice, wrote it didnât matter whether Hussein got nukes or not. In other words, Bushâs Iraq policy was initially softer than Clintonâs.
| Bush campaigned on a policy of avoiding "nation building." That approach was proved wrong, too, but he turned around quickly enough... |
Then 9/11 happened. Rumsfeld and Co. argued that Iraq needed to go down along with Afghanistan. Powell, the CIA and Bush gave them a thumbs down. But by the time the Taliban were history, Washington had sketched out a blueprint for a multi-front war on terrorism. Once the battle plan was laid out, it was realised that Rumsfeldâs thinking was right. Many of the warpaths against terrorism ended with an X on Husseinâs face â but for wildly different reasons.
| Sammy wasn't directly responsible for 9-11 â but he could have been. That's why he has to go... |
The first and most important front in the war on terror evolved from the WMD-terror convergence theory. Al-Qaeda literature found in Kabul, Pakistani physicists hobnobbing with Osama bin Laden and a flood of other intelligence made it clear terrorists were desperate to get WMD capability. The big, hairy fear of the US today is that the next 9/11 will be done with anthrax or plutonium, not jet fuel.
| Since the rest of Cheney's and Rumsfeld's theories have been confirmed, I'd call that last statement a "probable." |
This is forcing the tectonic shift in US strategic thinking. Stopping a terrorist plan that is already unfolding is nearly impossible. So the US has shifted its sights further down the chain of causality. Go after insecure sources of WMD, knock out States that fail certain indices of international behaviour, target banks that play crooked and so on.
The shortlist of nations who declined to change their ways became the âaxis of evilâ. Iraq was deemed danger No. 1. It was judged the most likely place for terrorists to get WMD. It was also felt a message had to be sent to such countries. Toppling Hussein would do just fine.
| Iraq represents the low-hanging fruit. Or it should, if the Euros would get out of the way. The fact that the Franco-German axis has been carping and running interference tells us that the more difficult targets are going to be even harder than they should be, unless the axis is discredited. That's why the diplo war is more important at this point than the ground fighting will be in Iraq... |
The second front was about the long-term eradication of the root causes of Al-Qaeda-type terrorism. All the terrorist-wallahs and Arabists the Bush administration tapped said the same thing: the reason educated Arabs sign up with bin Laden is a lack of democracy in their homelands. The antidote: open up the Arab world.
Two professors, Fouad Ajami and Bernard Lewis, are the gurus of this belief. Their acolytes include Cheney and Rice. Completely overhauling the Arab world is a task roughly comparable to knocking the Soviet bloc, so the White House has preferred not to blow the trumpet on this.
Instead, lesser officials like the State Departmentâs policy planning chief, Richard Haass, and Riceâs deputy, Stephen Hadley, have served as mouthpieces. The second front warriors are pushing for the occupation of Iraq as they need a model Arab democracy. Iraqis are secular and are expected to welcome ballot boxes after decades of dictatorship. It also has enough oil to pay for its own revival.
Arab thinkers and Washington insiders say that another reason is that the US needs a lot of surplus petroleum handy for a showdown with the unrepentant cashbox of jehad: Saudi Arabia. Another derivative: the next secular Arab democracy the US wants is Palestine. The Israelis have already been put on notice.
| Bush laid the groundwork for that last summer. The Paleos have dug in their heels and have started to shake apart, but there's been some movement. It won't break soon, though. Paleostine is definitely further down the list than Iraq... |
Hussein must feel befuddled. Before 9/11 everyone from Exxon to the Elysee Palace was plugging for him. Then it all went bad. He became a target of a new, preventive strategic doctrine straight out of Minority Report and a plan to transform the Arab world so radical no one quite believes it.
This represents an enormous shift in mindset for an America-first White House that wanted even a token US troop presence in Macedonia withdrawn. Bush does not seem really bothered to explain all this to his own people. Instead, he has resuscitated genuine, but hoary, Iraqi violations of UN resolutions that all assumed were no longer worth a fight. No wonder half the world thinks the US response is exaggerated.
| He's explained all this to his own people. He doesn't have to give us the detail â those of us who pay attention have been following the necessity pretty easily, and those who don't pay attention don't need held by the hand... |
Bush is taking on an enormous task and even greater risk. Toppling Hussein pales in comparison to the decision to modernise Islam. As Hadley said in a speech, âThis is an awesome responsibility. When future scholars look back on the history of the Middle East in the early part of the 21st century, I hope that they donât ask âwhat went wrong?â but instead ask âWhy did it go right?ââ
| I believe that Bush is on the right track. He was wrong in his stance against "nation building," but the nation-building he was opposed to was the kind of thing we tried in Vietnam and later in such Clinton debacles as Haiti. He turned around when he saw the need to do it. We tried the "introduce democracy and let it grow" approach in Afghanistan, with indifferent results, so we'll use a different model in Iraq. The best model we have is the military governor model, alà McArthur in Japan, and Iraq possesses the requisite conditions for its implementations, regardless of how loudly our "allies" within the country may holler about it. If it turns into another kleptocracy, we won't be able to go in and fix it later, unless the result is another Sammy, and that would still be far, far down the road. So we're only going to get one chance to do it right. I do believe that the surrounding powers will be doing their best to sabotage the operation, and that some pretty significant things can and will go wrong. We're not going to leave a perfect state behind us â but I do believe we'll leave a much better state. |
|