Amid all the uncertainty and second-guessing, one thing is worth remembering. Our main fear before this conflict was that Saddam might use chemical or biological weapons against our troops or Iraqi civilians. One reason for the strategy of a short air campaign and then risky troop advances was that a repeat of the 1991 strategy would have allowed Saddam free rein to use such weapons against us. The fact that he hasn’t so far is a big achievement, it seems to me. But it has meant slightly greater risks for the troops on the ground. Still the benefits are also huge in terms of saved lives and the closer we get to Baghdad, the less likely such weapons will be used, since they would backfire on the regime itself. Score one for this plan. But no plan is risk-free or perfect.
FRIEDMAN AGAIN: An elaboration of his email yesterday:
Dear Andrew,
Upon further reflection, it seems to me the argument we are having is an illuminating one and I want to continue it one more round. Maybe my use of the word “unilateral” so often was more indicative than I thought and your heated objection more revealing than you thought. Let me try to explain.
It seems to me conservative hawks are not facing up to two issues here and liberal hawks at least one. Why is it that liberals, such as myself, who were ready to support the war, so desperately wanted U.N. approval for it? It was for a couple of reasons — one that is already apparent and one that will become more apparent. First, because this is such a huge, unprecedented task, taking over a whole country half a world away, that the more international legitimacy we had going in, the more time and space we would have to do it right. I want the world, to the extent possible, rooting for us to succeed. You don’t have that feeling right now, and that has both psychological and material implications, especially if the war drags on. Second, and this comes from having lived and traveled so long in the Arab world, I wanted U.N. approval because I knew that just because many Arabs are anti-Saddam, does not mean that they are pro-American or will automatically embrace whatever we do. This is the biggest mistake the neo-cons make. They deal with a very tiny slice of the Arab world — a slice that has not only bought into our war, but also our story, a slice that also knows how to tell us what we want to hear. That is not true of the wider Arab and Moslem world, which has its own story, which may not be ours or Saddam’s. Indeed, the neo-cons, it seems to me, have always been so caught up with their sense of the justness of this war, they have not paid enough attention to the sheer complexity of the Arab world in general and Iraq particular. I wanted U.N. approval for this war because I felt that it would be easier to win the support, or acquiescence of those Arabs and Moslems who dislike Saddam and America as well. (My views on this have been deeply influenced by a documentary I have been making for the last seven months, based on travels across the Moslem world, on the real roots of 9/11. It’s running this Wednesday night on the Discovery Channel.) The longer the war goes on without the cover of U.N. approval, the more difficult it is for Arab leaders to manage their streets. (They would still be having a difficult time. even with U.N. approval, but, again, their margin of error, like Bush’s, is decreased.) This will be true even when the war is over, as we will be telling the Iraqis they have been “liberated” and many in the world, particularly the Arab world, will be telling them they have been “occupied.” The absence of U.N. legitimacy will be felt in that debate as well.
Upon reflection, I think what our argument was about was that you believe (and this seems to be true of the Administration as well) that because we have allies in this war – from the serious, such as Britain and Poland, to the absurd such as Rwanda – it is the same as having U.N. approval. Or, to put it another way, conservatives want to believe that this war is truly multilateral and that multilateral is morally the same as U.N.-approved. Andrew, it is not, and I think you make a mistake in believing that it is. Some important moral authority was sacrificed in not getting U.N. approval and there is no way around it. (We can debate how much of that failure is Bush’s and how much Chirac’s, but that is for another session.)
But, as I said, now that the war has started we have to win and winning all depends on what sort of Iraq we reconstruct. But here liberal hawks have to be honest with themselves. Gulf War II is different from Gulf War I. Gulf War I was about liberating Kuwait. It was not about nation-building. And it is much easier for America to lead a coalition whose only task was winning a war. Gulf War II is about both winning a war and nation-building. I wish we had more allies for winning the war. I wish we had many more allies for paying for the war afterwards. But, I realize, you cannot do nation-building by committee, especially in Iraq. It will require a firm hand from the top. Or, to put it another way, maybe you can do it by committee in tiny Bosnia and Kosovo, but not in Iraq. Given the problems we had with France at the U.N., I cannot imagine trying to nation-build in Iraq with them. All the factions inside would try to play off the different big powers. Yet, I still hope that the U.N. can be brought in to legitimate such a nation-building project afterwards and help to fund it. I still think that would be useful. But not to run it. This is a dilemma. I don’t know how this gets finessed. My hope is that this rebuilding task, to the extent that it is multilateralized, will be handed over to NATO — which we lead, is serious, and at the sametime has a broader legitimacy. Maybe U.N. approval and NATO forces? I don’t know. I guess it will depend on how the war goes.
Anyway, those are my thoughts. (No need to print them if you don’t want. I have my own column!) I just wanted to take this argument to its conclusion, as it was helping to illuminate my own feelings. Allbest. Tom
Many of Tom’s points are well taken. I wanted the U.N. route to work, of course, and argued for it since last August. But there’s a difference between de facto legitimacy and real legitimacy. I suppose the Arab “street” might feel better if our troops were backed by French platitudes, but I don’t want to give either entity – in Ramallah or Paris – more than minimal legitimacy. And the good faith of Paris cannot simply be left aside. If you believe, as I do, that Paris’s prime foreign policy aim is the weakening of the United States and the collapse of the Blair government, then it seems hard to figure out how they could ever be brought along. But Tom and I are in agreement about the post-war scenario. I see no problem with a U.N. presence in post-war Iraq. But the U.S. or U.K. must have operational authority for a while; and cutting France out of any economic deals with Iraq is essential. If we don’t let Paris know that there is a price to be paid for their hostility, then they will never learn. How we square this circle is going to be hard. U.S./U.K. military authority and U.N. humanitarian aid?
The Dish 