Forums about Iraq

SHOULD THE UNITED STATES ignore international law? Is it ready to police the world? And when is intervention justified? In the months prior to the Iraqi invasion last March, the debate surrounding U.S. action in Iraq generated a flow of discussion from many parts of the Kennedy School. Talks analyzing the pros and cons of an Iraqi war became a regular feature at the Forum, and school faculty made their opinions heard in a variety of newspapers and magazines.

The following are excerpts from a selection of op-eds and articles that appeared during the last several months in newspapers and magazines across the country.

Before War
by Joseph S. Nye, Jr. • March 14, 2003 • reprinted from the Washington Post

Iraq is the first test of the new Bush doctrine of preventive war. Because it represents a dramatic departure in American history, it is crucial that we set the right precedent.

President Bush’s national security strategy makes a plausible general argument for preventive war. Technology has increased the lethality and agility of terrorists, and the trend is likely to continue. In the 20th century, malevolent individuals such as Hitler and Stalin needed the power of governments to be able to kill millions of people. If 21st-century terrorists get hold of weapons of mass destruction, that power of destruction will for the first time be available to deviant groups and individuals. This “privatization of war” is not only a major change in world politics; its potential impact on our cities could drastically alter our civilization. And the fear is that certain deviant states, such as Iraq and North Korea, might become enablers of such terrorist groups. This is what the new Bush strategy gets right.

What the administration has not yet sorted out is how to go about implementing its new approach. It is deeply divided between assertively imperial unilateralists on the one hand and more multilateral and cautious realists on the other. Since 1945, Article 51 of the U.N. Charter has enshrined a broad consensus that a state’s use of force should be restricted to individual or collective self-defense. Preemption in the face of imminent attack — such as Israel faced in 1967 — is widely regarded as acceptable self-defense, but preventive war has not been accepted.

Now, as Bush has argued, with the new threat of transnational terrorism and weapons of mass destruction, the cost of waiting may be too high. The test of “imminence” must be broadened. But the price of moving from preemption to prevention should be some form of collective legitimization, preferably under Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter, which is concerned with threats to the peace as well as acts of aggression. Multilateral preventive war may be justified when unilateral preventive war is not. Otherwise the awful lessons of the first half of the 20th century would be lost, and any state could set itself up as judge, jury and executioner. That precedent would come back to haunt us.

Joseph S. Nye, Jr., is dean of the Kennedy School and author of The Paradox of American Power: Why the World’s Only Superpower Can’t Go It Alone.

Is Iraq Like the Cuba Crisis? It’s Worth Bush Considering
by Graham Allison • October 31, 2002 • reprinted from the Christian Science Monitor

Making the case for action against Iraq, President Bush has quoted what President John F. Kennedy said in October of 1962: “We no longer live in a world where only the actual firing of weapons represents a sufficient challenge to a nation’s security to constitute maximum peril.”…

Like Kennedy before him, Bush has taken the initiative in confronting an adversary to demand elimination of actions he deems unacceptable. Then, the threat was Soviet missiles in Cuba; today, it is Iraq’s continued buildup of weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

To eliminate the threat, each president asserted unambiguously American readiness to use overwhelming force, should that prove necessary. Moreover, both assembled overwhelming military force to make vivid the fact that the adversary had no alternative.

In both cases, the presidents’ and their advisors’ initial choice was a military attack. Yet here, a potential difference emerges. In 1962, JFK paused to reconsider, concluding upon reflection that his first answer was not the best answer. Probing his advisors about likely Soviet responses, U.S. countermoves, and subsequent third and fourth steps in this deadly chess game, Kennedy stimulated a decision making process that invented additional options short of war.

Similarly, Bush’s options today range from bad to worse. After the UN Security Council authorizes intrusive inspections and Hussein stiffs the inspectors, he can order a U.S. attack on Iraq that his own best intelligence analysts predict could trigger a bioweapons reprisal against Americans. Or he can retreat to less forceful action that allows Hussein to continue expanding his WMD capabilities and undermines Bush’s credibility.

At his dead end, Kennedy personally refused to choose from the menu his advisors had prepared. Over their strong objections, he invented an extraordinary concoction consisting of a public deal (withdrawal of missiles for a pledge not to invade Cuba) spiced by a private ultimatum (24 hours or else the U.S. would eliminate the missiles) and sweetened by a secret concession (withdrawal of U.S. missiles from Turkey within six months).

Having felt in his gut the dangers of a counterattack that could mean death for millions, JFK drew a cardinal lesson: Where the consequences could be catastrophic, never force an adversary to choose between humiliating retreat and war. Before today’s confrontation ends, this may prove the most valuable lesson of the missile crisis for Bush.

Graham Allison is director of the Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.

The American Empire: The Burden
by Michael Ignatieff • January 5, 2003 • excerpted from the New York Times Magazine article

As the Iraqi operation looms, it is worth keeping Vietnam in mind. Vietnam was a titanic clash between two nation-building strategies, the Americans in support of the South Vietnamese versus the Communists in the north. Yet it proved impossible for foreigners to build stability in a divided country against resistance from a Communist elite fighting in the name of the Vietnamese nation. Vietnam is now one country, its civil war over and its long-term stability assured. An American operation in Iraq will not face a competing nationalist project, but across the Islamic world it will rouse the nationalist passions of people who want to rule themselves and worship as they please. As Vietnam shows, empire is no match, long-term, for nationalism.

America’s success in the 20th century owed a great deal to the shrewd understanding that America’s interest lay in aligning itself with freedom. Franklin Roosevelt, for example, told his advisors at Yalta in 1945, when he was dividing up the postwar world with Churchill and Stalin, that there were more than a billion “brown people’’ living in Asia, “ruled by a handful of whites.’’ They resent it, the president mused aloud. America’s goal, he said, “must be to help them achieve independence — 1,100,000,000 enemies are dangerous.’’

The core beliefs of our time are the creations of the anticolonial revolt against empire: the idea that all human beings are equal and that each human group has a right to rule itself free of foreign interference. It is at least ironic that American believers in these ideas have ended up supporting the creation of a new form of temporary colonial tutelage for Bosnians, Kosovars and Afghans — and could for Iraqis. The reason is simply that, however right these principles may be, the political form in which they are realized — the nationalist nation-building project — so often delivers liberated colonies Bosnia or Afghanistan. For every nationalist struggle that succeeds in giving its people self-determination and dignity, there are more that deliver their people only up to slaughter or terror or both. For every Vietnam brought about by nationalist struggle, there is a Palestinian struggle trapped in a downward spiral of terror and military oppression.

The age of empire ought to have been succeeded by an age of independent, equal and self-governing nation-states. But that has not come to pass. America has inherited a world scarred not just by the failures of empires past but also by the failure of nationalist movements to create and secure free states — and now, suddenly, by the desire of Islamists to build theocratic tyrannies on the ruins of failed nationalist dreams. Those who want America to remain a republic rather than become an empire imagine rightly, but they have not factored in what tyranny or chaos can do to vital American interests. The case for empire is that it has become, in a place like Iraq, the last hope for democracy and stability alike. Even so, empires survive only by understanding their limits. Sept. 11 pitched the Islamic world into the beginning of a long and bloody struggle to determine how it will be ruled and by whom: the authoritarians, the Islamists or perhaps the democrats. America can help repress and contain the struggle, but even, though its own security depends on the outcome, it cannot ultimately control it. Only a very deluded imperialist would believe otherwise.

Michael Ignatieff is director of the Kennedy School’s Carr Center for Human Rights Policy.

Keeping Saddam in a Box
by John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt • February 2, 2003 • reprinted from the New York Times

The United States faces a clear choice on Iraq: containment or preventive war. President Bush insists that containment has failed and we must prepare for war. In fact, war is not necessary. Containment has worked in the past and can work in the future, even when dealing with Saddam Hussein.

The case for preventive war rests on the claim that Mr. Hussein is a reckless expansionist bent on dominating the Middle East. Indeed, he is often compared to Adolf Hitler, modern history’s exemplar of serial aggression. The facts, however, tell a different story….

War may not be necessary to deny Iraq nuclear weapons, but it is likely to spur proliferation elsewhere. The Bush administration’s contrasting approaches to Iraq and North Korea send a clear signal: we negotiate with states that have nuclear weapons, but we threaten states that don’t. Iran and North Korea will be even more committed to having a nuclear deterrent after watching the American military conquer Iraq. Countries like Japan, South Korea and Saudi Arabia will then think about following suit. Stopping the spread of nuclear weapons will be difficult in any case, but overthrowing Mr. Hussein would make it harder.

Preventive war entails other costs as well. In addition to the lives lost, toppling Saddam Hussein would cost at least $50 billion to $100 billion, at a time when our economy is sluggish and huge budget deficits are predicted for years. Because the United States would have to occupy Iraq for years, the actual cost of this war would most likely be much larger. And because most of the world thinks war is a mistake, we would get little help from other countries.

Finally, attacking Iraq would undermine the war on terrorism, diverting manpower, money and attention from the fight against Al Qaeda. Every dollar spent occupying Iraq is a dollar not spent dismantling terrorist networks abroad or improving security at home. Invasion and occupation would increase anti-Americanism in the Islamic world and help Osama bin Laden win more followers. Preventive war would also reinforce the growing perception that the United States is a bully, thereby jeopardizing the international unity necessary to defeat global terrorism.

Although the Bush administration maintains that war is necessary, there is a better option. Today, Iraq is weakened, its pursuit of nuclear weapons has been frustrated, and any regional ambitions it may once have cherished have been thwarted. We should perpetuate this state of affairs by maintaining vigilant containment, a policy the rest of the world regards as preferable and effective. Saddam Hussein needs to remain in his box — but we don’t need a war to keep him there.

John Mearsheimer is professor of political science at the University of Chicago. Stephen Walt is academic dean of the Kennedy School.

Bush’s Future in Blair’s Hands
by Linda Bilmes • March 7, 2003 • reprinted from the Financial Times

Tony Blair has become indispensable to Washington. While President George W. Bush’s war plans are running into increasing difficulties on the ground and at the United Nations, the prime minister’s support is critical in enabling the Bush administration to maintain momentum at home and keep its re-election agenda on target.…

The White House’s determination to maintain the momentum towards war is driven heavily by the U.S. electoral cycle. Of course, there is the much-discussed difficulty of fighting a war in the summer heat. But the president’s political advisors are also anxious to avoid having hostilities collide with the opening of the 2004 presidential campaign. Giving UN weapons inspectors more time could mean delaying an invasion until October, putting the war at centre-stage during Mr Bush’s bid for re-election.

So an early — and quick — war is critical to fit with the U.S. political agenda. By contrast, Mr Blair has no such constraints. If the war were postponed six months to allow more inspections, it would strengthen his political position at home, which has been weakened by the prospect of a war without UN approval. Should he opt to shift his stance — say, to play the role of honest broker who forges a consensus between the Americans and the Europeans — that would almost certainly thwart the administration’s ability to invade Iraq this month. It would also reopen the war as a live political issue in Washington. In short, it would be bad news for Mr Bush. Mr Blair is the pivotal operator in ways that even he may not fully appreciate.

Linda Bilmes teaches public policy at the Kennedy. She served as assistant secretary of commerce under President Bill Clinton.

Why Stop With Iraq?
by Robert Rotberg • October 21, 2002 • reprinted from the Christian Science Monitor

If the U.S. persists in enforcing regime change in Iraq, why not do so in every country where the ruler is odious and grossly mistreats his or her people?

Among the many possible candidates for regime change are the cruel despots of Belarus, Burma (Myanmar), Cambodia, Equatorial Guinea, Liberia, North Korea, the Sudan, and Zimbabwe. If intervening in Iraq might take a few weeks and 400,000 troops, ousting some of these less formidable oppressors might need as little as a lunch hour and a small detachment of marines.

Admittedly, Iraq is in a category of its own. Intelligence suggests that it possesses biological and chemical weapons capacity, and, once it secures fissile material, might be able to construct a nuclear device. Aside from North Korea, none of these other places harbors weapons of mass destruction. Yet, in each case, these rulers possess and have used weapons of destruction against their own people, causing the immiseration of millions. President Charles Taylor in Liberia, for example, has long embroiled his country and neighboring Guinea and Sierra Leone in crippling wars. The military rulers of Burma have insistently employed forced labor to build pipelines and roads, greatly impoverished their people, and refused to abide by the prodemocratic results of the 1990 election. The Sudanese government bombs its own (rebellious) citizens in the south, and has done so systematically for 19 years.

Several if not all of the other places hold their own people in as much or more contempt than Saddam Hussein does his citizens. President Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe, for example, is now letting about half his population — a full six million people — starve.

According to a UN special rapporteur’s account in late September, standards of living in Iraq have recently improved; the quality of life in Iraq appears much better than in most of the other countries on our possible hit list.

But in Zimbabwe, in North Korea, and in almost all of the other places, living conditions remain exceedingly difficult.

If Washington is truly prepared to play policeman of the world on behalf of human rights concerns, and to prevent rulers from repressing their own citizens, we need a new political doctrine and a carefully enunciated set of criteria for action. If the U.S. is truly ready to contravene international law and the UN charter, we need to decide whether it is only resource-rich states that are subject to attack, or if poorer autocracies also receive close American attention.

Alternatively, if preemptive strikes are to be launched only when rogue states possess weapons of mass destruction and are prepared to use them against the U.S. or its allies, then we need a different doctrine, a method of ascertaining sure intent, and a means of ensuring ourselves that the weapons are armed and poised. Under this last rubric, Washington might be compelled to act against Pakistan or India, or both.

Clearly there is dissonance. Washington can only justify attacking Iraq and not Zimbabwe because of weapons of mass destruction, possible links to Al Qaeda, oil, and politics. Yet Zimbabwe (and Burma, Liberia, the Sudan, etc.) are the clearer cases and, in some ways, the easier cases.

Whereas Mr. Hussein used poison gas against the Kurds more than a decade ago, and started the foolish assault on Kuwait in 1990, Mr. Mugabe is torturing opponents now, depriving literally millions of food, and destroying his country’s entire capacity to prosper.

Whereas Iraq’s GDP per capita is growing, Zimbabwe’s has fallen by about 20 percent in two years. Liberia is a failed state where the people continue to suffer from Taylor’s greed and constant warfare. All of the new oil wealth of Equatorial Guinea is going into the hands of President General Teodoro Obiang Nguema. Alexander Lukashenko, in Belarus, behaves arbitrarily, like Mugabe, but with fewer convenient scapegoats. Hun Sen runs a punishing operation in Cambodia, as the military junta does in battered Burma.

Each of these hapless and abysmally run countries merits intervention. Why not remove their rulers, and demonstrate to the world that the U.S. means business?

It may be much more salutary to bully with a broad, all-encompassing sweep than to focus only on the Middle Eastern country with the most oil, a legacy of having survived Desert Storm, and a ruler who has thumbed his nose at Washington and its president.

Robert I. Rotberg is director of the Kennedy School’s Program on Intrastate Conflict and president of the World Peace Foundation.