[lit-ideas] Hitchens' Hypothetical Iraq War
- From: Eric <eyost1132@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 23:00:57 -0500
Christopher Hitchens plays post-game quarterback,
giving his view of how the Iraq War should have
been handled.
complete story at: http://www.slate.com/id/2138332/
The long report in the May-June Foreign Affairs
gives us a view of the regime that confirms the
essential contours of Kanan Makiya's Republic of
Fear. A system of hideous cruelty we have learned
to take for granted, but this also reminds us of a
system of amazing irrationality. Saddam Hussein
wanted, until the very last days, to maintain
ambiguity about his possession of weapons of mass
destruction. Given his past record, there was
absolutely no reason why any serious government
should have taken his word that he had dropped
this stance. (And we also know, from the Duelfer
report and many other sources, that he hoped to
retain his latent ability to restart production
once the sanctions—which were themselves a crime
against the Iraqi people—had been lifted or
rendered ineffective.) It is in the light of that
last point that one of the article's crucial
discoveries must be read. Saddam believed until
the end that the French and Russian governments
would save him. He also knew what we—at the
time—did not: The oil-for-food system had turned
into a self-sustaining racket that cemented his
support in French and Russian circles. He thought
that contracts would speak louder than words, and
in this instance he wasn't completely crazy to do so.
As for the "terror" connection, Hayes in a series
of unrebutted articles has laid out a tranche of
suggestive and incriminating connections, based on
a mere fraction of the declassified documents,
showing Iraqi Baathist involvement with jihadist
and Bin Ladenist groups from Sudan to Afghanistan
to Western Asia. If you choose to doubt this, you
might want to look at the threat, neglected by the
U.S. military, of the "Fedayeen Saddam." (See also
Michael Gordon and Bernard Trainor's admirable new
book Cobra II.) This interestingly named outfit,
known to many of us for some time, did most of the
serious fighting against the coalition after the
ignominious and predictable collapse of the Iraqi
army and the Republican Guard. Its ranks were
heavily augmented with foreign jihadists, and from
this para-state formation and its recruitment
pattern, we get an idea of the way in which things
would have gone in Iraq if it had been left alone.
Never mind "imminent threat," if that phrase
upsets you. How does "permanent threat" sound?
So, now I come at last to my ideal war. Let us
start with President Bush's speech to the United
Nations on Sept. 12, 2002, which I recommend that
you read. Contrary to innumerable sneers, he did
not speak only about WMD and terrorism, important
though those considerations were. He presented an
argument for regime change and democracy in Iraq
and said, in effect, that the international
community had tolerated Saddam's deadly system for
far too long. Who could disagree with that? Here's
what should have happened. The other member states
of the United Nations should have said: Mr.
President, in principle you are correct. The list
of flouted U.N. resolutions is disgracefully long.
Law has been broken, genocide has been committed,
other member-states have been invaded, and our own
weapons inspectors insulted and coerced and
cheated. Let us all collectively decide how to
move long-suffering Iraq into the post-Saddam era.
We shall need to consider how much to set aside to
rebuild the Iraqi economy, how to sponsor free
elections, how to recuperate the devastated areas
of the marshes and Kurdistan, how to try the war
criminals, and how many multinational forces to
ready for this task. In the meantime—this is of
special importance—all governments will make it
unmistakably plain to Saddam Hussein that he can
count on nobody to save him. All Iraqi diplomats
outside the country, and all officers and
officials within it, will receive the single
message that it is time for them to switch sides
or face the consequences. Then, when we are ready,
we shall issue a unanimous ultimatum backed by the
threat of overwhelming force. We call on all
democratic forces in all countries to prepare to
lend a hand to the Iraqi people and assist them in
recovering from more than three decades of fascism
and war.
Not a huge amount to ask, when you think about it.
But what did the president get instead? The threat
of unilateral veto from Paris, Moscow, and
Beijing. Private assurances to Saddam Hussein from
members of the U.N. Security Council. Pharisaic
fatuities from the United Nations'
secretary-general, who had never had a single
problem wheeling and dealing with Baghdad. The
refusal to reappoint Rolf Ekeus—the only serious
man in the U.N. inspectorate—to the job of
invigilation. A tirade of opprobrium, accusing
Bush of everything from an oil grab to a vendetta
on behalf of his father to a secret subordination
to a Jewish cabal. Platforms set up in major
cities so that crowds could be harangued by
hardened supporters of Milosevic and Saddam, some
of them paid out of the oil-for-food bordello.
Well, if everyone else is allowed to rewind the
tape and replay it, so can I. We could have been
living in a different world, and so could the
people of Iraq, and I shall go on keeping score
about this until the last phony pacifist has been
strangled with the entrails of the last
suicide-murderer.
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