Naturally, the common people don’t want war....But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament or a communist dictatorship....All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country." -Hermann Goering, Luftwaffe Commander, at Nuremberg Trials, 1946.
Virtually every day the Utah media report on military reservists being called up and sent off to the Middle East in preparation for war against Iraq. The George II Administration and Britain were quick to find fault with Iraq’s 22,000-page accounting for their weapons of mass destruction efforts, prepared in a few weeks by a nation that has word processing technology comparable to the SE Utah Association of Local Governments. However, so far the inspectors in Iraq, even with the report as a guide, have found nothing to refute the report’s claims.
I think that the George II Administration aspires to invade Iraq and to remain there indefinitely for the reasons underlying the Administration’s published National Security Strategy explicitly stated in earlier policy documents by the same authors. These policy goals are to secure US military basing in the Middle East from which to impose a "Pax Americana" and to directly control production of eleven percent of the world’s petroleum supply.
Viewed from the realpolitic perspective of Niccolo Machiavelli or Otto von Bismark, this strategy is a brilliant if cynical means of pursuing national military security and economic interests. However, there are some likely "unintended consequences" which might lead to different and less happy outcomes for the USA than the George II Administration aspires to achieve.
National Security Strategy
The National Security Strategy (NSS) is a document in which each presidential administration outlines its approach to defending the country. The Bush Administration’s NSS, published September 20, 2002, marks a significant departure from previous NSSs, a change the administration attributes largely to the attacks of September 11, 2001. To address the terrorism threat, the NSS lays out an aggressive military and foreign policy, embracing pre-emptive attack against perceived enemies. It speaks in blunt terms of what it calls "American internationalism," of ignoring international opinion if that suits U.S. Interests. "The best defense is a good offense," the NSS asserts. It dismisses deterrence as a Cold War relic. It lays out a plan for permanent U.S. military and economic domination of every region on the globe, unfettered by international treaty or concern. To make that plan a reality, it envisions a stark expansion of our global military presence. "The United States will require bases and stations within and beyond Western Europe and Northeast Asia," the NSS warns.
The approach of the NSS derives from a report published in September 2000 by the Project for the New American Century, a group of conservative interventionists outraged by the thought that the U.S. might be forfeiting its chance at a global empire. The 2000 report stated, "At no time in history has the international security order been as conducive to American interests and ideals. The challenge of this coming century is to preserve and enhance this ‘American peace.’"
Most of what the 2000 Project report advocates, the George II Administration has tried to accomplish, which is no surprise given the authors of the report were appointed senior George II Administration policymakers and wrote the 2002 National Security Policy:
1. The project report urged the repudiation of the anti-ballistic missle treaty and a commitment to a global missile defense system. The administration has taken that course.
2. The report recommended increasing defense spending from 3% to 3.8% of the gross domestic product in order to project sufficient power worldwide to enforce Pax Americana. The Bush administration has requested a defense budget of $379 billion, almost exactly 3.8% of GDP.
3. The report advocates "transformation" of the U.S. military to meet its expanded obligations, including the cancellation of such outmoded defense programs as the Crusader artillery system. That’s exactly the message being preached by Donald Rumsfeld and other appointees.
4. The report urges the development of small nuclear warheads "required in targeting the very deep, underground hardened bunkers that are being built by many of our potential adversaries." This year the GOP-led house approved development of the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator that the Bush administration asked for.
5. The report identifies Iran, Iraq and North Korea as primary short-term targets, complaining that "past Pentagon wargames gave given little or no consideration to the force requirements necessary not only to defeat an attack but to remove these regimes from power." President Bush labeled these nations "the axis of evil" and says he aspires to remove these regimes from power.
6. To preserve the Pax Americana, the report says U.S. forces will be required to perform "constabulary duties," and says that such actions "demand American political leadership rather than that of the United Nations." Bush is proposing the U.S. act as world policeman in Iraq if the U.N. will not act.
7. The report states we need permanent military bases in the Middle East, in Southeast Europe, in Latin America, and in Southeast Asia, in order to project US military power to achieve the "American peace."
The 2000 report acknowledges its debt to a document drafted in 1992 by the Defense Department. The defense secretary in 1992 was Richard Cheney; the document’s principal author was Paul Wolfowitz, then the defense undersecretary for policy. The 1992 document also had the US imposing its will and keeping world peace through military and economic power. When released in draft form it met so much criticism that it was hastily withdrawn and repudiated by George I.
The close tracking of the 2000 recommendations to current policy is not surprising, given that the authors of the 2000 report are now policymakers in the George II administration. Paul Wolfowitz is deputy defense secretary; John Bolton is undersecretary of state; Stephen Cambone is head of the Pentagon’s Office of Program, Analysis and Evaluation; Eliot Cohen and Devon Gross are members of the Defense Policy Board; Dov Zakheim is the Defense Department comptroller; and I. Lewis Libby is chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney.
In his foreign policy debates with Al Gore, candidate George W. Bush pointedly advocated a more humble foreign policy. His position appealed to voters leery of military intervention by the USA. I cannot tell whether the attacks of 9-11 suddenly caused Bush to start listening to Cheney, Wolfowitz, and the other Project 2000 group and change his mind about international military interventionism, or whether Bush did not reveal his true intentions during the election campaign.
Oil and the Economy
Donald Kagan of Yale served as co-chairman of the New Century project. He believes the US should establish permanent military bases in post-war Iraq. "We will probably need a major concentration of forces in the Middle East over a long period of time. That will come at a price, but think of the price of not having it. When we have economic problems, it’s been caused by disruptions in our oil supply. If we have a force in Iraq, there will be no disruption in oil supplies."
According to leading oil expert Colin Campbell, two of the nations that will achieve peak production of petroleum last - well into the next decade - are Saudi Arabia which has 23% of the planet’s oil, and Iraq, which has 11% of the planet’s oil, or 112 billion barrels (Kuwait is a close third). Some analysts believe unexplored potential in Iraq is greater. The United States will have to import 90% of its oil by 2020 to meet the current annual level of demand. "Oil spikes inevitably lead to [economic] recession," he says.
The September 30, 2002, U.S. News and World Report article "Future Shock" states that many in the U.S. oil industry foresee a scenario in which the unseating of Saddam Hussein opens up vast new oil resources, lowering prices and altering the politics of world oil. Oil is currently trading around $30 a barrel, which analysts agree includes a $5-7 "war premium" reflecting uncertainty over the effects of a U.S. attack on Iraq on world oil flow. Chris Varvares, president of Macroeconomic Advisors in St. Louis, says a $10 rise in the price of oil will cut U.S. economic growth by one half percent over the following four quarters; that would currently amount to a $30 billion loss of growth. Given the effects of the rise of fuel prices so far in 2003, this formula seems accurate.
The U.S. oil industry is now relegated largely to expensive deep-sea and Arctic production expansion. In 1999, 50 foreign oil companies attended an exhibition in Baghdad at which Saddam sought new investment to develop Iraq’s oil fields after U.N. sanctions were lifted. Iraq signed deals with French, Russian, and Chinese oil companies. All three countries are members of the U.N. Security Council, and observers agree the contracts were designed to give Iraq leverage over these countries. If the U.S. invades Iraq and installs a pro-West government protected by permanent U.S. military bases, would U.S. oil companies gain access? Would Iraq then pump out enough oil to challenge Saudi Arabia’s domination of the world oil market and lower prices to a stable level beneficial to U.S. economic growth? A number of commentators certainly seem to hope this is what would happen.
In an October 14 article, U.S. News editor David Gergen summarizes a theme among "conservatives" he spoke with: "Once a U.S.-friendly regime is in place in Baghdad, the thinking goes, America will gain sustantial influence over the second-largest supply of oil in the world. That would lessen U.S. reliance upon Saudi oil. In turn, Washington could begin pushing democratization and moderation not just in Iraq but in countries like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Iran. In recent days, there have even been hints coming from sources tied to the Pentagon that, militarily, the regimes in Iran and Syria could be next on America’s list after Iraq. To rewrite the face of the Middle East, advocates say, could bring a flowering of Arab nations, protect key American interests in the region, and curtail the danger of terrorism." Larry Lindsey, George II’s top economic advisor, observes "When there is regime change in Iraq, you could add three million to five million barrels [per day] of production to world supply," adding that "the successful prosecution of the war would be good for the economy."
It is interesting to note who rushed in to help Iraq rebuild its oil infrastructure after the 1991 war: Halliburton, Inc., oversaw $23.8 million in reconstruction, more than any other U.S. company. The CEO of Halliburton at the time was a fellow named Dick Cheney.
Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein began his career as an assassin. He appears to be the archetypal Machiavellian power-brokering tyrant. However, there is no evidence that he is either prone to irrationality or diagnosably mentally ill.
Psychologist Jerrold Post, who used to profile Saddam for the CIA, says Saddam is ruthless but not crazy. "He is a rational and political calculator who can reverse himself on a dime if his regime is threatened, but he can become extremely dangerous when he is backed into a corner."
Seen in the context of behavior among Middle Eastern and Mediterranean despots during the past 3,000 years, Saddam seems pretty run-of-the-mill. Saddam hasn’t done anything most any Sultan, Caliph, or Medici family member wouldn’t and didn’t do to get power or keep it. Niccolo Machiavelli was Lorenzo de Medici’s political advisor. Saddam displays more megalomania and aggressiveness than most other Middle Eastern despots of record, fancying himself a reincarnation of Saladin, the liberator of the Arab world from the Christian occuping crusaders. Under the moral standards taught by either Christianity or Islam, Saddam is an evil man with no moral scruples.
It is therefore not surprising that, in 1990, Osama bin Laden offered to head an Islamic force to liberate Kuwait from Saddam, whom he views as a vainglorious heathen, an enemy of the true Islam. Al Qaida put Saddam Hussein on its list of targets. The last thing Saddam wants is organizing activity by Al Qaida among Shiite fundamentalists in Iraq. Saddam providing al Qaida with weapons of mass destruction is about as likely as Joe Stalin providing Adolf Hitler with them during World War II. The most likely use of such weapons in al Qaida’s hands would be to kill Saddam’s supporters in a Shiite coup against the Sunni minority Baathist party through which Saddam rules Iraq.
Saddam has always been a moral monster, but until he invaded Kuwait, he was our monster. At invasion, George I had just approved sale of additional chemical and conventional munitions to Iraq. We had been supplying Saddam for years, using him as a counterweight to the Shiite Ayatollahs in Iran. In Saddam’s war with Iran, the US supported Iraq. At the time of the Gulf War, the US could be quite confident of what chemical and biological weapon capacity Saddam had, and where he stood in developing nuclear weapons, because we had sold him most of the components and technology. We raised no objection to Saddam’s use of "weapons of mass destruction" in 1987-88, when Saddam slaughtered tens of thousands of Kurds in the so-called Anfal campaign. Even after use of chemical weapons by Saddam to kill Kurds was documented, the George I administration subsequently issued credits for Iraq to buy American grain and manufactured goods. One State Department document circa 1989, retrieved by FOIA by Samantha Power, states: "Human rights and chemical weapons use aside, in many respects our political and economic interests run parallel with those of Iraq."
George II recently said flatly that Iraq is "six months away" from having a nuclear bomb, citing as his authority a 1998 report from the International Atomic Energy Agency. The Agency responded that no such report exists; when they did do an investigation, their February, 2003 report found "no evidence" that Iraq has a nuclear weapons development program. The IAEA reported that Saddam’s nuclear program was completely dismantled by 1998, as was his missile capacity to hurl weapons of mass destruction at his neighbors. At this point Saddam’s navy is kaput, his air force is almost non-existent, overall armed Iraq forces are down by two-thirds, and Saddam’s cut his annual military spending by 90%. Scott Ritter, the American marine veteran who headed weapons inspectors in Iraq immediately before they were expelled has testified numerous times that he does not think Saddam is close to having weapons of mass destruction or a means of delivery for them. All observers agree Saddam is continuing to try to acquire weapons of mass destruction. Given his lack of the ability to deliver such weapons aggressively and concern with survival in power, it seems most likely that his motive for doing so is defensive: to create the means of inflicting vast losses on any invading force trying to depose him, and thus make the price of attacking him too high for the USA or the UN to entertain.
The Law of Unintended Consequences
Here is an inventory of what a unilateral invasion of Iraq might produce by way of results adverse to the interests of the United States:
1. Al Qaida names George W. Bush its chief of recruitment, and means it: Al Qaida must be drooling at the prospect of a Yankee imperialist attack on a Muslim nation. In one blow, they get rid of the infidel Saddam and gain a huge recruiting victory among the world’s enraged Muslims. Remember that Ossama bin Laden and the Wahhabist fundamentalists view current events as a continuation of the same struggle that occurred between Islam and Christianity during the Crusades. Before the 7th century, the Arabic world was, with China, the most advanced culture in terms of technology, arts, philosophy, mathematics, medicine, etc. By comparison, Western Europe was a chaos of dirty, superstition-ridden barbarians wallowing in squalor. The attack and occupation of Muslim lands by Western European Christians during the crusades was contemporary with a cultural and economic crash of the Islamic world from which it has never recovered. This crash is interpreted by Islamic Wahhabist fundamentalists as punishment from Allah for turning away from fidelity to their idea of Islam. The infidels and their corrupting ideas must be driven out of Muslim lands, which then must return to rigid observence of shariah in order that the blessings of Allah may return to His people. The invasion and occupation of Iraq would be interpreted as another in the long series of religious crusades by the West against Islam, and it is the holy duty of any true Muslim to give his or her life fighting to cast the infidels forth from the holy soil of the Middle East (which automatically earns you entrance to paradise as a revered martyr). By invading Iraq, we play our role in this interpretation faithfully. At the very least, Arabic cooperation in combatting Muslim fundamentalist terrorism will evaporate, because the terrorist’s worldview will have been confirmed by our actions and the Wahhabists will appear as prophetic heroes.
2. We will confirm our "rogue nation" status: The rest of the world is aware of, and dismayed by, the stance of the United States on a long series of treaties, initiatives, and agreements in the last few years. Except for the Kyoto Climate Change treaty, this contrarian activity of the United States has been ignored in US media. It is not ignored in the world media. Treaties concerning banning land mines, nuclear non-proliferation, child labor; asserting rights of women, and a series of treaties concerning environmental matters display a consistent pattern: 170-177 nations sign the treaty, except the United States and sometimes a few (other?) odious nations. For example, 170 nations have signed the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, which sets out basic standards for women’s rights to education, equal employment opportunity, and legal equality in marriage. The USA, Afghanistan, Iran, Sudan, Syria and Somalia have not ratified it. The USA has also reneged on the anti-ballistic missile treaty.
Currently the Bush Administration is threatening to trespass upon international sovereignty boundaries which have never been crossed before: to attack a nation and remove its leadership pre-emptively based on the suspicion that that nation and leader pose a future threat to the USA. As Senator Robert Byrd and former Attorney General Ramsay Clark have observed, the idea that a nation can attack another, not because of an imminent threat, but because of a suspicion of threat in the future, is a radical twist on the traditional idea of legitimate self defense and appears to be in contravention of international law and the UN Charter. North Korea’s current paranoid bellicosity, crash development of nuclear weapons, and demands for bilateral negotiations with the USA are transparently based on their being named as a regime to be changed by force in the national policy document the George II Administration is systematically following. If the US can pre-emptively strike Iraq without UN sanction, why shouldn’t North Korea figure they’re next on the hit list?
There appears to be broad international suspicion that the USA is becoming a rogue bully on the international scene, with an administration bent on enforcing corporate and right-wing interest group agendas on the rest of the world. I don’t think President Bush is wise to establish a precedent that leaders of other nations can invade a nation and remove its leadership on the grounds that the other nations are worried that the invaded nation possesses weapons of mass destruction and the will to use them contrary to international law and conventions. There are a number of commentators in Europe and elsewhere who already think that description fits both the USA and Iraq.
3. The price of empire. In the October 21, 2002, U.S. News and World Report Editor David Gergen (a Republican) says, "The day after the war ends, we will be thrust into a second phase: We will ‘own’ Iraq. Have you noticed that no one is talking about an ‘exit strategy’? That’s becasue we will have to stay for years to come. Michael O’Hanlon of the Brookings Institution has estimated that we may need more than 200,000 troops on the ground in the first year and our costs could range from $5 billion to $20 billion a year - if operations go smoothly. We are entering a region, however, that is notoriously unpredictable, and we will be underaking our most significant nation-building since Germany and Japan."
There are a number of interesting variables which could affect both cost and "profit" from "owning" Iraq after an invasion.
First, the existing regime has already cut deals with Russian, French, and Chinese oil firms to expand its oil production infrastructure. These nations have strong reason to preserve these arrangements, and oppose any actions which would lose business to U.S. oil companies. Russia is the world’s second-largest oil exporter, and those oil exports are largely responsible for keeping Russia’s economy afloat. The Russian government has said repeatedly that it needs for world oil prices to remain high. Russian interests are therefore contrary both to an occupation of Iraq that takes contracted oil development rights away from Russian companies, and to a U.S. agenda of increasing Iraq oil output in order to lower world oil prices and thus boost the U.S. economy. If the U.S. does not "cut a deal" in advance with these nations which preserves their economic opportunity in future Iraq oil development and maintains production and thus oil prices at a level acceptable to Russia’s economic needs, then these nations will predictably refuse to support invasion of Iraq, and they have veto power in the U.N. Security Council. If the U.S. does "cut a deal" acceptable to these countries, it of necessity must limit the economic advantage to the U.S. of gaining control over Iraq’s oil. Under these circumstances, the view of the Cheney group who authored the 2000 Project report is that the U.S. should ignore its allies, annex Iraq, and follow the siren call of empire.
Second, the cost of occupying Iraq after invasion is unpredictable depending on the nature and degree of Islamic fundamentalist resistance to the infidel occupying troops of the Great Satan. A U.N.-sanctioned, multi-national occupation force which immediately embarks on a nation-rebuilding equivalent of the Marshall Plan in post-WW II Europe would likely offer a less inciteful target for suicide bombers while sharing costs with the U.S. An invasion and occupation by the U.S. acting alone would shoulder the American taxpayers with the full cost of the campaign (Government Account Office estimates $9-13 billion to get our troops there, $6-9 billion per day to prosecute the war), while engendering the maximum possible resistance from terrorist groups unrestrained by Middle Eastern governments.
Third, if Saddam does have operable chemical, biological or other MWDs, which he has refrained from using historically when such use threatened his survival in power, he would have reason to use them without restraint against an invading U.S. force. Under attack aimed at deposing him, his only hope of survival is to inflict such casualties on the invading force as to repel it. If that doesn’t work, he has lost nothing by making the U.S. victory a Pyrrhic one.
A Summary
If the U.S. proves to have used the "we’ll go it alone" threat as a gambit to move the U.N. Security Council into authorizing invasion of Iraq because Iraq violates specific conditions in U.N. resolutions; if the invasion is a multi-national endeavor under U.N. sanction with cost-sharing among involved nations; if the invasion is followed by a multi-national nation-building "Marshall Plan" (financed by Iraqi oil, of course) which works towards a federalist republic of Iraq with representation of the Sunni Muslims of the north, the Shiite Muslims of the south, and the non-Arab Kurds of the northeast; then we might enjoy a situation where a sovereign nation was invaded by the world community because it would not cooperate in proving it did not pose a threat to that world community (not a bad precedent), and both the people of Iraq and the world community clearly end up better off. Iraq is a good prospect for nation-building: it was a constitutional democracy from 1927-1951 with a functioning parliament and political parties, is 80% urban, has a high level of average education and substantial middle class, and has been a secular state since 1927.
Medfact, the British health professional organization, estimates as many as 260,000 Iraqis would be killed immediately in a US attack, and another 200,000 deaths would result from famine and disease afterwards. The UN estimates an attack would create 900,000 refugees. After the 1991 war, cancer and lukemia rates in southern Iraq increased six-fold; this is attributed to residuum from depleted uranium and other weapons used in the Gulf War. The high civilian and environmental costs of attack on Iraq must be carefully weighed and justified against immanent peril averted and national liberation achieved. Otherwise, the collateral carnage of our attack on Iraq will be interpreted as the byproduct of a rogue state acting illegally and immorally to secure imperial ambitions.
If the U.S. does invade Iraq unilaterally, it appears that the political and economic consequences to us would be severe and negative in the long run. Whatever our protests, and whatever the actual motives of decision-makers in our government, it seems inescapable that a unilateral invasion would be viewed as an immoral, cynical oil grab by a nation gone rogue from the world community and its values. Such a nation would deserve, and receive, any opposition which could be practically and safely mounted by that world community of nations against its imperial ambitions. That moral judgment by the world community would legitimize use of terrorist acts against the U.S. by non-state terrorist groups. The number of U.S. citizens sharing that moral judgement would increase, and we would predictably have internal demonstrations and dissent against which Vietnam war protests would pale. The people of the U.S. have always supported war in a moral cause, but not war serving amoral policy interests.
