In this essay, I put adapt and merge various of my topical items concerning the United States invasion and occupation of Iraq. This should be more coherent and concise than the originals.
This essay has almost no overlap with Choice and Constraint, which I think is much more important. (Indeed, next time I review it, I expect to remove all topical references in Choice and Constraint; I should done that before.)
While I do not think that any of the arguments made publicly in favor of the US invasion and occupation of Iraq persuaded, I do think that two other arguments did: in the short run, to intimidate other anti-US countries; and in the long run, to change Middle Eastern countries' cultures enough to make them as safe to the United States.
(I am not claiming that these are the arguments that persuaded senior members of the Bush Administration; they may well have had other motives. Nor were these the arguments that persuaded the American public as a whole. But I do think these arguments persuaded people in Congress and the armed forces.)
The Bush Administration publicly argued for the invasion of Iraq on three grounds:
The justification for supporting the UN is that international laws and resolutions are a liberal, democratic, and contemporary European ideal; they provide a mechanism for restraining the actions of a super power.
The various Blix inspection reports, which I read, said that Iraq was not abiding by the mandatory Chapter 7 resolution at issue.
Salman Rushdie made this argument. The Bush Administration did not make this argument until the month preceding the war. Before that, it held to the more cynical and perhaps more realistic view that `it is not worth our lives and our treasure to free them'.
(Incidentally, Rushdie also said
I think the real problem is that I haven't heard anything that suggests that the Administration in America has worked out what to do after Saddam. You can't start a war if you don't know those answers.
(He said this before the US attacked Iraq.)
Without a doubt, this was the major public justification for the invasion.
The Bush Administration convinced its political supporters and some others that not only was the Iraqi government funding development projects but that it possessed some weapons in contradiction to mandatory UN resolutions.
The publicly known reasons for believing that Iraq had chemical, biological, and/or nuclear weapons were three fold:
These three arguments did not, as far as I can see, persuade the US government as a whole and its military. Instead, people in the US government outside the top levels of the Bush Administration, and its military, were, I think, persuaded to invade Iraq by a fourth, unstated, reason, namely,
In the short term, to intimidate directly by threatening to invade neighboring countries.
In the long term, to intimidate as a consequence of a change in Iraqi political and economic culture; in particular, as the consequence of a change that would encourage either oligopoly or competitive, free market capitalism.
The alternatives to direct intimidation are appeasement and flight.
The Saudi government of Arabia has appeased its enemies for years by funding schools that teach the notions that lead to conflict with the United States. I doubt that the United States could or would attempt such appeasement.
Flight is the other traditional solution; it means going away. The problem is that with current technology the US cannot go away. The world depends on Middle Eastern oil. The United States imports only a small portion of its oil from the Middle East. However, oil is fungible; consequently, a country's source of oil depends on politically irrelevant factors such as transport cost.
The US is encouraging the development of other sources of oil besides the Middle East such as Russia, Africa, and hitherto restricted areas in the United States such as national parks and wildlife refuges. But no one expects these locations to provide oil as cheaply and for as long as the Middle East.
Also, to a much lesser extent, the US is funding the development of energy sources that do not depend on oil. At the moment, the only visible alternative that might provide energy on the same huge scale as oil and coal is nuclear, either fission or fusion.
Solar, wind, and biomass all look as if they would provide too little energy at a price competitive, over the next generation or two, with Middle Eastern oil. The production cost of Arabian oil is one US penny for every ten or twenty million joules. Transportation costs roughly double that. (The oil is being sold at a much higher price than this. At $2.00 per US gallon, motorists in the US are paying about a penny for 600 kilojoules.)
If an inexpensive alternative were invented and used widely — perhaps solar-electric panels and batteries or hydrogen-boron fusion reactors — then the US could lose its dependence on Middle Eastern oil.
I strongly favor more research into alternative sources of energy. But even if the US and other countries no longer need Middle Eastern oil, I doubt that they can withdraw in a meaningful manner, since for many, `interference' means ideas and wealth, not simply military forces.
So the United States is left with no practical alternative but to gain victory through fighting. `Victory' in this case means that Americans come to feel safer in October 2041 than they did in October 2001.
Hence, the question `how to fight?'
Because military occupation fails in the long run, for fighting, a non-military long term strategy is required. This is the origin of the proposal to change Iraqi political and economic culture.
This long term goal comes from an American belief that Middle Eastern leaders' wealth comes predominately from the land or from what is under it, such as oil, rather than from activities that transcend geographic location, such as telephone manufacturing.
In an oil-pumping society, the loss of territory means the loss of wealth. No one can make more wealth by doubling the amount of oil in the ground. The only way to double your wealth is to capture more oil fields. In such a society, you can only defend what you have; you cannot build to gain more. But in an industrial society, you can double your output by building another factory.
In the less dispassionate, but more common language of Americans, the dictatorships of the Middle East are `failed countries', or as Reuven Brenner called them, `immobile'.
Those countries that have oil sell it and the leaders of those countries become rich. None of them have created the institutions and industries that will increase their people's material wealth by doing anything else than selling resources. None have created institutions that increase their people's feeling of justice. Moreover, their leading institutions and ways of thinking prevent change.
Clearly, local powers who fear losing will be against changes in the political and economic culture even if they are currently allied with the United States. Similarly, opposition will come from those who wish to gain power and who already oppose the United States, such as Al Qaeda.
In the United States, support for coerced social change comes from its experiences with Japan and Germany after World War II. In both cases, US long term policy was successful for the US. More than a half century after the war, neither country is dangerous to the US.
However, many do not think that the US can repeat these successes. US conservatives argue that the US government is intrinsically incompetent. US liberals and Democrats argue that governments may be competent, but worry that some administrations will be incompetent and fear that such administrations will gain power.
More US opposition comes from a judgement that a US occupation will have side effects, such as people killed, that more than outweigh any benefits that might accrue.
Other US opposition comes from a belief that every ruling class has a right to choose its own culture, and that if some choose `immobility' that is their right. These people often consider cultural death to be form of genocide, and are against genocide.
In spite of opposition, much of it from his own political party, US President Bush said on 18 March 2003,
The United States with other countries will work to advance liberty and peace .... Our goal will not be achieved overnight, but it can come over time.
The word `liberty', especially among US conservatives means not only the right to speak, assemble, and to carry weapons that can kill a deer or a person, but also economic liberty. Moreover, since it is well known that President Bush is neither communist nor socialist, he must favor some kind of capitalism.
Many would argue that President Bush favors oligopoly capitalism (particularly that of firms owned by his supporters) rather than competitive, free market capitalism. But that is not relevant to this particular issue. To flourish, both require government regulations and the rule of law.
Regardless whether you think President Bush was being honest or deceitful, he was setting US government policy.
Both oligopoly and competitive, free market capitalism require a way to prevent one organization from beating the rest. Otherwise the majority of firms are put out of business. Moreover, to grow large, they need a way to settle disputes with strangers that scales.
Consequently, the first military objective for the US in Iraq was to have brought security to the whole country. The phrase `law and order' means that without `order', you cannot have `law'. Without law you cannot have anti-monopoly regulation. Without law, you cannot settle disputes with strangers in a manner that will be accepted by an average business as well as by a strong business.
In so far as it has failed to bring order and law to Iraq, the United States has lost.
Law in itself does not imply justice. Dictators, after all, impose laws on those they rule.
Since much of a sense of justice comes from what people learned as children, traditional societies can often offer justice, even if they are not in any way democratic.
Justice is an accepted limitation on the arbitrary rights of a ruler. Injustice means that a ruler `has the right to swing his fist' anywhere. Justice means that the ruler's right to swing his fist `stops at the end of the subject's nose'. In traditional societies, the realm of justice may be limited, but many see that realm as better than nothing.
However, with changes in technology, traditional forms fail.
The inflexible need to leave. An advantage of democracy is that people in it can eject a government without civil war. A new government can change the laws and provide more justice.
Consequently, the long term US military goal must be to bring democracy to Iraq. Many will say that the US is not very democratic itself. But that is neither here nor there; even if the US is ruled by a small conspiracy, as some suggest, it is in the US long term national interest to create a democracy in Iraq. The alternative for the US is to occupy the country forever.
It goes without saying that a government can change only if the losers are willing to lose. This means that winners must not push them into subversion.
A democracy in Iraq needs strong institutions to prevent the winners from convincing the losers that they will have nothing to lose if they continue fighting. Enough of the minority Sunni must be convinced that it is better to go along with losing than it is to further efforts to regain the kind of power that will serve to deter the majority Shi'ites after the US leaves; or else they must be convinced that they do have the power to protect themselves again the Shi'ites.
At the moment (the middle of 2004), the majority of people in Iraq, the Shi'ites and the Kurds, have no reason to want institutions that limit their power and their right to seek justice. Hence, the United States occupation forces must both protect US enemies, the Sunni, and create armed forces among them to defend themselves.
A respect for the law, a respect for minorities, graceful winning — all these are necessary for the successful implementation of a long run US strategy.
Many question whether the United States can maintain a long term strategy that will eventually enable Americans to feel safer than they do now.
The current short term strategy of direct intimidation fits what Walter Russell Mead calls the `Jacksonian Tradition' in US politics. Thus, it is relatively easy for the US government.
Many Americans doubt the practicality of polices that come from the other three traditions:
A long term US policy of social change requires that all three traditions be embraced: people become richer, workable institutions are created and imposed, and `actions less than war' are used to enforce the program.
At the same time, since the US will be involved in its `war against terror' for a very long time, it will have to change the way it classifies enemy suspects who do not wear uniforms. At the moment, they are put into the same catch-all category as spies and saboteur. This fails.
In addition, if it is to `stay the course' and seek victory, the United States must recognize that the governmental memo from 6 March 2003 that tried to justify torture was trying to make an unconstitutional claim.
Governance in the United States is based on a balance of power — that is how opposition to Wilsonian transcendentalists is defeated. Individuals are expected to seek tyranny, but in competition with each other, their evil is supposed to cancel. Thus, according to the United States Constitution, a US President may pardon a criminal who commits a crime, but only after the crimial is sentenced by a court, not before. Moreover, the court must follow the Constitution and the law.
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