Thoughts on Iraq

It seems to me that there are three arguments as to why we should be in Iraq vis a vis terrorism.

(1) Iraq was a sponsor of terrorism, so getting rid of it reduces the number of states that terrorists can rely on.

(2) Being in Iraq gives us an opportunity to go after the terrorists and kill them, or better yet, to draw terrorists in so we can kill them. This reduces the number of terrorists.

(3) By turning Iraq into a wonderful democracy, we can "drain the swamp." In other words, by reforming the government in Iraq, we can eliminate the conditions that breed terrorism. Alternately, by installing a US-friendly government there, even if not a free society, we can at least assue that Iraq will help us in this war.

I find these reasons unconvincing.

(1) Saddam gave money to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers. He also harbored some people who had made terrorist attacks, including one of the people behind the 1993 World Trade Center bombings. However, as far as I can tell, none of this provided a huge amount of operational help; that is, there is little evidence that Saddam's actions helped them carry out terrorist attacks, at least in the US. Even if in the eraly 90s, Saddam thought of bin Laden as "an asset," I do not see that the reverse is true. Moreover, it seems to me that whatever limited assistance Saddam could have given to terrorists could have been ended more easily with a little harsh diplomacy; there seems to be no evidence that we ever tried to get Saddam to turn over the people in his custody prior to attacking; and I recall hearing that we gave up a chance to attack Zarqawi in the North because if he had been killed it would have reduced the argument that we needed to be in Iraq to defeat the terrorists. I don't see a great deal of evidence that the conquest of Iraq has severly impaired Islamic terrorism.

(2) This is problematic because it is classic hacking at the branches instead of striking the root. Finding terrorist cells one-by-one and blowing them up is whack-a-mole war; moreover, there is little guarantee that a lot of the terrorists attacking in Iraq would be able to get to the US if they wanted to; in other words, a lot of these terrorists would not be able to threaten Americans unless Americans went into their backyard where they would be available as targets. "We're fighting them there so we won't fight them here" is a lot less convincing when the terrorists we are fighting can't get "here."

(3) This would be a wonderful idea if it were plausible. In reality, it seems unlikely that such a fractious pseudo-country like Iraq can unify to form a relatively free government. The idea that it will produce a model for the rest of the Middle East to follow, or that the other countries are going to suddenly burst into democracies and that terrorism will dry up, is ridiculous. Moreover, I am unconvinced that a friendly US client-state ruled by a strongman could be much of an ally against terrorism. Certainly, he could reduce the ability of Iraqis to engage in anti-US terrorist activites, but I doubt that pre-invasion Iraq was enough of a hotbed of terrorism that this would be much of a loss. Moreover, it strikes me as unlikely that he would be able to do much to reduce terrorism in other countries.

And of course, none of this deals with the overarching flaw in these plans. Namely, that there is the assumption that our invasion of Iraq could not have possibly helped the terrorists recruit. The terrorists all hate us anyway. Some terrorists attacked us before we conquered Iraq, so that must mean that Iraq cannot possibly be a motivation for any future terrorists, because, you know, all people go into terrorism for the same reason. Moreovber, why would any Arab who didn't hate us anyway hate us for liberating Iraq? Obviously, our wonderful liberation could not have motivated anyone to attack us, and if anything should have made the Arabs love us more and want to attack us less.

This naivete ignores the fact that a lot of people resent having foreigners on their homeland. There is no acknowledgment that there are people who didn't hate us before who hate us now, or that some of those who did hate us but were unwilling to take a risk to put that hate into action may have had their cost-benefit analysis shift.

In any case, despite the recent lull in American casualties, I have a feeling that Iraq is going to be a big pain in the rear for some time to come.

That is all.