Last week former British Prime Minister Tony Blair was brutalized on the Daily Show for his friendship with President Bush and his support of the Iraq War. Blair’s defense was fairly standard: ‘we thought Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction’, ‘even if he didn’t he was still a threat’, etc. Although I disagreed with the Iraq War at the time, and continue to disgaree with the Bush/Blair decision to launch the 2003 invasion, I think I can present a better defense of the War than Mr. Blair.
Consider the timeframe. The War began in early 2003, over five years ago. Five years may seem like a long time to those with a short memory, but in terms of human history, or world history, it’s nothing.
Those familiar with Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, & Steel will understand how seemingly trivial details (like the geographic distribution of grain species at the beginning of history) can continue to impact human interaction tens, hundreds, and thousands of years down the line. Diamond suggests that the potent concoction of favorable grains, domesticated animals, and east-west geography enabled Hernan Cortes to conquer Moctezuma’s Aztec Empire, and I don’t doubt that his explanation contains at least a kernel of truth.
In that sense, it’s an error of gross proportion to prejudge the results of the Iraq War. The body count may be high (and hence that price is known), but history doesn’t end today. We must balance our current assessment of the War against all potential returns in the future. Might today’s Iraqi chaos yield to democracy and peace if we resist passing judgement (and withdrawing troops/giving up) for just a little while longer? Will future Iraqi democrats revere President Bush as their liberator? That may seem unlikely, but it is also unknown. Our feeble ability to predict the future should make us wary of all so-called “certainties”.
But of course we must act, not forgetting that omission (not withdrawing troops) is logically equivalent to action (withdrawal). Either option entails a decision. So we make the best decision possible based on the most information available.
I caution critics, however, who claim that the War was uncontestably a mistake. They’ve passed judgement far too soon, and thus their policy prescriptions tend to be short-sighted and reckless. It’s vitally important to look at the Iraq War from outside the narrow context of this moment in time. Only with this broader perspective can we hope to understand the implications of our actions.
JAF–I do agree with you that, given the fact that we are in this war, we can’t cast the war off as a mistake. That will be left for history to judge. However, as you said, we can determine that the logic for entering the war was completely flawed and falsified. Purely on the most simplistic (and probably equally false) criteria that a war is supposed to accomplish a pre-determined mission, this war should then always be a mistake.
Stopping at that doesn’t give your argument enough credit. What you seem to be saying is that if we appropriately expand our perspective, we cannot yet determine whether or not this is a mistake. Instead of saying, “the Iraq war is wrong”, we should say, “the Iraq war might be wrong, but it is too soon to judge”. I agree that history might change everything, but I think thats a weak use of logic. It is a bit like a man arguing that him cheating on his wife is a good thing because it will hasten a divorce that will make them both happier in the end. It might be true, but it is pretty much nonsense.
I could give you a little bit more credit and say that you are suggesting that based on where the Hussein regime was headed, and, given the global context, diposing him at the time will look like the right move down the road. That may be true, but I think it is equally likely that we destabilized a fragile country whose problems will trouble an already volatile region. Nonetheless, I do think it is important to treat this war, and all wars, with more persepctive than current politics allows.
hzl2 – I think you’re reading jaf’s argument unfairly, at least in your analogy to the ‘cheating husband’. I don’t think he’s saying that the war was a good thing, just that we need to reserve judgment – and, critically, that we shouldn’t let assessments made on such a short timeframe drive decision-making with the sorts of long-term implications that a pull-out/stay-in choice necessarily has.
I think we can all agree that the arguments initially tendered for the Iraq war were full of falsehoods and misrepresentations. That doesn’t necessarily imply that there weren’t good grounds to go to war, however. While I certainly wouldn’t commit to the position that it was a good decision, I can see a not unreasonable argument being made in its favor.