Defending the Iraq War

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.

If Barack Obama were President…

We’d get along with everyone, or so has been the storyline of his recent tour of the Middle East and Western Europe. At the halfway point of his trip, Obama’s met with literally everyone: Hamid Karzai, Nouri al-Maliki, Jalal Talabani, King Abdullah, Benjamin Netanyahu, Ehud Barak, Mahmoud Abbas, Shimon Peres, Ehud Olmert, plus several governors, mayors, and other dignitaries. His reception has been overwhelming friendly, complete with smiling photos ops, glowing praise, and fawning media coverage.

Obama with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani earlier this week.

And that doesn’t even include the Western European portion of the trip, where Obama is expected to meet with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. The New York Times reports the Germans are expecting the crowd at Obama’s public Berlin address to be as high as ONE MILLION (!). What, one million protesters (like when Bush visits)? No — more likely one million adoring fans, German no less.

Obama’s media team has been careful to remind reporters that there’s only one president, that this trip is not a policy-making trip, but come on, what kind of US senator gets one million Germans to turn out for a glorified campaign speech? Maybe one who’s getting a little ahead of himself? Does Obama mean to suggest that as President he’d enjoy this kind of international support?

Or maybe we’re all to blame — perhaps we’ve bought in so easily to Obama’s charm that it’s blinded us to the fact that he’s a politician who does stupid things domestically (supporting the farm bill, destroying campaign finance) and is likely to do them abroad given the chance. The New York Times even reports that comedians are struggling to find funny Obama material. Apparently he’s too pure. Huh?

It’s easy for leaders like al-Maliki and Karzai to cozy up to Obama when he’s a media-managed starlet, but once he’s been in office for a time and had to make hard decisions, he probably won’t draw a million Germans to hear him speak. Or if he does, they’ll be there to protest his decision to stay in Iraq for another year or his unrelenting support for American farm subsidies that impoverish the third world. As David Aaronovitch, columnist for the Times of London, tellingly observes, eventually we will all hate Obama.