To the Editor:
I attended "Flash Points: To Bomb or Not to Bomb" this afternoon in Collis Common Ground and found the discussion tremendously informative. A few hours after the event, however, it struck me that perhaps something important had been left unsaid.
In the comments by Professors Garthwaite, Thayer and Kay and the discussion which these inspired, it became quite clear that military action against Iraq would be undesirable on a number of counts: first, it would be inconsistent in terms of the history of U.S. involvement in the area; second, it is unlikely that any military action the United States would be willing to take could significantly hinder Iraq's acquisition of biological and nuclear weapons; and third, a U.S. military campaign against Iraq would most likely both alienate the United States from its allies (thereby endangering other foreign policy concerns), as well as detract from the high regard in which our armed forces are regarded today. These are all certainly good reasons for the United States to refrain from military action in the Middle East.
Sitting at my desk a few hours later, though, it strikes me that perhaps the most important argument for U.S. restraint was left unspoken. While we cannot know the historical, military and foreign policy repercussions of air strikes against Iraq, we do know that such would unquestionably result in casualties, both American and Iraqi, military and civilian. While it may be naive to hope that ethical/moral concerns alone would render even a "surgical strike" unacceptable, surely such concerns should play some part in our thinking about the imminent U.S. decision on whether or not to pursue a military campaign against Iraq. I am surprised, and a little embarrassed, that we failed to raise this perspective during the discussion today.
