When Barbara Streisand starts raising money to oppose deposing a man whose name she can't spell right ("Sadam" Hussein) and the president gives a 30 minute speech about Iraq without once pronouncing "nuclear" correctly, you know that there are major transparency issues surrounding the current debate on Iraq. Yet to many it seems clear that Bush would take advantage of any international crisis to divert attention from his agenda of turning the FBI into a Gestapo, stealing from the old and sick and strangling cute little woodland creatures in his spare time. It almost makes me want to write a check to the Democratic National Committee. Somebody's got to make the world safe for teachers' unions, trial lawyers and oppressed minorities everywhere. Why not? It worked in Germany for the Social Democrats.
The self-assuredness of those who think that dialogue somehow neutralizes VX gas is most evident on Dartmouth's campus. Here, they have their bullet-pointed flyers and they've got all the answers. Their answers are based on false premises. I've got their answers and I've got questions that rebut their answers. And best of all, I'm going to get my spelling and usage correct.
Undermining the international system
Hasn't Iraq done enough of that already? For one thing, we're not engaging in preemptive war with Iraq -- they signed a ceasefire agreement 11 years ago that they haven't lived up to. Just because the Europeans and Russians want to accommodate Hussein does not mean that the United States has signed a full-on sharing-toothbrushes peace treaty with Hussein. And Article 51 of the United Nations Charter allows all nations to act in their own self-defense. We have motive -- Hussein's threatening his neighbors and the world's oil supply -- and we have capabilities. One needs to realize that Hitler was keeping well within the bounds of the "international system" until the tanks started rolling into Poland. He manipulated the international system the way Hussein did by "cheating and retreating" on the construction of the Wehrmacht and secretly building a Luftwaffe in Russia. He was able to do this because no power -- the United States, France or Great Britain -- had the courage to step beyond the perversions and to stop him. Likewise, the maintenance of our international system requires that some nations be allowed to break the rules. Police officers can kill bank robbers where murder is not sanctioned. Dialogue only works when both sides act -- and act in good faith. UN resolutions are only worthwhile if they are enforced and complied with.
The lack of terrorist links
Why should Iraq be linked to terrorism? We shouldn't make the mistake of believing there only to be one threat to U.S. interests. Saddam Hussein has no credible links to al Qaeda. Why should he? Just because they share a common enemy -- the United States -- does not mean that Saddam Hussein has anything to offer al Qaeda. Iraq has some weapons that a terrorist would like to have, plus the idea of protection. But what does al Qaeda have to offer Iraq? Iraq already has an intelligence service and diplomatic posts around the world. They have no need for infrastructure. Iraq is as deadly as al Qaeda. Why would Iraq need al Qaeda to execute a mass terrorist attack? We underestimated al Qaeda before. We should not underestimate Iraq as a distinct threat.
The containment option
The problem is that the deterrence that many people claim contains Hussein depends on a balance of terror that doesn't exist. Our history with Saddam Hussein is dependent on flawed inspection regimes and impotent threats. A personal threat against Hussein's regime must be made to safeguard the United States. Such a threat must be credible and uncompromised by international coalitions and their petty fears about disruption of Arab oil supplies.
Would Saddam Hussein use his weapons of mass destruction if Delta Force troopers were rappelling down the skylights of his bunker? No. By the time such a battle started, deterrence would have failed. He could no longer stop the U.S.; his best bet would be to escape with some of his embezzled billions with a less-enraged America after him. In any case, in the event of a war, U.S. air power would ensure that most communications would be impossible.
And the Arab reaction to deposing a secular Hussein would be different entirely from our war in Afghanistan. Attacking Osama bin Laden -- a spiritual hero to the dispossessed of the Arab world -- is not like deposing a loathsome dictator. If the U.S. did engage Saddam Hussein, a calculated public relations campaign coupled up with more efforts to restrain Israeli oppression of Palestinians would dissipate Arab rage.
All about oil
Who wouldn't want to poke a finger in the eye of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries? Oil is too important a substance for any one person or party to dominate. We realized that in 1973 when OPEC decided to spike the price, damaging every Western economy. Saddam Hussein both threatens to take physical control over the oilfields of the Persian Gulf and he has the power to threaten important OPEC members like Iran and Saudi Arabia. One of the main foreign policy objectives of the U.S. should be to eliminate this situation. Indeed, our European allies should also have that objective. They manifest their risk aversion by accommodating Iraq and Iran. We understand this because they import almost all of their oil, far more than the 54 percent or so that the U.S. imports. All nations' fates are tied to oil, and particularly the lesser-developed countries which can't tolerate oil price volatility. If oil doubled in price in the U.S., more Americans would be unemployed and maybe sales of Chevy Suburbans would go down. If oil doubled in price in the Philippines, people would starve in the streets. An open supply of oil must be a world priority.
Yes, we should try not to consume as much oil, and yes, we Americans use more of it per capita than anyone else. But that doesn't mean that we should be ignorant of its very real importance to the U.S. and the entire world.
