The purpose of this essay is not to spark a debate about the morality, propriety, or even common sense of the Iraq War. Rather, it’s to swiftly outline a portion of my framework of thought on the subject, and examine some things that trouble me about some of its opponents. For the record, I have no sense that those who post here make any of the errors I shall examine in part II. Quite the reverse.
Wherein wolfe talks about some good reasons to oppose the war, in his view:
One of the things that troubles me about much of the publicized antiwar left is its sheer intellectual incoherence, and, in cases, vitriol and disingenuousness. Some of the antiwar far-right shares those aspects, notably vitriol.
There are certainly many generally rational (or at least intellectually consistent) reasons to be against the Iraq war.
One could be a pacifist. I’d personally respectfully disagree, but it’s a morally and intellectually consistent position, provided, of course, that one is against wars that begin under Democratic Presidents as well as Republican ones. (The War of Independence, War of 1812, The Mexican War, The Civil War, Spanish-American War, more fighting with Mexico, World War 1, Intervention in Haiti, World War 2, Korea, Vietnam, Grenada, Panama, Gulf War I, Bosnia, Afghanistan — all of these were presumably wrong to a pacifist).
I think they’re dead wrong, but I admit they see a better world than I do, and virtually every genuine pacifist I’ve met has had an admirable degree of integrity, intelligence, and personal moral responsibility.
Faux-pacifists who think bombing Bosnia’s hospitals is wonderful, but Iraq is wrong? Sorry, no.
One could believe that preemptive war is wrong — that many of the wars listed above were right, that Afghanistan was right, but that Iraq was wrong. Fair enough. (Bosnia would also have been wrong — arguing that humans rights grounds supported intervening preemptively would also support such intervention in Iraq). I am troubled by the fact that most of those up in arms over the Iraq War on a preemptive basis never said ‘boo’ about Bosnia.
Notable exception: Paleo-conservatives such as Pat Buchanan. I don’t remotely agree with the Paleos, and I find them forming some pretty disturbing alliances with the anti-semitic far left, but it’s at least an intellectually consistent position.
One also would have had to oppose the Clinton-era “Iraq Liberation Act“. Again, few of those now protesting did so.
One could be opposed to the war on the grounds that foreign ‘adventures’ are a bad thing and dangerous to the Republic. This is generally a conservative and isolationist criticism, but it would certainly be possible for a leftist to hold to it as well. Again, you’d have to be against most of the wars over the last century. This is pretty much the Jerry Pournelle school of thought.
One could be against the war on utilitarian grounds: that fewer people were dying under Saddam than are dying now — especially fewer Americans. A weak argument, given that jihadi activity didn’t start in 2003, and while Iraq has proven a flashpoint — or flypaper for terrorists — many jihadis would still be cheerfully looking for their virgins, simply elsewhere. Still, it’s an argument one can make.
One could be against the war – and this, frankly, is more or less my concern and objection — based on the grounds that its objectives do not seem realizable in the real world. Instilling democracy in a tribalistic country that’s only known various forms of dictatorship is not an easy thing.
The Anglosphere took roughly a thousand years to go from the Magna Carta to our present state of democracy. England, Scotland, Wales, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the US all benefit from the ‘golden thread’ of liberty that runs through a shared common law and common constitutional heritage — something the Founders noted in the 9th and 10th Amendments, and noted explicitly elsewhere throughout the constitution (e.g. Habeas Corpus).
It’s a staggering degree of arrogance to think that we can help accelerate Iraq through a thousand years of progress in two or three years. It’s a process that will take generations.
I was for the war, reluctantly, for many reasons. But if the objective was to instill democracy in a few years, then Bush and his advisers were out to lunch. (I discount the idea that they were lying to the American people about the commitment that would be required; it doesn’t readily pass Occam’s razor for me. If someone’s going to argue that Bush lied about something, though, this would seem the most powerful argument: that the American people were deceived as to the length of commitment that would be required to accomplish one of the key stated objectives).
It’s worth noting we’ve been in a ‘quagmire’ (as the New York Times is wont to say) in Germany, Japan, and Korea for over 50 years now, and Bosnia for a decade.
One can be unhappy about the war and possibly opposed to it on the grounds that it’s been mismanaged. This is debatable; certainly aspects have been horribly mismanaged. But a great deal of the criticism comes from the hindsight brigade which seeks to apply legalistic reasoning to every error.
In an engineering (and rational) sense, one is always concerned about optimal decision making — the most correct decision in a situation, based upon the knowledge at the time.
This may be a wrong decision, in hindsight, but that simply wasn’t knowable at the time. The question is not so much “why were we wrong”, but “Could we have done better, based upon what we knew, and could we improve our information gathering and use of information so as to do better next time”?
Lawyers, of course, love attacking this. It can lead to some nice malpractice judgments against people who simply were using the best tools and knowledge available at the time.
One could be against this war because some of the intelligence seems faulty. There were few WMD’s discovered — none, other than ~500 aging gas shells, and no significant signs of large-scale reconstituted WMD programs. Sure, there were nuclear centrifuges buried under rosebushes and the like. While it remains possible that WMD’s were shipped out of the country to Syria, even if this were true it would simply mean that the invasion had been a failure in a different sense.
The problem with this argument is that it comes back to the idea of what was known at the time. We knew of contacts between Saddam and al-Qaeda (though no coordination), and we knew Saddam was a sponsor of terrorism in the mid-east, an attempt to assassinate a US President, and was probably linked to the first WTC bombing.
There certainly were people who stated there were few WMD’s and that a war wasn’t worth it. I disagreed with them at the time, and, on the basis of the last half, I still do. I have to admit though, that those people — unlike the like of John Kerry — have an admirable consistency and can certainly claim a logical and coherent argument.
One can be against the war because of the prospect — or actuality — of personal suffering. The loss of a family member. This is tragic, and difficult to argue, but it’s an orthogonal argument to the virtue (or lack thereof) of the war. Moreover, to reverse the argument, we don’t let the parents of children slaughtered on 9/11 make our country’s policies either, or we might well have nuked Afghanistan from orbit, judging by much of what I read on 9/12.
There are a host of other reasons, good, honorable and consistent, for being against the war. I shan’t examine them here, for my purpose is merely to outline my framework of thinking about the issue.
And then there are the bad reasons to be against the war. The illogical and inconsistent reasons.
That’s the next part. And anyone who read the New York Times today can probably figure out where this is headed.
Respectfully submitted for your consideration,
-wolfe
