Saddam's Capture
President Bush, Prime Minister Blair and their supporters have every right to celebrate the capture of Saddam Hussein. There is no reason to doubt the widespread rejoicing in Iraq at the result. The U.S./Coalition did pursue freedom for Iraq, and they did succeed.
Iraqis are enjoying freedom not only from Saddam's regime, but from various fears and bugbears: the apparently common belief that Saddam was some kind of mythological hero, who could not be defeated; and the belief that the U.S. is never much help, and is often harmful, among others.
Normally the only kind of power that would be in a position to do such a thing would be an empire. It is difficult to think of any empire that ever went to such trouble and expense to remove a brutal regime, and then made plans to leave the formerly subjugated people in charge as quickly as decently possible. Gladstone did a great deal to introduce the theme of "national self-determination for subject peoples" into the politics of late Victorian Britain. I don't think he succeeded in doing very much for the Bulgarians or the Balkans. Woodrow Wilson and the League of Nations took up this theme during and after World War I. For a while there was a flowering of European countries matching nationalities--even the Ruthenians. One can debate how much was done on this front during the Cold War. But I can't think of a single case that is comparable to this liberation of Iraq.
I think Stanley Kurtz is also correct in his assessment of how Bush's personal stature has been enhanced:
"A feeling that the president has the courage and resolve to make bold moves and stick with them, even when the going gets tough, will now take root. Nothing that has happened up to now--neither 9/11, nor Afghanistan, nor the actual war in Iraq, compares to the occupation in either difficulty or scale. To have seen this through until a corner was turned means that the president's reputation for leadership has now been deepened immensely. This is something more serious than even the president's "transformation" after 9/11."
Indeed it is commonly being said that any Democratic nominee now faces a daunting task in opposing Bush--and even that the split in American public opinion over the war divides the Democrats far more than the Republicans. William Saletan says in Slate that Dean is not necessarily "toast," the voters might forget accomplishments in Iraq, etc. The President himself has said there is a long hard struggle still to go. But the days of the clueless frat boy seem to be largely forgotten now.
There remain some puzzling things about "Gulf War II," including U.S. motivations (since there is so little evidence that any strategic interest of the U.S. was at stake).
Nick Gillespie says on Reason Online: "The day Saddam was captured was a great day for the Iraqi people, who can now turn more fully to the difficult and daunting task of creating a decent future for their country. Yet whether it's a great day for U.S. foreign policy is a very different matter." "... the removal of Saddam from power, much less his eventual capture, did very little to remove an actual threat against the United States." "...the shift from hunting Al Qaeda to invading and occupying Iraq contravened one of George W. Bush's basic directives. 'No government,' said Bush before the United Nations earlier this year, 'should ignore the threat of terror, because to look the other way gives terrorists the chance to regroup and recruit and prepare.'" (Link via Hit and Run).
Hit and Run re-posts a debate from January 2003 on whether the U.S. should invade Iraq or not. The debate is still of intense interest, I think, and the argument against intervention by John Mueller holds up especially well.
The Iraqi military performed badly, and refused to obey a direct order to stay in the line of fire, in Gulf War I in 1991; military planners "note that Iraq is even weaker now". Saddam demonstrates that he is afraid of his own soldiers, he has long since lost control of Kurdistan in the north, and "the hostility toward Saddam's rule is so great in the Shiite south that government officials often consider the region hostile territory."
If Saddam actually became a threat to Iraq's neighbours, including Israel, they would have the resources to do something about it; if he gave suicidal orders to start a war he couldn't win, this would make it even more likely that no one in Iraq would follow such orders. If the alleged threat to the oil supply is that he would jack up prices, this fear seems to be based on a misunderstanding of how OPEC, with Saddam as an apparently rational member, operates.
"A humanitarian argument could be made for a war against Iraq -- to liberate its people from a vicious tyranny and from the debilitating and destructive effects of the sanctions which the United States apparently is incapable of relaxing while Saddam Hussein remains in power. Such a war would have to be kept inexpensive in casualties, and the United States would have to be willing to hang on for quite some time to help rebuild the nation, something experience suggests is unlikely.
"But calls for war do not stress this argument. Instead, they raise alarms about vague, imagined international threats that, however improbable, could conceivably emanate from a miserable and pathetic regime. In due course, nature (there have been persistent rumors about cancer) or some other force will remove our devil du jour. The situation calls for patient watchfulness, not hysteria."
True to form, Brink Lindsey on the "pro" side emphasizes WMDs and atrocities--none of which, I believe, took place more recently than 1993, and most of which were arguably rational as a means for Saddam to cling to power--alive.
Mueller: "If Saddam does acquire nuclear arms ... it seems most likely that he will use them as all other leaders possessing such weapons have since 1945: to deter an invasion."
[Update: As an aside, Paul Knox says in today's Globe and Mail: "The probable truth is that Iraq hasn't had deployable chemical, biological or nuclear weapons for at least a decade. That would be some comfort to the United Nations teams who spent years under pressure to achieve the logical impossibility of proving a negative."
Mueller again: "The argument connecting Iraq to terrorism is mostly based on arm waving. As Lindsey notes, international terrorists are based all over the world -- in fact, just about everywhere except Iraq. Their efforts are hardly likely to be deflated if Iraq's regime is defeated. Indeed, it seems likely that an attack will supply them with new recruits, inspire them to more effort, and provide them with inviting new targets in the foreign military and civilian forces that occupy a defeated, chaotic Iraq. Lindsey suggests that a war is required to make it 'clear that the United States means business in dealing with terrorism.' I would have thought this was already extremely clear."
Now on to questions for the future. How many insurgents will continue to fight in Iraq with no hope of being led by Saddam or his senior loyalists? To what extent is there a Sunni insurgency that is not closely related to either Saddam or "international terrorists"? Is it going to be possible, in the near future, for Iraq to achieve a peaceful regime, including some kind of co-operation among many different groups? Will this involve qualifying majority rule with some kind of muscular federalism, or regional autonomy?
In any case, it looks now as though Iraq will be substantially better off because of the U.S. and Coalition invasion. Many defenders of the U.S. actions will continue to say there is a larger gain as well. It has been demonstrated that the U.S. will fight for freedom with determination and imagination. This fact may help to spread freedom in the Middle East and elsewhere.
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