In a
previous diary, I tried to identify the best arguments for the war in Iraq. I recognize that the actual reasons we're there have relatively little to do with the ostensible reasons, but the best arguments I've seen advanced in favor of the war are used as cover for the actual reasons, and often in a patronizing and condescending fashion.
Very briefly, the argument is this (on the flip):
- The islamic world produces little the rest of the world values except for oil, and exploitation of this resentment has led to the rise of a strict version of Islam.
- Implementing strict islamic states requires the secular US to be forced to retire from the islamic world, and an unconventional attack is the best way to make this happen.
- America should respond by reforming the islamic world
- The invasion of Iraq is necessary to make this a reality.
I'm going to take on each of these points in turn, just to dent them a bit.
On 1, the fallacy is one of definition, and of narrow-mindedness. The Islamic world is a large place, after all. I'm typing on a computer many components of which were manufactured in Malaysia. The skirt I'm wearing was sewn in Bangladesh, and the leather coat on the rack in the corner of my office was made in Pakistan. I had a problem with a piece of software on my computer once; a Muslim woman in India answered my question. I have a picture of myself in front of the Taj Mahal on my bookshelf, alongside others of me working as a volunteer with MSF in Kosovo several years ago. In my wastebasket, there is an empty container of hummus I had with the carrot sticks I ate this morning, and there is a novel at home by Salman Rushdie for me to read tonight if I ever get around to it. I'd count some tracks on my iPod I'm listening to from Indonesia but on reflection I think they're Balinese, a Buddhist exception in a Muslim country.
I'm not trying to argue that the world revolves around the contributions of its Islamic areas, but just looking around my office, and I'm not in any way an Islamophile, or especially connected to that world, there are more things in my environment that have to do with the Islamic world than with Africa or South America.
The problem with 1 is the conflation of "Islamic" with "Arab", and the further conflation of "Arab" with "Gulf Region." Islam varies enormously from place to place, and hundreds of millions of people follow the traditions of their faith without causing any trouble to anyone. There's nothing about the Islamic world that's fundamentally incompatible with the rest of the world, and much that is admirable.
On 2, there are copious counterexamples. I don't think that strict theocracies are ever a good form of government, but even if you did think so, the existence of a current theocratic regime in Iran and a former one in Afghanistan does not require a strike against America directly in order to implement. Even Saudi Arabia has elements of theocratic control in the way it organizes some internal matters, and they are an ally of the US. I certainly don't know of any pressure our government has placed on the Saudis to encourage them to moderate their treatment of women.
I think that al Qaeda attacked us for the reasons they claim, more or less. But these reasons are not valid, nor do they justify the attacks. An essential part of the counterattack is to undermine these reasons, not to implicitly validate them. By responding as we have, we have accepted that the enemy's justification for attacking us is at least in part somehow legitimate, and that is an error. Logically speaking, this is the equivalent of "Bring it on." It's folly.
Regarding 3, there are additional options not considered. And to be fair, I think that forcing accountability on nations who harbor terrorists is a reasonable exercise of power. We've faced far more implacable and dangerous adversaries in the past, armed with nuclear weapons, and diplomacy and engagement proved effective behind a wall of well-armed vigilance. The full array of law enforcement options was not even deployed. And the total eradication of Al Qaeda has not yet occurred and that's irresponsible. Attacks in Madrid and London ought not to have occurred, and new attacks in America can't be ruled out.
Consequently, we have focused far too little on the accountability of Al Qaeda for its crimes, and done too little to attenuate its ability to operate further. The current administration has not eradicated Al Qaeda, and doing so is, at a minimum, the appropriate response to the attacks of 9/11. This isn't hard. We were attacked, and the people who did it are still at large.
In no way can "remaking the Arab world," the option we have selected, be justified. First of all, it's not our world to remake. Second, to the extent that it is a threat to us, it isn't clear that containment or other pressures can't suffice. Frankly, I personally do not have a problem with an indefinite game of "terrorist-training-camp-whack-a-mole" as my mother puts it. But being able to strike identified targets from abroad to keep countries from sheltering terrorists is a very long way from reforming the world in which they live.
Finally, on the subject of point four, it's clear from the history of the last few years that the attempt at reforming the Islamic world cannot be said to have been competently done. There are many parameters to the equation that have been utterly ignored. Nothing in the argument discusses the Shiite/Sunni divide, for example. Our policy is the equivalent of trying to work for peace in Northern Ireland without understanding the difference between Catholic and Protestant. Examples of functional democracies with Islamic roots exist in several places in the Islamic world, such as on Iraq's very border, in Turkey. Many places in the Arab world are also peaceful, safe, and pose no threat to the US. Though not fully democratic, the Emirates, Oman, and other states in the Arab world are of no danger to anyone. And although the sanctions regime in Iraq was crumbling, we could readily have used our political capital in the wake of the 9/11 attacks to bolster it - if the administration had been competent.
The so-called "flypaper" strategy has become a "tar-baby" strategy.. we've embraced something sticky and we're going to be years getting it off ourselves. Rep. Murtha has in my opinion offered us the best way out, but the errors in even the very best arguments in favor of the war need to be confronted too.