February 23, 2007
From the desk of Jane Galt:As I loll in the dread "Waiting for Friday evening drinks" late afternoon lull, it occurs to me that this is a perfect time to rile everyone up by talking about the Iraq War. Specifically, this post of Matthew Yglesias', in which he discusses Peter Beinart's partial recantation.
But it does mean that, when our fellow democracies largely oppose a war--as they did in Vietnam and Iraq--because they think we're deluding ourselves about either our capacities or our motives, they're probably right. Being a liberal, as opposed to a neoconservative, means recognizing that the United States has no monopoly on insight or righteousness. Some Iraqis might have been desperate enough to trust the United States with unconstrained power. But we shouldn't have trusted ourselves.Call this the Condorcet doctrine. I think it has some logic to it. Obviously, it says something when the American public thinks one way on some major international issue and the public opinion in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and all of Europe thinks the other way. In particular, that was a good clue that American media and political leaders were misportraying the situation; literally all the mass publics with access to alternative opinion leadership were reaching a different conclusion.
This strikes me as rather naive on many fronts. For one thing, it's as if other countries had no agency or interests; they're like experts voting on our behaviour. But other countries opposed us in war (to the extent they did; I note that the French were the ones who got us into Vietnam, and the British et. al. were military advising right along with us until things got hairy, at which point they bugged out not because of concerns about our capabilities, but because of worries about their own soldiers getting killed) for all sorts of reasons, most of which had little to do with a reasoned assessment of our capabilities. They opposed us because nations with weak militaries do not like to see action on the part of nations with strong ones; because they had their own regional strategic interests that our invasion wrecked; because Russian opposition (for entirely strategic reasons) meant that any action would take place without the UN, further undermining an institution which somewhat empowers Europe; because of a generalised opposition to US policy in the Middle East; because a not-insignificant number of Europeans believe that anything the US does is bad; and yes, because some of them thought the war would come to a bad end. But given how these reasons overlapped, how were we supposed to pick out the last reason as the one that everyone was "voting" on? It's not as if American foriegn policy can be decided based on the fact that French people would rather that the US was less powerful.
The other question is how these Condorcet votes get allocated. The populations of Europe, Canada, Japan, and Australia are not, collectively, that much bigger than the population of the US. "One country, one vote" is why the UN doesn't, essentially, work; the gap between statutory and actual power is too great.
More fundamentally, this is the problem that I was talking about when I said earlier that I had trouble teasing out principles by which I would have prospectively made a different decision about the Iraq war--i.e., not knowing either that Saddam had no WMD, or that Iraq was destined for civil war. It is not that no one suggested these possibilities; but the overwhelming number of arguments I heard involved things like the moral principle of preemption and the fact that we were going in without the imprimatur of the UN.
Personally, I do not think that Iraq would have gone any better if the UN had given its okay. The delusion that a UN security council vote would somehow have legitimated the invasion to Iraqis and the surrounding neighbours is bizarre. Would we accept an invasion of America because France, Britain, Russia, China, and, say, Saudi Arabia thought it was a swell idea? UN troops have proven useless at doing much except keeping the peace in areas that aren't particularly unpeaceful. And while the lack of UN support might be a signal that the war was a terrible idea, it might also be a signal of just how screwed up the UN power structure is. This is an organisation that can agree on only two things: Zionism is racism, and America should give everyone else a whole lot of money. Of course, if you agree with these statements, this may not seem loony--but surely there are some other principles in the world that one ought to be able to secure broad agreement on, like "African dictators ought not to drive their countries into starvation through insane economic policies".
Nor am I terribly sure that the problem was preemption. Would the civil war have been any better, or any more palatable to the Iraqis, had it come after, say, Iraq invaded Kuwait again?
Which brings me to something I was mulling the other day as I drove the dog to yet another vet appointment. Having now publicly proclaimed that I was wrong about the war, what should I do if the surge works? I would put the probability of this somewhere south of .01%. But what if it does? What if Iraq, against all odds, emerges from all this relatively stable and peaceful, with a fair-to-middling honest democratic government? I have reassessed my original position with the benefit of hindsight, which has pointed out some large cognitive errors I made. Should I then allow those observations to be coloured by further hindsight? Or should I try to burn them in now, so to speak?
Posted by Jane Galt at February 23, 2007 5:18 PM | TrackBack | Technorati inbound linksA big question is just what is international law, anyway. Where does it's legitimacy come from? The two most popular legal theories regarding law's legitimacy in general are 1) you have the power and will to enforce the rules or 2) the rules come from the consent of the governed. Neither easily applies to international law. It's more a mix of diplomacy and politics than true law as its commonly understood. (Nations, for instance, can enter into agreements, but they can also revoke them. With real law, you don't get to revoke the rules if you're unhappy.)
Nations, as you note, have different interests. And the most powerful nations will invariably have different interests from weaker ones. Europe, understandably, would love to have the power of America at its disposal, especially without bearing the cost. What surprises me is how much trouble so many have understanding why this is a deal America should be wary of.
When Germany moved troops into the Rhineland in 1936, one of the reasons France took no action was the lack of support from other countries. One Minister, Flandin, expressed concern that "the United States will accuse us of imperialism."
The world would have been far better off if France--the country most immediately threatened by the incursion--had done what needed to be done and worried less about the opinions of other countries.
I think that if you're going to use hindsight as a standard for criticizing your thought process, that it will be best to allow that critique to adapt as you get more information.
It's possible that the information you have today is biased in important ways. Perhaps the destruction of the Golden Mosque transformed things only temporarily in a way which can be corrected by the surge. Perhaps the reports we are hearing from Iraq are more biased than they appear to be and not all the problems are structural. Perhaps the Iraqi army will gain strength and influence at a faster rate than we now expect. I'm not saying that any of these statements are favored by the facts that we now perceive, but if any of them turn out to be true in hindsight, then it's worth reanalyzing the data to understand whether we got incredibly lucky after the surge, or whether perhaps things were not as bad in February 2007 as they appeared.
On a less dramatic note, perhaps the surge will create and perpetuate a stalemate rather than a victory in the medium run (say, through 2009). If that happens, we will then need to decide whether a medium run stalemate is a good or bad thing over the long run. That analysis might benefit from hindsight which we will have after 2009.
The best way not to get burned is to not talk about anything unless you really REALLY know about it.
Of course, I rarely follow my own advice and I don't expect others to follow it too. However, I'll take my own advice on Iraq and keep my mouth shut since I have no idea what the f*%& is going in that country.
This underlines why it is necessary to an absolute end to wars. Gulf War I didn't really end because Saddam never honored the agreements in the cease fire for Gulf War I. The war should have been resumed after the first time he failed to meet the requirements of the ceasefire. That he failed dozens of times (or was it a baker's dozen? I forget), that he fired upon US/UK war ships that patrolled the no-fly zone, that he corrupted the UN agency tasked with supplying food/medicine to Iraq (oil-for-food program), these are all legitimate reasons to resume warfare against Iraq. The WMDs may have been the most played issue, but it was not the key issue.
One might argue that if the US went in like Dresden and absolutely crippled everything south of Kurdistan (and if Iraq fails, there must be a Kurdistan) along with the resulting civilian casualties (and since the US is accused of genocide already, the shrieking could hardly be worse), it would have saved more US soldier's lives, it would have negated Iraq as a military presence and it would have either removed Saddam or eliminated his ability to project any type of presence. Sure, more Iraqis would have died and the descent into civil war would have been faster, bloodier, and definitely impossible for western powers to rein in or influence, but then the U.S. wouldn't be sending their soldiers over there. Instead, al Qaeda would, and Iraq would be the new Afghanistan except with access to a port and the Persian Gulf.
Instead, the Yanks decided to conduct a surgical war and try to fix the mess that is Iraq. Instead of opting for the high body count (which they're accused of anyways), they decided to give the Iraqis the benefit of a chance at a civil, democratic, rule-of-law society. That they've squandered this chance is the Iraqis fault, and they'll suffer for it. The only fault that can be legitimately pointed at this war is that the US has been too squeamish to engage in the type of violence necessary to subdue the nation (think WWII on Germany and Japan) and the reaction that this would garner from the NGOs that demand improvement without the work necessary to bring it about.
You should always be willing to reassess your opinions in the light of new evidence.
Regarding the odds of surge working, given a sufficiently loose definition of working, I expect they are greater than .01%. I still think it is a bad idea and that we should just get out.
Look, this is how you knew the war was a bad idea:
Colin Powell's address to the UN. The evidence was very weak, but presented as damning.
So the Administration was either lying, which means that they're evil, but not evil enough to manufacture really good evidence. Or, they're delusional and think that this is weak, crappy evidence (suspicious cellphone calls?!?) is really damning.
This mixture of weak lies (mistruth by indirection, really) and delusion has been utterly characteristic of them all along.
If we could only have read Colin Powell's eyes, pleading, "Get me out of here ..."
Anyhow, the lesson learned is that one should entrust ones wars either to sufficiently evil parties, or to honest leaders.
I think the unfortunate thing was that previously we had mistaken Ronald Reagan for a leader, who was neither honest, nor more than mildly evil, and therefore our critical faculties had grown numb by exposure.
"One country, one vote" is why the UN doesn't, essentially, work; the gap between statutory and actual power is too great.That's only part of the problem. The rest is that somehow an assembly that is dominated numerically by dictators who murder and steal from their own people and an administration that steals from relief to poor nations have the impression that they can legitimately make moral pronouncements.
Re the Surge: all you have the responsibility to do is to admit the obvious fact that no human being can ever say with absolute, 100% certainty that ANYTHING he believes is right -- which should hardly deter us from making personal or policy decisions based on our estimate of the probability of our being correct. What the hell else can we ever do?
So Half-Canadian is actually continuing to draw that howler of an analogy between Iraq and WW II Germany and Japan -- i.e., that we could have won the Iraq War if we had simply aerially bombed their cities flat?
The reasons we didn't encounter comparably bloody resistance from postwar Germany and japan are that (A) no more than about 1/3 of the Germans were ever enthusiastic Nazis; (B) the Emperor ordered the people of Japan to surrender (consider what a mess we would have been saddled with if he had commanded them to keep fighting, or if we had killed him!); (C) that neither country had a huge number of insurgents motivated by allegiance not to a central government, but to a non-government-connected fanatical religion and/or to warring ethnic factions in their country; and (D) that we actually provided enough troops to peacekeep those two countries -- which we could not have done in Iraq without a draft. (Had we done so, however, we MIGHT have been able to successfully pacify the place -- not by increasing the amount of our "violence" as H-C says, but by increasing our ability to nip violence in the bud before it could grow. But that, of course, takes us to the classic question of whether it would have been cost-effective to pour that many troops and that huge amount of money into Iraq, as opposed to their other military uses. Remember Jonathan Alter's point: if Bush turns out to have badly screwed up the fight against nuclear terrorism, all his other errors -- or successes -- will be trivial by comparison.)
Markm -
"somehow an assembly that is dominated numerically by dictators who murder and steal from their own people and an administration that steals from relief to poor nations have the impression that they can legitimately make moral pronouncements."
Absolutely! How can we have respect for the UN's opinions on morality?
They opposed us because nations with weak militaries do not like to see action on the part of nations with strong ones;
This is about the biggest half truth and irrelevant comment I have ever seen you make.
Explain how this even comes close to applying to the Turks who opposed us because they saw out actions harming them.
The Germans, who did and still support Afghanistan opposed the move because they said it would not work -- guess what they were right.
The French, who opposed US for many reasons, but it came down to saying it would be a counterproductive move -- guess what they were right.
When it comes down to it those who opposed us and those who went with us did so for basic "real"
political reasons, not some crazy halfbaked anti-American rational as you propose.
You have your right to your opinion. But at least make some attempt to base that opinion on reality.
There were actual "real" political reasons for going to war in Iraq, like establishing a client state in the middle of the Mideast so we could have a significant military presence in the area on a permanent basis. But this administration did not make any such arguments in public and it was obvious at the time that they did not know what they were doing--virtually every regional expert
said the same thing as the French, Germans, etc..
It still comes down to the concept that the invasion was a half baked idea by a bunch of ideologs who had no idea what they were getting into.
Do not try to rewrite history.
Spencer, I stand by what I said. I am not claiming that opposition to military moves by weak nations was their only reason, but it's lunatic to think that it doesn't operate.
"One country, one vote" is why the UN doesn't, essentially, work- well the largest democracy in the world, poor as it may be, isn't even a member of the security council while permanent member China is merrily doing business with the Sudanese government that is slaughtering their non-Arab citizens - a fact that UN itself attests to & even called it a pogrom I think. so no question UN is junk but until an alternative emerges we have to work with the junk.
Most of us are in the US because we or forefathers thought that the people in those places were bigger fucking idiots than we are.
Explain how this even comes close to applying to the Turks who opposed us because they saw out actions harming them.Well in the case of Turkey, there was a unique situation in which France, Germany, and Belgium told them that if they allowed the Coalition to use bases in their area to support a northern invasion and Turkey was attacked, they would not support a defense of Turkey (who is a member of NATO) but if they refused to let the Coalition use the bases there, they would no longer object to Turkey’s joining the European Union. In Turkey’s case, it was a combination of bribes and threats that forced them to change their mind.
"Being a liberal, as opposed to a neoconservative, means recognizing that the United States has no monopoly on insight or righteousness. "
Apparently being a liberal also means being a little bit defiant of economic principles.
Why do we need a "monopoly"? Do we have to corner the market on insight before we make a decision? Do we have to secure exclusive control of all righteousness before we can declare genocide a bad idea, or tsunami-relief a good one?
Isn't it enought that we have a little bit of a comparative advantage - arising from the simple idea that two (and more) heads are better than one? A democracy must have these debates and arrive at some sort of working compromise position that actually reflects reality (and righteousness etc.) while dictatorships, monarchies, oliarchies, theocracies and all the other ways other nations govern themselves act upon the whims of their (fewer, and therefore necessarily less informed) decision makers.
The U.S. has no monopoly on virture; no more than WalMart has a lock on retailing or Disney on kids' movies. But we're the best on the market. Suck it up and move on.
"I think the unfortunate thing was that previously we had mistaken Ronald Reagan for a leader, who was neither honest, nor more than mildly evil, and therefore our critical faculties had grown numb by exposure."
Well....ouch!
Now, I'm thinking that I should be 'Carter Fan'.
Oh, wait.
On second thought, "more than mildy evil" sounds kind of sexy.
"Personally, I do not think that Iraq would have gone any better if the UN had given its okay. "
Doesn't this miss the point: the point of institutional safeguards in decision-making isn't to make option X better, but to increase the odds that option X isn't chosen if its a bad idea.
This seems willfully obtuse.
If a friend tells you you've had too much to drink, it is time to go home.
If two do, it is time to ask one of them to call you a cab.
If you instead go Straussian and tell them they must be drunk, because you certainly aren't, it is time for rehab.
"They opposed us because nations with weak militaries do not like to see action on the part of nations with strong ones;"
Wouldn't they PREFER to see strong militaries tilt off on a misadventure against some nation they care little about? A strong military in quicksand is no longer a strong military. The Iraq debacle has emboldened Iran, for example, for the simple reason that a second front is logistically impossible.
"The U.S. has no monopoly on virture; no more than WalMart has a lock on retailing or Disney on kids' movies. But we're the best on the market. Suck it up and move on."
Seems a tad ...er... arrogant. The US as the most virtuous nation on earth? Golly. I like us fine, but I sure as heck wouldn't go that far.
It's this sort of thinking that leads to trouble, if you ask me.
The notion that nations can be "friends," and will act like actual human friends, seems pretty obtuse to me.
So, fishbane, let's suppose that the two 'friends' in question are casual acquaintances with whom you would NOT necessarily trust your life. Is it just possible the first is telling you that you've drunk too much because she wants to swipe the rest of your beer, and the other is asking for your car keys because he wants to go for a joyride in a vehicle he didn't pay for?
Lots of people who supported the war in Iraq are now regretting it because, obviously, the 'peace' and nation-building phase is turning out to be quite hard and the benefits are harder to gauge (unless you are a Kurd, or something).
But the mea culpas are interesting because of the different categories of mea culpa and what they say about the apologizer. So, you have some people saying, well, with what we know now, I would not make the same decision to support the war (the hindsight is twenty-twenty option). Others are saying, I never should have believed what I believed when I believed it (the I was misled option). And then there is the: well, we did the best we could with a bad set of options and we could still pull it out and life is hard like that (the, damn, life is hard but lets do the best we can to win this thing, mistakes and all). And still, others fall into the: look, we had no choice, we had only bad options and we made a choice which looks to be in error now, but may not look that way in ten years (the, what else could we do? option). So, the mind change thing is complicated!
The problem is, if a person is not a pundit or a thinker or talker or reporter type, that person can get irritated because they might be in a profession where you have to actually make decisions, and then you have to make them stick as best you can. Or figure something else out. There's no mea culpa - there's just work to do.
*I make the heretical suggestion that maybe the republicans were better for the war, and the democrats will be better for the peace, what with the good-cop/bad-cop dynamic of the Bush administration/Democratic congress re: Maliki.
**I really feel for our guys/gals over there who are doing a yeaoman's job, trying to make decisions stick, and I really hope we can pull it out. Cause the consequences would really suck if we don't. Duh, I guess.
Regarding the WWII vs Iraq nation building arguments. The big differences to me, which no one seems to ever mention, 1) the German's (and to a lesser extent the Japanese) were damn grateful that it wasn't the Russians doing the occupying and 2) the US was not in any way dependent on Germany or Japan for anything, but we are somewhat dependent on Iraqi oil.
And to make this conspiracy self consistent,
We don't mention 1) publicly because it would piss of the Russians, and we avoid 2) because we hate admitting that we only really care about the middle east because we need them to produce oil...
> The Iraq debacle has emboldened Iran, for example, for the simple reason that a second front is logistically impossible.
I wonder if the author of the above would support military action wrt Iran if it were logistically possible, or is merely presenting the above as a pretext.
In point of fact, the US actually can fight several more wars at once. It just can't put a lot of boots on the ground.
Wrt Iran, the troops right next door can move, which is why the "pretext" question is important.
I'd take the Euro opinions a lot more seriously if they had a record of actually solving problems instead of talking.
The world has no shortage of problems. Surely some of them must be within the Euros' capabilities.
This is an organisation that can agree on only two things: Zionism is racism,
Presumably you were just being flippant here, since you're probably aware that this resolution was repealed 15 years ago.
2) the US was not in any way dependent on Germany or Japan for anything, but we are somewhat dependent on Iraqi oil.
Not really. Europe is primarily dependent upon Middle Eastern oil; the US gets most of its non-native supply from Canada, Mexico, and Venezuela.
I don't think Ms. McArdle needs to worry much about the chance that the Surge might work: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/25/AR2007022501412_pf.html
The only lesson is that hindsight is 20/20 and that however much we try to think clearly, the future will always remain opaque. None of the options for dealing with Iraq were very good, perhaps we picked the worst option and perhaps we picked the best option. It is impossible to know what would have happened if the invasion never occured but it could have been catastrophic or it could have been mildly poor. The more I study politics the more I value modesty of opinion and respecting those who disagree with you.
This probably won't surprise any of the longtime readers of this blog, but I continue to support the war, and my reasons for doing so were valid way back then and are still valid now.
As for the surge, it's way too soon to tell. Let's wait until summer and see what the effect has been. Military actions generally don't cause immediate changes unless they are of the scale of dropping the big one on an island nation who was already beginning to realize they were losing the war. Change takes time, folks. All of my informed acquaintances (and me) fortold that this war would take 5-10 YEARS to achieve success, and nothing has changed that.
Comments are Closed.