John Quiggin

Even if that is achieved, it seems to be a lot of effort and life to preserve the status quo.
Iraq under Saddam was brutal, but was hardly a direct threat to the US and its allies. I wouldn't think life under many of those "local leaders" would be any less brutal. The most powerful regional Iraqis at the moment got their power through strength of force rather than thoughtful and considered argument.

i beg to differ,

iraq under saddam was a direct threat to its neighbours, iran and kuwait, and american allies, saudi arabia and israel.

(it waged war with iran for 8 years, invaded kuwait, and bombed israel with scud missiles)

furthermore, it attempted to develop a nuclear weapons capability, based on the osiraq reactor sold to it by france.

saddam provided direct financial incentive to palestinian suicide bombers.

to reign in saddam, the world thought sanctions necessary. while these coupled with inspections certainly weakened iraq, they crippled the iraqi populace far more than they did saddam. saddam continued to push weapons inspections, finally expelling them in the late 90s. only through the threat of force were inspections resumed.

krugman is moreover right. a free, even splintered iraq is far better for the world and for iraqis than any possible configuration with saddam as the head of state. institutionalised torture is far worse than anarchy.

furthermore, as soon as the american military presence dwindles, i think the recruitment of terrorists will dwindle in proportion. of course iraqis feel strongly about their homeland. young men are just being whipped into zealots by religious leaders. once the americans are out, this will become a moot point.

this is what we can hope for. there will be real elections soon in iraq for the first time in decades.

how quickly we forget history.

john,

do you think that iraq is a disaster because it was not worth the costs to america and australia, or because iraq is worse off now than under saddam.

if so, i would be interested to see some hard figures on why you think its worse off...

(taking into account the potential for freedom in iraq is far greater now than under saddam. of course in transitions things may become worse, but id like to see you seriously argue that the potential for iraq to become a democratic state (or states) now is less than under saddam)

And we in the west were perfectly happy to let Iraq wage that 8 year war with Iran, even encouraged it.
And those 10-12 years of sanctions had a devastating effect on Saddam's ability to project military power beyond the middle third of Iraq, let alone Iraq's neighbours. Iraq was barely a threat to the region and certainly not internationally.

Unless, of course, you believe that hydrogen filled weather balloons could bring down the US and allow Saddam unchallenged control of the middle east.

youre completely right. iraq was zero threat under sanctions and inspections, to anyone with even a cursory understanding of iraq, but to keep them contained in this way meant the near total devastation of the iraqi population.

the problem with the anti-everything crowd is that they have no solutions of their own.

i present for you three options:

1)saddam and sanctions: the radical left's leading advocates describe some 500,000 to 1 million children dying due to sanctions. (although these figures are in doubt, theres no question a significant number of people died because of sanctions, and also just due to saddam's reign)

2) invasion: of course, many people killed and infrastructure costs. ongoing occupation costs and risk of civil strife.

3) lift sanctions and leave saddam. we had this iraq already: the iraq of the iran/iraq war, and the kuwait invasion.

matt and john, choose one of these options or propose one of your own.

i choose number 2, like wolfowitz chose number 2. im not saying im right, perhaps over the next ten years more people will die than under the decade of sanctions, but i think its highly unlikely and can back up my case.

i challenge you to pick one, and back up why you think it stands a better chance for world security and the iraqi population.

c8to:

To be honest, I'm more inclined to 3) - although I would have kept the no-fly zone. The sanctions could have been lifted or reduced, and they seemed to be doing more harm than good. On the other hand, keeping Saddam from the Kurds and the marsh Arabs would have been a good idea.

As for 2), there are sub-options 2a) and 2b).

2a): Actually do shit that clean up Iraq after war, as desired by Garner and Powell.

2b): Do a neoliberal shock therapy on the country that involves (among other things) sacking 500,000 government workers - with the resulting 67% unemployment causing many recruits for the anti-US insurgents.

I was against the war, but given the choice, I would have gone for 2a. Wolfowitz chose 2b.

Complete the program of inspections under way before the war. This would have shown that Saddam had no nukes and no way of gettiThen lift sanctions on everything but weapons, and maintain no-fly zones.

It's true that, eventually, Saddam would have found ways around the sanctions, re-armed and might have constituted a threat to neighbours If so, it might have been necessary to fight him again. But since, as we've seen, his forces wouldn't last an afternoon in open combat against the Americans, what is the problem here.?

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"But since, as we've seen, his forces wouldn't last an afternoon in open combat against the Americans, what is the problem here.?"

You make the implicit assumption that he wouldn't have obtained nuclear weapons with which to hold his neighbors hostage by the time such a conflict came to a head, but seeing how opposed the left is to doing anything about Iran's open and advanced nuclear ambitions (George Monbiot even arguing today that Iran had every right to nukes), who is to say that such a scenario wouldn't have come about? A nuclear-armed Saddam with American tanks rushing towards his Baghdad palaces would have had nothing to lose by nuking Tel Aviv and Kuwait City if he felt his hour had come, so the logic of deterrence would scarcely have worked there.

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Abiola, I don't have to answer for George Monbiot.

The big problem with Iran and NK is not saying we should do something but working out what we can do. I'd be happy to hear your suggestions.

If we had proceeded with inspections in Iraq, instead of invading, the Iran problem at least would be marginally easier to deal with, since we wouldn't have the complication that Iran and the US are, in effect, hostile neighbours.

It's now clear that Saddam had done nothing about nukes in the decade since the UN destroyed his first program. It would have taken him at least that long and probably more to pose any sort of threat. Given the real and current danger posed by Iran and NK, it would have made much more sense to focus on them.

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"Abiola, I don't have to answer for George Monbiot."

No one is asking you to. The point is that he speaks for many (most?) on the left, and the attitude he displays is one that isn't factored at all into your scenarios.

"I'd be happy to hear your suggestions."

Fair enough. Note that in the following, "you" and "your" refer to the United States.

What to do with Iran is straightforward: wipe out their air-force, then bomb everything that looks like a nuclear facility so massively and sustainedly that one would recognize that any human facilities were ever in the locations concerned. Don't bother with putting any more boots on the ground than are needed for scouting places in need of bombing - the Iranians sort out their own "liberation" this time.

North Korea is just as straightforward: pull out the American troops from the DMZ and Seoul asap, and reduce the US troop presence on the peninsula to zero in the medium-term. Keep working on missile defence (whether it works or not isn't what's important, but the possibility that it might), and openly declare that you're willing to blow the entire peninsula to atoms if you or your allies are threatened by North Korean supplied nukes. In short, do your best to project an air of irrational belligerence, just as the North Koreans have been (successfully) attempting to do till date. Two can play that game, and the United States has the resources to play it much more effectively.

"It would have taken him at least that long and probably more to pose any sort of threat."

Why do you make such an assumption, when the usual experience with most ambitious industrial and organizational efforts is that the second time around is usually far easier than the first? Is there no learning by doing in the manufacture of nuclear weapons?

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Abiola, don't you think your Iran plan might just lead to retaliation against the US, which is conveniently easy thanks to the presence of 100 000 Americans right next door. Do you suppose that bombing alone could deter such retaliation (remember, we're talking about a country that fought Saddam for eight bloody years). If not, where's your invasion plan?

Second, given that the Administration lied about Iraq's weapons, an attack of the kind you propose will be successfully represented by the Iranians and Al Qaeda as unprovoked aggression motivated by a desire to rule the region. Even allowing for the loss of military power, this will be huge win for the mullahs. And of course, an unqualified win for AQ.

In every respect, the Iraq invasion makes your plan less feasible, not more, and this is true of any alternative plan (apart from doing nothing).

abiola, your plans could be dangerously escalating. it would certainly stretch the US military to invade iraq, bomb iran from the air, and scare north korea into really putting all it has into nuclear weapons.

john, thankyou for your considered reply. inspectors were expelled in 98 and only readmitted through threat of force. they would have been let in, but saddam's rational move would be to push inspections exactly to the point where force would not be used. the US called his bluff.

your plan may have worked, i just dont think its likely. lifting sanctions and allowing the iraq economy to grow under saddam would have greatly increased his ability to successfully aquire, and hide a nuclear or chemical weapons program.

eventually we would have got to a situation where he was just as belligerent, except better armed. the choice for invasion was made considering iraq was far weaker after 12 years of sanctions than at any other time.

the gamble paid off in military terms, the coalition took over iraq in a matter of weeks.

winning the peace was always going to be much harder, but i think with gradual US troop withdrawl and increasing power to regional iraqis, iraq will be far better off than unified under their old dictator.

(don't underestimate the power of the particular leader. enigmatic and ruthless leaders can drag otherwise normal people into huge conflict)

sorry...meant to say "inspectors were readmitted" not would be...

To clarify the discussion c8to, let me observe that I supported UN 1441, and the threat of invasion if Saddam did not readmit inspectors. But since he did readmit them, there should not have been an invasion.

I'm interested to see that Krugman is suggesting as likely an outcome which I suggested (last year) was planned and foreseen from the beginning, namely the reduction of Iraq to a simple, primitive place unable to threaten US control of "its" oil.

i suspected as much quiggin...this is presumably the "european position" although (the french probably threatened veto more for their own power politics than a sense of national security)

we shall see who comes out right: if the coming decade is worse than the one under saddam, sanctions and inspectors...