U.N. Games
Some time ago, my friend Ara emailed me to ask whether or not we hadn't made a mistake in going to the U.N. before proceeding against Saddam. Hadn't we just delayed things too much? Hadn't it given the anti-war folks time to build their forces and rally people to their cause? Hadn't we only embarassed ourselves?
I promised to answer here.
There is a certain breed of hawk (my man Bill Quick springs to mind) who never thought we should go to the U.N. and are furious with Bush for taking so long with this foolishness.
There are others who say it's fine to have gone to the U.N. but we should not bother with a second resolution. Others say going to the U.N. was fine but we should have gone in right after the first Blix report was issued.
Then there are those who say we should have gone to the U.N. and should stay in the U.N. for as many years as it takes until consensus is arrived at. Anything to avoid offending people who don't agree with us.
And that sort of gets to a point I've made before, but can't be made often enough: in a case like this, there are only a few choices you can make. Every single one will be deemed a huge mistake and a lousy choice by someone. That's politics. In fact, it's more than politics: it's human nature.
One thing that can be said about Bush is that once he makes up his mind, it's very rare for him to change course. Some would call that a strength, others a weakness. Either way, that's how he is.
His pattern is remarkably consistent: He likes to hear a lot of opinions, asking only a few questions. He likes to listen to others debate, and to interject only occasionally. Then, after contemplating for a while, and making sure he's heard everything he needs to hear, and probably after praying a time or two, he decides on a course of action. He announces it. He makes sure everyone on the team, whether he has come down on their side or not, is now on board and ready to support the policy. He also makes sure everyone knows he, the President, will back them up and take full responsibility, just as long as they do their jobs and stay on target. His highly disciplined team then confidently moves forward, knowing that the boss has listened to their concerns, and also knowing that the boss isn't going to pull the rug out from under them now that a choice has been made.
This isn't just my interpretation. You'll see it in at least three different books written about Bush, including books that are critical of him. You see it in all the interviews with his staff, too. It's who the guy is. It has its benefits, it has its drawbacks. It doesn't mean his decisions are always predictable, but it makes him very predictable once a decision has been announced. When he says "this is what we're going to to," you can rest assured that it is exactly what the administration is going to do.
When you see waffling, it's because POTUS hasn't made up his mind yet. Once it's made, though, it's solid as granite, and everyone in the administration knows it.
Having come to this conclusion about Bush (a conclusion that's shared by people like Bob Woodward and Bill Sammon), I have long suspected that what would happen is this:
We would stick with the U.N. process, come hell or high water until they either give us want we want, or summer 2003 looms too close.
Over a year ago I read the opinion of an active-duty military man who knows something about these things. He said that it would be strategically easy to take Baghdad, but it would be a logistical nightmare. Not just calling up enough reserves and shuffling troops around, either, but also arranging supply lines, search and rescue teams, and other support necessary to protect and defend our forces, and keep them fed and sheltered, once we're occupying the place. Ditto the need to line up everything needed to deal with prisoners, keeping the Iraqi civilian population fed, and keeping Iraq from erupting into panic and civil war. There was no way, he predicted, that we would go before January 2003.
My heart sank. But I had no reason to doubt him. I also had no reason to doubt what he and others said about not wanting to fight in the summer. This gave a realistic-sounding timeline of somewhere between January and April of this year.
We also know, if we simply read Bob Woodward's Bush At War (it's not a great book, but it has all sorts of interesting information) that Bush was planning on going as early as Spring of last year, but was talked out of it by Colin Powell. And if you read Woodward's account of Powell's arguments, they are pretty damned convincing. Bush seems to have been somewhat deflated by them, even irritated a bit with Powell for bringing them up--but also to have seen the wisdom in them. And that wisdom was this:
You cannot simply invade this country and take it over in five minutes and not expect disaster. Without doubt, we would win. Without a doubt, it would take very little time. But what then? You can't just go get Saddam and then turn around and leave, or you'll just get another dictator in charge, and won't have solved anything. So are you going to have a military governor in place, ala MacArthur? If so, you're going to have an American ruling an Arab nation, which will have repercussions that will echo throughout the Arab world for the next several centuries. You're going to have a civilian population you have to control and take care of. You're going to have to spend months cleaning up the weapons we know are there. You're going to have to prevent uprisings from taking out Musharaaf in Pakistan, the Saudis from cutting off the oil supply, the Israelis from being caught in the middle, and the whole Arab world from going up in flames.
In short, what Powell said was that we could do all this, but we needed to think really hard about it, and be ready to deal with all the consequences before we went. Furthermore, the more allies we had going in, the better. Not that we needed allies militarily. We didn't. We still don't. We need allies for dealing with the aftermath. Because the aftermath is going to be way tougher than the invasion.
And by the way, people who say Powell is a dove, or committed to diplomacy for diplomacy's sake, multilateralism for multilateralism's sake, are simply wrong. He's not. He's a pragmatist. A really smart pragmatist. He's not squeamish about using force, or about unilateralism. Not at all. He's just a realist. Which I think he's proven in the last couple of months, both at the U.N. and elsewhere.
Like many people, I have found the wait excruciating. But it has not surprised me. Nor I have I ever put much stock in various predictions by people like Steven Den Beste that we would probably go on this, that, or the other date. Pre-January 2003 always seemed unlikely to me, based on the statements of professionals who actually do this for a living. I assumed Bush had the same advice.
Also, since the President has been saying all along that we might not go at all, I've always assumed that we might not go at all. In this, I would criticize him fiercely. But I've always believed that he might indeed decide that. He'd almost certainly lose my vote if we didn't go. But we might not: the man's said so, and he almost always says exactly what he means. Although I still think it's most likely we'll invade, it remains possible that we won't.
There's even a school of thought--one I don't cotton to--which says that if all this pressure spooks Saddam into disarming and leaving the country, or provokes a coup, then Bush will have won without firing a shot. Since I think democratizing Iraq is in our best long-term interests, I would find this sub-optimal. But not everyone would.
As for offending people, alienating people, losing public support: I frankly am not sure that any of that has happened, or will happen.
A year ago, support for invading Iraq among Americans was varying from about 50% to about 70%. It's now pretty consistently on the high end of that range. Despite the anti-war protests, the polling still shows that a majority are still basically on board with the President if we invade.
Further, Bush was able to strongarm the Congress into giving him the authority he wanted over six months ago. Which means the domestic debate is essentially over, no matter what the protesters do. Furthermore, there's even evidence that the peace protests are helping President Bush domestically far more than they're hurting him. And that the only thing that's really hurting him is that people are sick of waiting for him to decide.
On the other hand, despite widespread anti-war sentiment in Germany, Schroeder is being punished regularly by voters, which tells me that many Germans may disagree with war but don't feel all that strongly about it--and possibly value their relationship with America more than they value avoiding war. France is increasingly a laughingstock. With every report, Hans Blix says nice things but admits openly that the Iraqis are still not complying with the non-negotiable demands. More Americans than at any time in history view the U.N. with suspicion and wonder why we even bother with the organization.
Meanwhile, in the last year, literally dozens of nations have stepped forward to offer their support. In the last six months, that number has grown substantially. We have, inarguably, far more allies today than we did in March 2002. Most remarkably, Arab countries are spending most of their time bickering with each other, and doing their best to talk Saddam into leaving the country.
I remember that more than a year ago, people like James Baker were saying that if America tried to get a U.N. resolution, it would have an easier time getting allies. Baker said flatly that America would get more credit around the world for having tried to get U.N. support, and failed, than by not bothering to try at all.
Was Baker wrong? I'm not ready to say so. To me the real question is whether the benefits of all this waiting outweigh the drawbacks. Like many people, I confess to being out of patience, and utterly exhausted. But was all this wait, and this lengthy process, worth it?
My gut tells me that ten years from now we'll look back and say, "yes." I'm certainly not enjoying it, though.
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