this is part of a larger overall view of the current situation in Iraq, it is not my writing but I agree with the premise.
B. Why Iraq?
1. Iraq is centrally located with borders on Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Jordan. It has major ports through which supplies and troops can move. If we occupied Iraq, it would be ideal as a potential base of military operations against any of those other nations, and they all know it. This would make diplomatic threats against them far more effective.
2. Among the major nations of the region, Iraq had been relatively mercantile, relatively secular, and had originally had a relatively well-educated and cosmopolitan population. Reform was more likely to be successful there.
3. A casus belli existed that could be leveraged to justify conquest in certain fora.
4. The existing sanctions process against Iraq (including patrols over the "no fly" zones) was a failure and was unsustainable. One way or another the status quo had to be ended. Lifting the sanctions and ceasing to enforce the "no fly" zones without removing Saddam from power was too risky.
5. Saddam represented a substantial long-term threat. He had demonstrated utter ruthlessness and viciousness in two external wars and uncountable internal repressions. He showed no sign of abandoning his ambition to develop nuclear weapons irrespective of how long it might take or how much it might cost.
6. Saddam had been providing immense support for terrorist groups, both monetarily and in other ways. There were known training bases in Iraq and he had been providing money and arms. (It is not clear that much or any of that support went to al Qaeda; most of it went to various Palestinian groups.)
7. Saddam had developed and used chemical weapons against Iranian troops and on Iraqi civilians. Left to himself there was a non-trivial chance of his giving such weapons to terrorists. After the war in 1991 and 12 years of Anglo-American enforcement of sanctions, Saddam had a grudge against the US, and the chance of him surreptitiously aiding terrorist attacks against us was too great to ignore. It's a matter of record that he attempted to have the senior President Bush assassinated.
8. Revolution in Iraq was impossible; reform there could only be imposed from outside by military force.
9. There had been substantial support by American voters since 1991 for military operations to remove Saddam from power. There was far less support for invasion of Iran and no support at all for conquest of any other nation in the region.
10. Iraq's oil wealth could be used to offset much of the cost of rebuilding after the war, as well as making the nation economically viable and prosperous and helping to finance diversification of its economy.
11. Saddam had become a symbol for the "Arab Street". He was thought of as a strong Arab leader who was standing up to the West, and was viewed as a hero. Though he'd had his ass kicked in 1991, he survived it and this actually enhanced his reputation. He hadn't won against us, but at least he'd tried, which was better than anyone else seemed to be doing. The "Arab Street" were proud of him for making the attempt. (It ceased to matter that the war in 1991 started because Saddam had invaded fellow Arab nation Kuwait, nor that several divisions of Arab troops had been part of the coalition that defeated him. 1991 had symbolically become Saddam fighting against the US.)
12. The leaders of Kuwait feared Saddam and owed us a big favor from 1991, so Kuwait could be used as a base from which to launch an invasion of Iraq.
13. Iraq's military had the reputation of being the largest, best armed and most dangerous of any in the region; if it was decisively crushed it would be psychologically devastating.
14. We owed the southern Shiites a moral debt for not supporting their attempted revolution in 1991, and for our failure to make any attempt to prevent the retaliatory slaughter inflicted on them by Saddam afterwards. (I consider this the most important and most shameful lapse by the US since the end of the Cold War.)
15. The Kurds had prospered under the umbrella of the northern "no fly" zone, but if we'd given up and stopped enforcing that zone without eliminating Saddam, and if the sanctions had been lifted, the Kurds would then have been crushed by a reinvigorated Saddam. It would have been another betrayal similar to 1991 for the Shiites. |
