Why a First Strike Will Surely Backfire
By William A. Galston
The Washington Post
Sunday, June 16, 2002; Page
B01
As the White House moves
closer to a brand-new
security doctrine that
supports preemptive
attacks against hostile
states or terrorists that
have chemical, biological
and nuclear weapons, Iraq would be first on its list of
targets. The Bush administration has argued before that
the national security of the United States requires the
elimination of Saddam Hussein's regime, by force if
necessary. Democrats with national ambitions have been
lining up to agree.
A preemptive all-out invasion of Iraq would represent one
of the most fateful deployments of American power since
World War II. Given the stakes, the policy discussion in
official Washington has been remarkably narrow. To be
sure, glib analogies between Iraq and Afghanistan and
cocky talk about a military "cakewalk" have given way to
more sober assessments: A regime change would likely
require 150,000-200,000 U.S. troops, allies in the region
willing to allow us to pre-position and supply them, and a
post-victory occupation measured in years rather than
months.
But hardly anyone in either party isdebating the long-term
diplomatic consequences of a move against Iraq that is
opposed by many of our staunchest friends. Fewer still
have raised the most fundamental point: A global strategy
based on the new Bush doctrine means the end of the
system of international institutions, laws and norms
thatthe United States has worked for more than half a
century to build.
What is at stake is nothing less than a fundamental shift
in America's place in the world. Rather than continuing to
serve as first among equals in the postwar international
system, the United States would act as a law unto itself,
creating new rules of international engagement without
agreement by other nations. In my judgment, this new
stance would ill serve the long-term interests of our
country.
I raise these doubts with the greatest reluctance, as a
Democrat who believes that the global projection of
American power has been, in the main, an enormous force
for good. I strongly supported the Persian Gulf War, and I
helped draft a public statement rallying intellectuals
behind the Bush administration's initial response to the
events of Sept. 11. I agree with the administration that the
threat of stateless terrorism requires a new, more
forward-leaning response.
But an invasion of Iraq is a different matter altogether. We
should contain Hussein, deter him and bring him down
the way we brought down the Evil Empire that threatened
our existence for half a century -- through economic,
diplomatic, military and moral pressure, not force of arms.
On June 1, in a speech at West Point, President Bush
sought to justify the new doctrine. The successful
strategies of the Cold War era, he declared, are ill-suited to
the requirements of national defense in the 21st century.
Deterrence means nothing against terrorist networks;
containment will not thwart unbalanced dictators
possessing weapons of mass destruction. We cannot afford
to wait until we are attacked, he declared. In today's
circumstances, Americans must be ready for "preemptive
action" to defend our lives and liberties.
Applied to Iraq (although the president did not do so
explicitly in his speech), the case for preemption runs
roughly as follows: We do not know whether Hussein has
yet acquired nuclear weapons or whether he has
transferred them to terrorists. It doesn't matter. We know
that he's trying to get these weapons, and his past conduct
suggests that he will use them against our interests. The
White House view goes on to say that the probability of the
worst case is low but hardly negligible. And that we must
not be held hostage to standards of proof better suited to
courts of law than to circumstances of war. And that we
cannot wait until one of Hussein's bombs, packed into a
terrorist's suitcase, blows up Manhattan or Washington.
We must act now -- do whatever it takes -- to eliminate this
threat.
While the administration's arguments are powerful, they
are less than persuasive. The proposed move against Iraq
raises issues fundamentally different from those posed by
our response to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait and to al Qaeda's
attacks against New York and Washington. In those cases
our policy fitted squarely within established doctrines of
self-defense, and in part for that reason our deployment of
military power enjoyed widespread support around the
world. By contrast, if we seek to overthrow Hussein, we will
act outside the framework of global security that we have
helped create.
In the first place, we are a signatory to (indeed, the
principal drafter of) the U.N. charter, which explicitly
reserves to sovereign nations "the inherent right of
individual or collective self-defence," but only in the event
of armed attack. Unless the administration establishes
Iraqi complicity in the terrorism of Sept. 11, it cannot
invoke self-defense, as defined by the charter, as the
justification for attacking Iraq. By contrast, in his speech
justifying the April 1986 strike against Libya, President
Reagan was able to say that "the evidence is now
conclusive that the terrorist bombing of La Belle
discotheque was planned and executed under the direct
orders of the Libyan regime. . . . Self-defense is not only
our right, it is our duty. It is the purpose behind the
mission undertaken tonight -- a mission fully consistent
with Article 51 of the United Nations charter." If the Bush
administration has comparable evidence against Iraq, it
has a responsibility to lay these facts before Congress, the
American people and the world.
The broader structure of international law creates
additional obstacles to an invasion of Iraq. To be sure,
international law contains a doctrine of "anticipatory
self-defense." But even construed broadly, that concept
would still be too narrow to support an attack: The threat
to the United States from Iraq is neither specific nor clearly
established nor shown to be imminent. The Bush doctrine
of preemption goes well beyond the established bounds of
anticipatory self-defense, as many supporters of the
administration's Iraq policy privately concede. They argue
that the United States needs to make new law, using Iraq
as a precedent.
But if the Bush administration wishes to discard the
traditional criterion of imminence on the grounds that
terrorism renders it obsolete, then the administration
must do what it has thus far failed to do -- namely,
discharge the burden of showing that Iraq has both the
capability of harming us and a serious intent to do so.
Otherwise, "anticipatory self-defense" becomes an
international hunting license.
Finally, we can examine the proposed invasion through the
prism of "just war" theories developed by philosophers and
theologians over a period of centuries. One of just war's
most distinguished contemporary exponents, Michael
Walzer, puts it this way: First strikes are justified before
the moment of imminent attack, at the point of "sufficient
threat." That concept has three dimensions: "a manifest
intent to injure, a degree of active preparation that makes
that intent a positive danger and a general situation in
which waiting, or doing anything other than fighting,
greatly magnifies the risk." The potential injury, moreover,
must be of the gravest possible nature: the loss of
territorial integrity or political independence.
Hussein may well endanger the survival of his neighbors,
but he poses no such risk to the United States . And he
knows full well that complicity in a Sept. 11-style attack on
the United States would justify, and swiftly evoke, a
regime-ending response. During the Gulf War, we invoked
this threat to deter him from using weapons of mass
destruction against our troops, and there is no reason to
believe that this strategy would be less effective today.
Dictators have much more to lose than do stateless
terrorists; that's why deterrence directed against them has
a good chance of working.
It is not hard to imagine the impatience with which serious
policymakers inside the administration (and elsewhere)
will greet arguments such as mine. The first duty of every
government, they might say, is to defend the lives and
security of its citizens. The elimination of Hussein and, by
extension, every regime that threatens to share weapons of
mass destruction with anti-American terrorists, comports
with this duty. To invoke international norms designed for
a different world is to blind ourselves to the harsh
necessities of international action in the new era of
terrorism. If no other nation agrees, we have a duty to the
American people to go it alone.
These are weighty claims, and it is not my intention to
dismiss them entirely or lightly. But even if an invasion
succeeds in removing a threat here and now, it is far from
clear that a policy of preemption will make us safer in the
long run. Nations cooperating with us in the war against
terror might respond to a preemptive U.S. attack on Iraq by
ceasing to arrest and turn over suspected terrorists, and by
halting the sharing of intelligence. Our allies in Europe
(and elsewhere) might respond by accelerating their
diplomatic and military separation from us. Our
adversaries might well redouble their efforts against us.
New generations of young people -- including those of our
erstwhile allies -- could grow up resenting and resisting
America. One thing is certain: If we promote and then act
on our new principles, nations around the world will adopt
them and shape them for their own purposes, with
consequences we will not always like.
We are the most powerful nation on Earth but we are not
invulnerable. To safeguard our own security, we need the
help of the allies whose doubts we scorn, and the
protection of the international restraints against which we
chafe. We must therefore resist the easy seduction of
unilateral action. In the long run, our interests will be best
served by an international system that is as law-like and
collaborative as possible,given the reality that we live in a
world of sovereign states.
William Galston is a professor at the University of
Maryland's School of Public Affairs and director of the
Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy. From 1993 until
1995 he served as deputy assistant to President Clinton for
domestic policy.
© 2002 The Washington Post Company
washingtonpost.com |
