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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: carranza2 who wrote (53242)	10/19/2002 9:21:13 PM
From: JohnM	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

I find it unusual that the NYT critic did not mention another justification for invading Iraq which I'm not even sure Pollack makes i.e., the sheer lunacy in allowing Saddam or Uday to think, rightly or wrongly, that they might control the destinies of Western economies because nukes would permit Iraq to control the flow of a lot of Mideast oil. Should Iraq end up with nukes, there is nothing to prevent it from going after Kuwait and even Saudi Arabia's oil fields if Saddam believes that we would never be the first users of atomic weapons and that we would never expose our troops to atomic warfare. Ergo, Saddam probably believes that armed with nukes, he can control ME oil fields because he can deter us from dislodging him from them. This is IMO the essence of his thinking. I agree that it is strange that the reviewer, particularly since he was an ambassador to Russia, failed to mention this argument. Pollack does not fail to do so. It's one of the center pieces of his argument. And, in the form you state it, his hoped for nuclear capabilities would increase his abilities, obviously, to control the flow of oil from Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Iran. And thus to have a serious ability to manipulate global oil prices. And we all know just how important that is. Oh, yes, Pollack doesn't argue that Saddam would, necessarily, go after those oil fields; just use the threat of nuclear weapons to blackmail. Though, of course, who knows. But it is important to remember that Pollack, after arguing that, as Madlock suggests, puts a very high bar for invasion per se, one the Bush folk are not likely to be able to climb over. One more reason why they are certainly not enamored of the book. The WSJ, for instance, reviewed Pollack's book in an irresponsibly cavalier fashion sometime this past week. Saddam is stupid and dangerous. Perhaps. But Pollack argues the stupidity is structural rather than personal. It's a problem of information flow. The consequence, of course, is much the same thing. But, for both analysis and policy purposes, I would gather it's very important to separate the two. Either way, we can't let him act on such a notion. Better to take the medicine now than later, when the costs will surely be higher. Framed the way you've framed it, C, I could not disagree. However, there are other issues that need to be considered: (1) just how willing is the US population to suffer serious casualties (remember Pollack considers the only way to do this is with overwhelming force--250,000): (2) are there other oil resources (for an answer that would interest you and confirm some of your concerns see this url that tek sent me fsk.ethz.ch ); (3) what happens in the aftermath--are things better or worse (lots of text here); etc.