The President Still Has Not Made His Case for War
By James Klurfeld
Columnist
Newsday
January 30, 2003
newsday.com
I was riveted by President George W. Bush's State of the Union address, especially the muscular, emotional argument for going to war with Iraq. But the more I thought about it, the more I felt that good rhetoric doesn't always make for good logic.
For example, the best line of the speech was clearly when the president lowered his voice, narrowed his eyes and detailed some of the atrocities Saddam Hussein's regime had visited on Iraqi citizens: torturing children while their parents watched, using electric shock, burning with hot irons, mutilating with electric drills, cutting out tongues and rape.
"If this is not evil, then evil has no meaning," said Bush.
But, hold on, we've all known for a long time that Hussein has committed despicable acts against his citizens and enemies. The need to stamp out evil in the world has never been the basis on which nations go to war. If that were the case, we would be in a state of perpetual conflict. Nations go to war to protect their vital interests. And, in the case of democracies, only as a last resort.
Also note that Bush began that paragraph on evil by trying to counter one of the arguments that has been used against a preventive war, namely that Hussein, as bad as he is, understands limits and can be deterred.
"Trusting in the sanity and restraint of Saddam Hussein is not a strategy and it is not an option," said Bush, who then went on to say how evil he really is. But he never really made the connection between Hussein's penchant for doing terrible things and his geo-political behavior.
A totally different view is offered in the current issue of Foreign Policy magazine by two very tough-minded foreign policy experts, John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Stephen Walt of Harvard - both leading proponents of the realist school. Their argument is that as brutal and nasty as Hussein is, he has always acted in a calculating, rational manner and that he has been and can be deterred from using weapons of mass destruction.
"The historical record shows that the United States can contain Iraq effectively - even if Saddam has nuclear weapons - just as it contained the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Regardless of whether Iraq complies with UN inspections or what the inspectors find, the campaign to wage war against Iraq rests on a flimsy foundation."
This is an important point because it goes to the heart of the Bush administration's case for starting a preventive war against Iraq: Hussein is too unpredictable, too much of a risk taker, to be allowed to have weapons of mass destruction. Mearsheimer and Walt argue that Hussein has been deterred in the past and that his behavior has been predictable and even rational.
Another point: The president said, "Today, the gravest danger in the war on terror, the gravest danger facing America and the world, is outlaw regimes that seek and possess nuclear, chemical and biological weapons."
That's the good old axis of evil, of course. And, no doubt, it's a problem. But a greater danger than terrorist organizations such as al-Qaida? States, even rogue states, know they can be attacked. They have something, really everything, to lose if they attack U.S. vital interests. That is, they are deterrable. But the wispy, mysterious, clandestine terrorists are something else.
In fact, some Mideast experts have argued that an attack on Iraq will only bolster al-Qaida's standing in the Arab world - make terrorism more likely, not less. I'm not sure I buy that, but there is some logic to the argument.
Finally, I'm confused by the president's assertion that all of a sudden there is a link between Hussein and al-Qaida. Until now, intelligence officials have cautioned against making that connection. Hussein is a secularist; bin Laden, a religious fundamentalist. It doesn't fit.
Maybe there is a sound argument for waging war against Hussein. I'll be listening to Secretary of State Colin Powell when he goes to the United Nations Wednesday.
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