This, The Wrong War, is better than Walzer's article but I don't think he's made his case.
Some points.
If you were to ask American officials after September 11 what the enemy is, you would hear three different answers: world terrorism, weapons of mass destruction in the hands of evildoers like Saddam Hussein, and radical Islam of the sort promoted by Osama bin Laden. I believe that the muddleheadedness in the American thinking about the war against Iraq comes from conflating these three answers as if somehow they were one and the same. In fact they are very different, with very different and incompatible practical implications.
I believe they said terrorism, radical Islam promoted by such as bin Laden, and Iraq. Not quite the same. Did they conflate them?
Leaving aside the clumsy attempt to connect Iraq regime with al Qaeda for purposes of promoting an invasion of Iraq, have they actually shmushed the two together?
Iraq and US have been at war for 12 years. Iraq has attacked Iran and Kuwait. Iraq is led by a dictator with expansionary ambitons who heads a Baathist party also with expansionary ideology, their regime is a profoundly cruel police state (mukhabarat) and secular. And they're trying like mad to get the big WMD. As Pollack has demonstrated the country under present regime is a past, present and future menace to the neighbours and the world energy industry. The US clearly recognizes this and it's not the same as the terrorism case.
In my view radical Islam of the sort promoted by bin Laden is and should be regarded as the enemy.
It is a serious enemy, no question. But is it the only enemy? Clearly not. Is it in the interests of the US and its allies, particularly in this context Israel, to fight only the islamists? Margalit thinks so, but if there are two totalitarian forces causing both the West and the Muslim world grief why attack only one of them?
Margalit thinks the Muslim world is in a "revolutionary situation"... "in which the the masses can't stand the regime anymore, and the regime finds it very hard to control them."
Fair enough. I do too and for much the same reasons, (deprivation*, anger, lack of political space). He also believes
...fighting Saddam Hussein will greatly help this enemy [radical Islam] rather than set him back. This will be true even if the war is successful, let alone if it turns out to be unsuccessful
but he doesn't argue the point. Instead he describes the common conditions in Middle Eastern states favourable to the recruitment of people to the radical islamist cause but doesn't show a connection between this and the danger of attacking Hussein, the most brutal of ME rulers, as a cause of increased recruitment.
He describes 9/11 as "terror as propaganda-by-action" and as a recruitment instrument for pan-islamism: the Holy Cause has struck and punished the proclaimed enemy who will strike back injuring innocent bystanders who will then become "more radical in their feelings and be more susceptible to recruitment." But some bystanders will blame the terrorists for their misfortune and the injuries. It doesn't appear that the Afghanistan venture increased al Qaeda's recruitment and the US actually killed and injured very few bystanders.
Attacking Saddam Hussein's regime unavoidably will kill and injure some some innocent civilians but will it actually increase (eg) al Qaeda recruitment? There is a parallel to Afghanistan. It's clear the Iraq regime is feared and hated about as much as the Taliban were by Afghan folk.
His argument in face of evidence is not strong.
I think his terror as propaganda-by-action argument has wrong assumptions. As bin Laden mentions, "the people like a strong horse." They like a winner. or, at least, respect him and are less likely to pitch themselves against him, or join those that do. The idea behind 9/11 is punishment terrorism and in this the triumphant act itself is the recruitment instrument, especially if there is no effective response from the victim. The response has been reasonably effective, so far, (although not in a long term sense I'll try to get to, if the late night oil doesn't run out).
Fighting terror is a delicate matter, and there is little sign that it has been understood in Washington.
Actually there has been quite a lot said by US leadership about how much of the so called War on Terror is invisible, fought on the margins, etc. I think he's just not right here.
Margalit is Israeli and sees the Iraq matter from his POV there but I'm not sure he is representative of the common Israeli view. I'm amazed by the following:
I find it puzzling that my fellow Israelis find the temptation to support this war irresistible. Given the immediate danger to Israel, it is a temptation Israelis should resist in their own interest.
Jewish history has been that of pogroms and persecution as is that of the Iraqi people at the hands of Hussein, who also supports folk who kill Israelis. Simply, there is lots of sympathy for ordinary Iraqis and hatred of Hussein. They're willing to take a chance on not being too badly hurt by a possible attack by him.
There is very little patience now with moral commentators concerned about the damage a war will do to the Iraqi people. But recall that as a result of the Gulf War, which seemed to most of the world a huge video game, some 150,000 Iraqi civilians were killed. One can only guess how many civilians will be killed as a result of the coming war, but there will be many, and this is another good reason to spare the Iraqis from liberation by guided missiles.
Actually, if the US goes in, they will be liberated by soldiers on the ground supported by airpower. But that's a quibble. How many Iraqis has Hussein killed and exiled? No matter how badly such a war goes it's unlikely the US wouls kill even 5% of that number. Also, this guy should talk to Iraqis who don't have minders - nearly all of them think a US invasion is a good to do despite the unavoidable death and injury.
Margalit is on better ground here, although there are some aspects I don't think are correct:
As for the "right" war, it should respond to an Islamic world on the verge of a "revolutionary situation." This, rather than terror, is the main problem that the world faces today; terror is a nasty symptom of this situation. The global economy has torn apart the social and economic safety nets in Islamic societies. In many countries it was left to Islamist political organizations, whether in Egypt, Pakistan, Gaza, or elsewhere, to provide a safety net: this too became propaganda-by-action, and often successful action at that. I find it hard to believe that any ideology, except some benign version of Islam, can successfully compete both against the mukhabarat regimes and against the menacing Islamism of bin Laden. The ideology that will address both the prospects and the dreams of the people in these countries cannot be imposed or manipulated from the outside; but it can and should be helped from the outside.
If I have time, I'll take a shot at this tomorrow. |
