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Fiasco, III
Don't be distracted by Alex's libertarian rhetoric on foreign
policy. It would not produce a very libertarian world. It would lead
to um...fiasco. Ask around in Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, or for that
matter Honest Europe. That's most of the free world. Can anyone else protect Singapore or New Zealand?
Had Alex his way, the first Gulf War never would have happened. Saddam and his sons would rule Iraq, owning both Kuwaiti oil revenue and nuclear weapons, and probably itching for a rematch with Iran. Sound like fun?
It is palatable to oppose the second Gulf War only because we fought the first.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on August 5, 2006 at 01:19 AM in History | Permalink
Comments
Herr Cowen,
There was a Gulf War before the ‘first Gulf War”: That was the Iran-Iraq war. In that first Gulf War, we provided weaponry and technology to Mr. Hussein to create/sustain the monster…..reminds me of another gentleman we trained….Osama something.
The Kuwait invasion was bold and vulgar but Iraq’s claim to the emirate is not entirely unfounded.
Posted by: Chairman Mao at Aug 5, 2006 2:01:18 AM
I hope you realize how counterfactual this is.
You're supposing (I think; it is hard to judge your argument) that absent military intervention by the US, (1) Saddam would still be in power (very likely true), (2) he'd have nuclear weapons to bargain with (I frankly have no idea where this claim comes from, Tyler can prove me wrong) and (3) that somehow the Iraq we've made is better than what came before it (While I was no fan of the old ruler, I think it would take a carefully tuned eye to think that things have improved, or are going to soon).
Tyler, I grant you (1). Do you support (2) and (3)?
Posted by: fishbane at Aug 5, 2006 2:16:05 AM
Yes, because then we had the hearts and minds of the Shiites theren and suicide bombing was not in fashion then. I think the best chance was in the early 90s for the US to intervene. However, Bush Sr. decided not to and the window passed. The last adventure of Bush Jr. was a folly and everybody should see that by now...
Posted by: Max at Aug 5, 2006 7:06:23 AM
I'm of the old "power" school and the well being of the Iraq
population is besides the point. The only way to judge the
war is did it serve US interest and improve the US ability to
get the rest of the world to act in US interest.
We are seeing the answer to that in Lebanon and Israel right now
where our ablity to influence events is massive reduced from
what it was in the previous mideast conflicts.
The war is bad because it has hurt US interest and ability to
project our power over that and other parts of the world.
Posted by: spencer at Aug 5, 2006 8:15:30 AM
Actually, it does not follow that the first Gulf War would never have happened under a stricter interpretation of the Constitution. With the knowledge that the alternative to a declaration of war was doing nothing, Congress may well have voted for just such a declaration.
If you want to undermine that principle as a protection against unnecessary wars, remember that the latest Gulf War also passed a vote in Congress. So it might not be the barrier either of you think it is.
Posted by: Sandy Smith at Aug 5, 2006 9:08:21 AM
Tyler is still waiting for the WMD to be found.
Posted by: Alex Tabarrok at Aug 5, 2006 10:06:24 AM
That's a very shallow post from a such a smart guy.
I certainly caught that Alex did not say "no war" or "no government." He said "a high bar."
"the likelihood of disaster is so great that the bar needs to be set very high."
... I mean what does your rant mean Tyler, that a "low" bar is appropriate?
Posted by: odograph at Aug 5, 2006 10:13:10 AM
Tyler, why are you letting your alter-ego Tyrone post under your name? How embarrassing!
Posted by: Kevin B. O'Reilly at Aug 5, 2006 10:19:08 AM
Tyler, that seems like an unusually dismissive post from you. If Alex had his way, I'd assume the US would never had propped up Hussein in the first place, nor would it have engaged in extensive interference in the Middle East over the past fifty years. People will commonly object to libertarian views by saying, "How will this weak government deal with problem X?" But this question misses the point. The proper response is, at least sometimes, "It won't create problem X to begin with, so it won't have to deal with it." Of course, libertarians can be a little too optimistic about how many X's are the result solely of the US failing to follow more libertarian policies.
Posted by: Jason at Aug 5, 2006 10:31:23 AM
I think you should not talk so authoritatively about war from the comfort of your home when it is clear that you do not understand and feel the devastation that it engenders and the lives that it destroys.
Posted by: fsr at Aug 5, 2006 10:41:59 AM
Thank you, Tyler, for injecting a much-needed note of moderation into the discussion.
Kent Guida
Posted by: Kent Guida at Aug 5, 2006 10:51:05 AM
Alex wrote: "Tyler is still waiting for the WMD to be found."
You aren't watching enough TV: WMD were found; albeit degraded, but WMD
is WMD. Also as I understand it, once one has the human capital to
make some of these WMD, making more is a snap. Sadam's Manson-like
cult had the human capital, and had a record of using them (even on
civilians). Sadam interfered with UN inspections and violate "no fly"
zone restrictions, etc.
Posted by: jim at Aug 5, 2006 11:00:20 AM
I'll second Kent. Fishbane, the nuke claim comes from what I remember of how surprisingly advanced Iraq's circa GWI program was when they went in after the liberation of Kuwait. I don't recall exactly how far along it was, but it was much farther than anyone thought possible. Add fifteen years and the increased money and economic influence/protection of having Kuwait's oil added to Iraq's...
Whining about support for Iraq in the war against Iran is silly. We didn't want Iran to win! The best realistic outcome for the US would have been for eternal stalemate. Unfortunately Saddam got bored and decided to go after Kuwait and then dedicate himself to pissing us off. But letting/risking Khomeini have a big win wouldn't have been a better outcome.
fsr wins the dumbest comment award, however. I don't understand and feel the devasation that drugs or AIDS do to those who suffer them. Am I incompetent to hold policy opinions on whether and how the drug war should be fought, or whether my money should be taken and spent on AIDS research rather than other causes (or myself)? It is in fact those emotionally overwrought and too involved in an issue that are incompetent to judge an issue. We don't go to war to maximize the mental health of those involved or that their families.
Posted by: Dylan at Aug 5, 2006 11:05:38 AM
I don't understand Tyler's post. I can't even tell if it's serious. I was lost at "Ask around in Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, or for that matter Honest Europe." Do they provide good case studies in the failure of libertarian foreign policy?
Spencer wrote: "I'm of the old "power" school and the well being of the Iraq
population is besides the point ... The war is bad because it has hurt US interest and ability to project our power over that and other parts of the world."
I think you'd have a stronger argument (as in, likely to convince more people) if you didn't divorce those issues. The war's having hurt our interests is one reason it's wrong. The war's fubarring Iraq is another. It's objectionable for a war-making population to not care about the well being of the warred-on population; that's the sort of logic that's used to justify outright invasions.
FSR wrote: "I think you should not talk so authoritatively about war from the comfort of your home ..." I don't think that objection makes sense. It's not like having a bomb dropped on your house makes you well-informed. In fact it probably does great damage to your rationality.
Posted by: Jeff Brown at Aug 5, 2006 11:19:49 AM
What could possibly have been wrong with a Saddam-Iran rematch? That 8 year war was the best one of the century. Two evil regimes duking it out instead of screwing with everyone else in the region. Everyone profited from that war except the participants. Its just too bad it didn't last longer.
Posted by: Dave Fobare at Aug 5, 2006 11:24:34 AM
Saddam and his sons ruling Iraq would be a faster path to moderate open government than what we chose. Seriously what makes Saddam so bad? That he was against Isreal? I hate to say it but the people of Iraq are not going to permit a government that does not oppose Isreal. That Saddam killed thousands of his own people? Iraq is not a united nation, the Sunnis hate the Shi'ites and the Arabs hate the Kurds. They hate each other enough that they are willing to kill US soldiers, women and children of their group, and themselves for the privelege of killing one of the other teams. The US has found in neccessary to kill maybe hundreds of thousands of people to try and keep them from killing us and each other, I am unwilling to hold Saddam Hussien to a higher standard.
Saddam initiated aggression against Iran but he did so with the blessing and aid of the United States and USSR. Saddam used chemical weapons, I know this is a taboo but chemical weapons are not in any significant way worse than conventional weapons. I don't have a huge preference when given the choice between being set on fire, blown up, or poisoned to death.
Saddam also did plenty of good things, he gave women more rights than almost any middle eastern "democracy", he abolished most Sharia law courts. He spearheaded a very successful literacy and education campaign, he improved infrastructure. If Hussien was born in 1957 he would likely be amoung the US's top choices to lead Iraq.
Posted by: M Foody at Aug 5, 2006 11:37:16 AM
Why does jim keep throwing around the phrase "Manson-like cult?" Where the heck is he getting that from? Saddam was a bad dude, but he sure wasn't a religious fanatic with a cult following--he was a very irreligious secularist with a lot of power that kept people in line. The fact that Saddam tortured and killed innocent people was bad, but I'm not so sure that the average person is any better off now with the chance to get killed not just by Saddam but by a Sunni or Shii death squad or some other random militia or by the US marines, or by corrupt Iraqi police, or by common criminals and thieves. Sure, the Kurds are better off, but the average Iraqi is probably not.
Posted by: JKC at Aug 5, 2006 11:43:23 AM
The key question, of course, is what WMD path Saddam was on right before the *first* Gulf War. It is now commonly recognized that he was quite close to building nuclear weapons. Of course Alex is free to raise his hand and say "I endorse the first Gulf War. It is above the bar I set." Or Alex could admit what kind of Middle East his foreign policy views would lead to. Saddam received support from the US, but we are hardly responsible for his becoming a monster; the libertarian move of "we created the problem in the first place" won't wash here. Alex, which is it? I am waiting...
Posted by: Tyler Cowen at Aug 5, 2006 11:44:19 AM
Ask around in Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, or for that matter Honest Europe. That's most of the free world. Can anyone else protect Singapore or New Zealand?
Underlying Prof. Cowen's argument is the unspoken idea that totalitarianism is efficient and easy, and that totalitarian regimes don't suffer political pressure or economic destruction from imperial policies. This idea is at odds with almost everything else written on this site, and, once said, certainly isn't what Prof. Cowen actually believes.
Imperialism rots the core of the country, destroys it utterly, and terror can only prop up the center for so long. Eventually it collapses on itself. There's no reason to think that wide-ranging "free world" intervention is needed to protect countries from imperialism. Indeed, by containing imperialism instead of letting it flame out, the suffering of the people under the empire may be prolonged.
Of course, fundamentally, libertarianism is about individuals, not states. At the heart is this one truth: no one has the right to tax me. Period. Not to defend Kuwait, not to build highways, not to pay for medical care.
- Josh
Posted by: Wild Pegasus at Aug 5, 2006 11:46:08 AM
Q: how many comments above are based on the false dichotomy that the only choices were (a) let Saddam do what he wants, or (b) invade with boots on ground?
Posted by: odograph at Aug 5, 2006 12:37:20 PM
Hindsight is always 20/20. Hindsight bias causes people to ignore the totality of the circumstances in the past. Many of the comments provide a good illustration of this.
Chairman Mao and Jason forget that there for much of the past fifty years there was a small entity called the soviet union active in the mideast. The choice was not iran or iraq the decision was how to juggle iran, iraq and the soviet union. By the way Mao bonus points of the not good kind for your "Herr cowen" crack at the start of your comment.
Posted by: TJIT at Aug 5, 2006 12:48:34 PM
Fishbane,
You said,
"(While I was no fan of the old ruler, I think it would take a carefully tuned eye to think that things have improved, or are going to soon)."
Which conveniently ignores the fact that hussein started two wars that led to hundreds of thousands of deaths, substantial destabilization of the area, and probable strengthening of the hardline elements within iran.
The fact that hussein is no longer in power means there is little chance that he will be able to start a third war in the region. This by itself is a substantial improvement of conditions in the mideast.
Posted by: TJIT at Aug 5, 2006 12:55:10 PM
M Foody,
You win the entertainingly crazy comment award with your statement below.
"Saddam and his sons ruling Iraq would be a faster path to moderate open government than what we chose. Seriously what makes Saddam so bad?"
The fact that saddam started two wars in the region as mentioned in a previous comment is part of what made him bad for iraq and bad for the region, there are many others. Furthermore, the idea that saddam and his two ex sons would provide a faster path to moderate open government is simply laughable.
Posted by: TJIT at Aug 5, 2006 1:05:56 PM
Tyler and Alex,
In asking whether we should have a libertarian foreign policy, there is some difficulty in answering the question by an appeal to counterfactual consequences. I'm sure you're aware of that.
But the difficulty is that every time you say, "Yes, but if we hadn't intervened in X, given circumstances Y, a non-libertarian outcome would have occurred." Alex can usually reply, "Yeah, but Y was caused by intervention X-1, and so if intervention X-1 hadn't occurred, then Y would not have obtained, and so intervention X would not be necessary."
And then Tyler comes back with, "Yeah, but intervention X-1 occurred due to circumstances Y-1! And we could have stopped circumstances Y-1!"
Ya'll can travel on back for awhile, I bet.
The question I think you should both ask is this: What is a reasonable circumstance Y-N (for a reasonably small N) and a reasonable intervention X-N (for a reasonably small N) to start from? Otherwise, I don't see how to resolve the conflict one way or the other.
I also have a small bone to pick with Tyler: Your argument seems to be that if the United States hadn't fought the first Gulf War we'd have a less libertarian *world*. But it's not the job of the United States government to promote liberty abroad, is it? I sure hope it isn't. I mean, isn't the point of a libertarian foreign policy be to promote liberty *for the United States* and not *for the entire world*?
You might think the goal of a foreign policy is to promote global liberty and not national liberty (at least in circumstances where increasing the former doesn't involve decreasing the latter, right?), but I'd like to see that defended. Perhaps in a post!
Posted by: Rhadamanthus at Aug 5, 2006 1:55:54 PM
'Saddam received support from the US...'
Very little, actually. Saddam was a Soviet client, he had MIGs, T series Soviet tanks, and probably chemical weapons assistance. His Mirages and artillery came from France.
Reagan reluctantly shared intelligence with Saddam when it was obvious Iran was going to defeat him. We gave him almost nothing in the way of weaponry. Our stance was that we wanted neither Iran or Iraq to win their war.
Btw, in Norman Schwarzkopf's book, he details the meeting in which the King of Saudi Arabia gave Dick Cheney permission to bring in American troops to confront Saddam in 1990. He astonished Schwarzkopf by the speed with which he made the decision once Cheney showed the King satellite photos of Saddam's tanks being readied for a push into Saudi Arabia from Kuwait.
With Saudi's oil, Saddam would definitely been able to get nuclear weapons. He nearly had them anyway.
Posted by: Patrick R. Sullivan at Aug 5, 2006 2:00:46 PM
First I was only talking about Iraq not the entire middle east. We've destablized Iraq and replaced a modernizing strongman with religious tribalism. I'd say that is a step backward. Our actions have also created greater antagonism towards the west, and diluted our ability to actually face the more important Iranian threat.
We wanted Saddam to fight the larger of the two wars. We wanted it because we felt we were concerned about the effect a strong Iran would have on the region. I'm not of the opinion that the war was in anybodys best interest, but the United States and the USSR both believed that Iraq weakening Iran was a good thing.
Posted by: M Foody at Aug 5, 2006 2:12:17 PM
Maybe my memory is playing tricks on me, but I thought we fought GW1 as a result of Iraq invading Kuwait and threatening further adventures in Saudi Arabia, not because we knew about his nuclear program. So the fact that we stoped his advanced nuclear program looks a lot more like good luck than like clever policy choices. If he'd not invaded Kuwait, maybe Iraq would be another acknowledge nuclear power, like Pakistan and North Korea. I'm not so clear how this is an argument for an activist foreign policy. ("If you invade a lot of people for a lot of reasons, you'll often find them up to no good in their countries?")
Fighting the cold war containment battles did lead ultimately to some good--South Korea and Taiwan are apparently pretty nice places to live because of it. But it's worth noting how often things didn't work too well--the proxy wars in Africa and South America didn't generally result in decent places to live. And neither South Korea nor Taiwan started as genuinely democratic regimes.
Posted by: albatross at Aug 5, 2006 3:09:43 PM
"I'm of the old "power" school and the well being of the Iraq population is besides the point. The only way to judge the war is did it serve US interest and improve the US ability to get the rest of the world to act in US interest."
This say it all, now doesn't it?
Posted by: James at Aug 5, 2006 3:57:06 PM
With so many comments from the "old power" school folk and so much talk about US interests in this thread, this discussion makes me wonder which of the two: Saddam's Iraq or modern US is more dangerous for the rest of the world. US definitely has more popular control over politicians and pacifists, including libertarians, are free to speak their voice. On the other hand, US is much more powerful and has a worse track record: for a random person living on Earth in the last 60 years the chance of dying under US bombs or in a chaos after a US invasion was much higher than of dying from Saddam's or Iranian bombs.
Posted by: mic at Aug 5, 2006 6:06:25 PM
mic,
Where do the massive amounts of death and destruction the Soviet Union, China and other communist regimes have caused in the past 60 years fit in with your question?
Or is this a case of only deaths caused by western democracies count, totalitarian regimes with no human rights get a pass?
Posted by: TJIT at Aug 5, 2006 7:24:46 PM
@TJIT:
"Where do the massive amounts of death and destruction the Soviet Union, China and other communist regimes have caused in the past 60 years fit in with your question?"
They mostly kept their terror within their borders, with the exception of Eastern Europe. I think that was which mic was refering to.
Secondly, making quick asumptions about others does not really further the discussion.
Posted by: JSK at Aug 5, 2006 7:50:32 PM
Having supported the First Iraq War and the Afghan War, but not the Kosovo War or the Second Iraq War, I think my track record is pretty decent. So, let me say that the libertarian-militarists, like Instapundit, who supported the Second Iraq War have a lot of explaining to do. In general, a lot of the pundits who supported the Second Iraq War should be laughed out of their jobs.
Posted by: Steve Sailer at Aug 5, 2006 9:04:00 PM
I don't think we should have gotten involved in either Iraq war. Screw Iraq and the rest of the Middle East. Until their crap involves us, we shouldn't be involved with them.
I noticed one of the comments implied that the U.S is responsible for bin Laden. Ayman al Zawahiri actually wrote a book that described their experience in the Afghan jihad against the Soviet Union. It's called "Knights Under the Prophet's Banner". In it he denies any connection between their organization and the U.S, C.I.A or I.S.I and asserts instead that their money came from donations from other Arabs. Osama himself was already very wealthy before he went over and that was one reason he was as prominent a figure as he was.
Posted by: TGGP at Aug 5, 2006 9:42:29 PM
JKC,
Hey, Manson-like cult seems appropriate to me. Sadam's sons were feeding people into
shredding machines feet first so that more pain would be inflicted. Manson's followers
butchered a pregnant woman, Sharon Tate, among others. The common thread is butchery,
get it, butchery; you know sadistic killing of innocents. Get it now?
And this should be, as you say, "thrown around". And there is little doubt that the
people of Iraq are far better served under the protection of the US Army than being:
fed into shredding machines, hearded into rape rooms, subjected to WMB (the Kurds, remember).
Have you forgotten about the mass graves that were unearthed after the US Army arrived?
Who were those people in the graves? The were Iraqis, many who just disappeared in the
night (probably after saying the wrong thing to the wrong person, etc.). For you to say that
there is probably little difference for the average Iraqi now compared to under Sadam
is simply absurd.
Posted by: jim at Aug 5, 2006 10:59:35 PM
I'm not as convinced as jim that the average Iraqi is better off now than before we deposed that thug Saddam. The apparent widespread support for the insurgency, especially in the Sunni region, doesn't give much support to that hypothesis. I suspect that the average Sunni is worse off, while the average Shia and Kurd is better off. But even there, my impression is that crime and violence were far less of a problem before the fall of Saddam. I wonder whether most Shia feel more safe in their homes now or with Saddam in power.
And if the country dissolves into civil war, it seems very unlikely that this will be better than what they would have gotten under Saddam. Sometimes, even a nightmarish police state isn't the very worst that can happen to you.
Posted by: albatross at Aug 5, 2006 11:34:06 PM
albatross,
What father wouldn't roll the dice rather than have his daughter in
Sadam's rape rooms (and then off to a mass grave)? Under Sadam what he did was probably not a crime, but only in this sense was the crime rate lower.
If the country disolves things as bad there of course, if it doesn't things are much better than they were there; again, what father wouldn't roll the dice?
Posted by: jim at Aug 6, 2006 12:17:07 AM
Seriously, any of the millions of fathers that never had their daughter in any rape room. I think your main problem in thinking of this issue is confusing a problems outrageousness with its magnitude. The thought of state sanctioned rapes is awful. It bothers me a lot. But the thing is there were probably plenty of people that didn't worry about it happening to them or someone that they loved. And they were right not to worry in the vast majority of cases. Now they have to worry more about crime and faction violence and being colateral damage. These concerns are less outrageous. They don't get my heart pumping the way that torture and rape do. But they are a more real threat for more people. Knowing what I know now I'd like to think that I would be rational enough not to roll the dice on this one.
It is the difference between a shark attack and a deadly allergic reaction to a bee sting.
Posted by: Michael F at Aug 6, 2006 1:26:46 AM
Good Lord, Tyler. You sure threw a cat among the moonbats.
Posted by: Tia at Aug 6, 2006 2:03:35 AM
TGIT, I did not write anything about USSR or China. And I find the claim that USSR was more dangerous than US to a random earthling rather plausible (not so sure about China under Mao). But this is history now. The discussion here is about modern times, when US is much less constrained in their foreign policy.
Posted by: mic at Aug 6, 2006 1:42:09 PM
'We wanted Saddam to fight the larger of the two wars. We wanted it because we felt we were concerned about the effect a strong Iran would have on the region.'
Ridiculous. Jimmy Carter thought he had a deal with Iran to release the hostages in the summer of 1980, when Soviet client state Iraq invaded Iran. That action torpedoed Carter's deal--you can read all about it in his memoir of his presidency; Keeping Faith.
Posted by: Patrick R. Sullivan at Aug 6, 2006 2:10:43 PM
'(not so sure about China under Mao)'
Ask the Tibetans. Or the Russians.
Posted by: Patrick R. Sullivan at Aug 6, 2006 2:13:35 PM
"Saddam received support from the US, but we are hardly responsible for his becoming a monster"
A stronger case could be made for Brazillian responsibility, since Saddam recieved more arms from Brazil than the US.
http://www.queensjournal.ca/article.php?point=vol131/issue1/features/lead2
But let us suppose the lie were true. It would only prove that Saddam is an ingrate as well as a monster. Same with Osama, who is an other person the Hate America First crowd lie about.
Posted by: Steve at Aug 6, 2006 6:55:34 PM
Michael F
Do you have a daughter? If not, then SHUT UP about "knowing what you know". If so, then i strongly urge that you rethink your definition of rationality.
Posted by: jim at Aug 6, 2006 11:44:10 PM
If you want to talk about "likelihood" there is a language that should be used: probability.
What, in Feb/Mar 2003, was your probablistic estimate that Iraq would have nukes within 10 years? (or 5 years)?
For me:
a) no war, 90% Iraq would have nukes (in 10 years)
b) regime change, thru invasion, 1%.
I note that Israel left Lebanon 6 years ago: the Jew-haters have not been building houses and wealth, they've been preparing for war. Saddam would do similarly.
Oil-for-food-scandal stopping (while sanctions remain)?
a) no war, 5%
b) war; 100% (already stopped).
Sanctions continuing?
a) no war, 20% (for 10 years, thru 2013)
If we are going to argue about what would "probably" happen, we should be honest and put our own probablistic estimates about alternative futures. (Isn't there a "market" in such futures? We could even bet...)
Functioning democracy in Iraq?
a) no war, <1%
b) war, 90% (it's arguably not yet functioning; it's quite possible that the 'civil war' allows a strongman to 'bring order to the galaxy')
With my own probabilities, it's no wonder I supported Bush's invasions.
It would have gone better if immediate municipal elections had be held, using ration cards for voter registration, and had elected local tribal leaders; and then the US should give local municipal bond loans to the elected mayors to rebuild as they see fit. (Less for Halliburton/ Bush friends).
It would be MUCH better if geo-districts had been used for US style local district voting, rather than Euro style party lists (leading to sectarian parties).
An oil-trust fund for all registered/ voting Iraqis would have reduced the poverty and the incentive to attack oil facilities.
Posted by: Tom Grey - Liberty Dad at Aug 7, 2006 4:02:11 AM
Tom Grey - Liberty Dad,
“I note that Israel left Lebanon 6 years ago: the Jew-haters have not been building houses and wealth, they've been preparing for war.”
Nonsense. Lebanon underwent an impressive construction and economic boom over the last three years. It had once again become the cultural/entertainment/business hub of the Middle East.
Did they stockpile weapons? Damn straight! Just in case their friendly neighbor to the south decided to launch a third invasion and destruction of the country.
The sanctions and oil-for-food regime was a joke but that is more telling of the UN and Kofi’s son (both corrupt) than it is of Iraq strategy.
“Functioning democracy in Iraq?
a) no war, <1%
b) war, 90% (it's arguably not yet functioning; it's quite possible that the 'civil war' allows a strongman to 'bring order to the galaxy')”
More like:
No war: 60%
War: 60%
The difference: more bloodshed in the war scenario.
Are you equating a strongman with democracy? You must be enamored with G W Bush.
“It would have gone better if immediate municipal elections had be held, using ration cards for voter registration, and had elected local tribal leaders; and then the US should give local municipal bond loans to the elected mayors to rebuild as they see fit. (Less for Halliburton/ Bush friends).
It would be MUCH better if geo-districts had been used for US style local district voting, rather than Euro style party lists (leading to sectarian parties).
An oil-trust fund for all registered/ voting Iraqis would have reduced the poverty and the incentive to attack oil facilities.”
Familiarize yourself with the reality of Iraq. The election methods you mention are interesting but not feasible for the chaos that is Iraq.
Posted by: Chairman Mao at Aug 7, 2006 4:50:12 AM
I won't try to address all the arguments, just one point of fact. You shouldn't rely on arguments about sanctions continuing very long in Iraq. In early 2002 it was clear that almost all the important members of the international community wanted to end sanctions (without ever bothering to put in inspectors). The only reason even inspectors were allowed back in the country was because Bush credibly threatened war, and even then only after we had actually shipped most of the forces in to the Gulf. Without war, the sanctions were not going to continue for much longer.
Posted by: Sebastian Holsclaw at Aug 7, 2006 12:34:59 PM
A U.S. libertarian foreign policy at the time of WWI would have prevented most of this trouble.
Posted by: Sheldon Richman at Aug 8, 2006 8:27:07 AM
Mic,
you said
"I did not write anything about USSR or China."
Which fits the rather consistent pattern among many people who complain about US foreign policy. Any action by the US or other western governments is roundly condemned. Any action by non western governments (Soviet Union, China) is generally ignored or praised.
Mic, you go on to say
"But this is history now. The discussion here is about modern times, when US is much less constrained in their foreign policy."
Which continues the pattern mentioned above. US action gets lots of attention. Actual genocide gets routinely ignored.
Your thesis that the US is more dangerous in recent times ignores the ongoing genocide in Sudan, the genocide in Rwanda, the incipient genocide in Uganda, the ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia.
People who criticize the US also tend to support the use of international institutions to solve some of these problems. Which ignores the utter failure of the UN to deal with any of the above genocides. As icing on the UN incompetence cake we have the slaughter of 7,000 plus muslims in srebenicia that were under UN "protection".
Posted by: TJIT at Aug 8, 2006 10:04:44 AM
"Don't be distracted by Alex's libertarian rhetoric on foreign policy."
And don't be distracted by any libertarian rhetoric coming from Tyler whatsoever -- it's just for show these days.
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Posted by: levan at Sep 12, 2006 3:09:17 AM
