Examines issues of the day against a triumvirate of core principles: liberty, responsibility and justice.
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This is where you stick random tidbits of information about yourself.
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Thursday, February 06, 2003
Now that U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell has clearly demonstrated the nature of the threat posed by Saddam Hussein's Iraqi regime, opponents of American policy are forced to either move further away from the center of the debate or change their positions and support a use of force against Iraq. At the same time, the arguments against a militarily-backed disarmament of Iraq are becoming increasingly absurd. Below is a point-by-point refutation of every objection to the forcible disarmament of Iraq. What is most disconcerting, is that this does not require unmatched genius to divine, but simply a willingness to see the truth and learn from history.
� Inspectors have not uncovered a "smoking gun": This argument reveals its proponent to be utterly ignorant of the purpose of having inspectors. Weapons inspectors are not detectives or scavenger hunters. Their job is not to find proscribed weapons, precursor materials or delivery systems. This point bears repeating: the job of UN weapons inspectors is not to seek and uncover find proscribed weapons, precursor materials or delivery systems. UN resolutions require Iraq to disarm itself (among other requirements) and the inspection team is simply to verify that this is taking place. Contrary to the cooperative behavior of other nations that have undergone UN-supervised disarmament, Iraq has waged a relentless campaign to deceive inspectors. In point of fact, this lack of cooperation itself constitutes a "material breach" under Security Council Resolution 1441, which necessitates "serious consequences."
� War-hawks demand that Iraq prove a negative (that it does not have WMD), which is impossible: Opponents of a tough stance point to this stricture, proving a negative, as proof that administration hawks are seeking war regardless of the situation. Again, they forget that the burden of proof under international law is on Iraq to prove that it has disarmed, not on the UN to prove that it possesses weapons. Weapons inspectors were ejected from Iraq by Saddam's regime in 1998 and, at that time, Iraq had in its inventory the ingredients for 25,000 liters of anthrax (8,500 liters of which had been brewed), 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin and 38,000 tons of nerve agents. The burden is not the negative of proving that this contraband does not exist, but the positive of proving that it has been destroyed. This also applies to the thousands of missiles, artillery shells and bombs of which Iraq is in illegal possession.
� Give inspections more time: After 5 years of UN inspections, the above mentioned weapons were declared by Iraq. Yes, even with inspectors combing that nation for half a decade, it had an operational and advanced WMD program. For 12 years, since the end of the Gulf War, Iraq has been under UN sanctions and inspections, and the result is that Iraq maintains a deadly inventory of WMD. There is nothing to indicate that a further several months will be any different. In a country as large as it is, with a program of deception honed by 12 years of practice, there is no guarantee that inspectors will account for all the illegal materials. And, again, that is not their job. Furthermore, what is to be done if a �smoking gun� is found? Iraq kicked out the inspectors in 1998 and the world did nothing � until President Bush single-handedly forced the UN to take seriously its own resolutions.
� Use force only if the UN sanctions it: Those Americans who make this argument are explicitly, whether they know it consciously or believe in it at a subconscious level, asserting that the United States delegate its right to self-defense to other nations. Either Iraq is a threat to the U.S., in which case we ought to use force to eliminate that threat if it is the only means remaining, or it is not a threat. To require UN approval is to say that even if America faces peril, we should only act if the UN agrees. If, on the other hand, there is a situation that does not threaten America, but the UN calls for action, adherents of this line of thinking would send Americans to fight and die when it is not in our national interest simply because the UN demands it. Such a relinquishment of our sovereignty is dangerous.
� North Korea is a much more imminent threat: This argument unwittingly defeats itself. It is the very problem with North Korea that we are trying to avert by taking action against Iraq. If anyone has any illusions about what nuclear blackmail looks like, they need only glance towards Pyongyang. The limitation of our options in dealing with the North's "Dear Leader" arise out of its possession of an atomic bomb and the flexibility we have in dealing with Saddam will narrow as his WMD capabilities mature. Our removal of Saddam�s regime will go a long way towards guaranteeing that we do not face two North Koreas.
� Containment worked until now and it should be continued: The policy of containment, like the policy of deterrence, worked in the Cold War because the United States and its allies faced a relatively pragmatic opponent in the Soviet Union. Mutually assured destruction worked in that scenario, but not in a post-September 11 world where terrorists without a homeland can maneuver in the darkness. Besides, MAD cannot work against suicidal fanatics anyway. In terms of diplomatic isolation and economic pressure, it is the very nations advocating continued containment that did the most to undermine the containment of Iraq in the past. France, characteristically, routinely pressed for the removal or softening of sanctions and constantly did Saddam's bidding on the Security Council. While there is little to admire in France, one has to remark at the gall of Chirac in advocating a policy that his nation has been subverting since its inception.
� Iraq does not pose an imminent threat: The potential for dictators possessing WMD to engage terrorist groups as proxy agents and human delivery systems represents a fundamental change in the national security calculus and demands new doctrines, such as that unveiled by President Bush in his speech at West Point and by the latest national security strategy document released. Deadly and horrific they may be, attacks such as Pearl Harbor and September 11 are not debilitating and the human toll, while exorbitantly costly, is manageable compared to a WMD attack. In the past, Saddam has consorted with known terrorists and sponsored terrorist acts. While he is not the world�s leading supporter of terrorism, he represents the most imminent threat for the feared nexus between WMD and terrorism to materialize. We can no longer, based on these new rules, wait for a smoking gun, because that would mean it had already been fired.
� Give peace a chance: The shorthand language used in this debate, that there is a choice to be made between peace and war, is misleading and deleterious. There is no such choice. Saddam has proven himself incapable of meeting his obligations voluntarily, which means he will have to be disarmed by force. The question is not peace or war. The question is war now, on America�s terms, or war later, on Saddam�s terms. History is replete with bloody lessons of the catastrophic price to be paid for failure to deal with threats early, when they are most easily eliminated. The mindless chants for peace are nice, but fail to account for the fact that Saddam has absolutely no intention of disarming.
In the end, there will never be a satisfactory rationale for military action to opponents of war. And that is fine. If Jacques Chirac wants to assert that war always means failure, it is his, and likeminded people�s, right to do so. But they then bear the responsibility of explaining how inaction will yield a more favorable outcome than action. They must illustrate how history is an inappropriate teacher this time around. There is little debate about the lengths to which Saddam has gone to evade UN inspections and ignore UN demands, or the nature of the threat he represents. What is being debated is the appropriate response to that threat. For the dwindling anti-enforcement crowd led by Chirac, Pelosi and Kennedy, passing the test for military action necessitates an act of Iraqi aggression so overt that, in this day and age, it would be irresponsible for America to wait for it to appear.
2/06/2003 12:43:00 AM
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