I think quite honestly know one really knew what would happen in Iraq. We may have debated it a lot, but no one was really prepared for the reality. If our best guesses were we that we had a 5% to 10% chance of establishing a democracy… well I wouldn’t bet my money on those odds. I certainly wouldn’t risk my life on those odds.

The argument that we needed to rescue people from Saddam is plausible until you think that it was urgent one year or even one month prior to 9/11 to rescue people from Saddam Hussein and it tied our hands when some really nasty stuff started happening in Darfur and other regions. Yes if Saddam was still in power we might worry more about Sudan and Tibet etc and so on. Perhaps its just how the world is. There will always be someone, somewhere to worry about.

My worry for the people in all these regions is sincere. I’d just rather see us stop violence than see our country be the cause of such violence. I think we our better at maintaining the peace than making Just War and we may be nation builders but we are better at aiding and protecting and coalition building.

It always strikes me as odd that in philosophical and ideological circles, we are still debating Iraq as if we could change the facts as they are. In the most basic of terms, the US Military advanced in Iraq in March of 2003. Although, strategically speaking the military was extremely successful (remember how quickly Baghdad fell), the mismanagement of the other part of the war (the war to win the people of Iraq and create a stable democracy) led to a continuing viscious insurgency which undermines strategic military success and contributes to the prevention of a stable government. The lack of understanding of the vast differences and the long term effects of Saddam’s regime are the other major contributing factor to the lack of stable government. The issue the US government and Americans at large face is what our next step will be. Do we support a candidate to get us out of the war and leave the Iraqi people to sort it out themselves? Do we endorse a candidate who aims to fix the issues we exacerbated by toppling Saddam?

Huang’s original article and rebuttal seem to take the Humanist perspective and imply that we should commit to Iraq. One of his most astute points was that the reasons for “liberating” Iraq are now moot. Whatever they were, however off base they were the original reasons are no longer a valid debate topic, for we are already there. His main weakness lies in the lives of the Iraqi people. Under Saddam they had no freedom and for the most part lived in fear. However, now that Iraq is “liberated” they are still living in fear, poverty and chaos. The other point of contention, is that it is unlikely Saddam would have succeeded in provoking any of Iraq’s neighbors. His power and finances were waning and he had been engaged in a stalemate with Iran for years. Those aside, I agree with Huang in principle.

On the other hand, there is Kelley, who seems to be arguing on a tangent of Huang’s piece. He nitpicks details of Huang’s article, but misses the big picture. He seems to be unconcerned with the American responsibility to the issues military uncovered and worsened. The inability for three distinct groups to live peacefully in Iraq. Which contrary to his implications are not a result of the “invasion”. The deep seeded hatred was present, but dormant under the tyrannical rule of Saddam. There is little doubt that anyone outside of Bush’s closest advisors would say the war is mismanaged. Kelley seems to use this as reasoning to flee and avoid any or all of the responsibility we have to the Iraqi people. Expenses and deaths are all realities of war. The bottom line is no matter how disasterous, we, the US made lives a little worse in Iraq. Ethically and morally we have the responsibility to fix it. I’d like to ask Mr. Kelley what he thinks the appropriate course of action is. Is it ethically right for us to leave?

I agree that we can’t go back and change the fact that we went into Iraq. I think we can’t afford to quit reminding ourselves why we went in becuase we can’t afford another Iraq. So there is so point to remembering that we went in on a lie and we went in with really inadequate preparation and expectations.

Now that we’re there yes we have a responsibility. To say “The bottom line is no matter how disasterous, we, the US made lives a little worse in Iraq.” is a bit like cutting off someone’s arm becuase they had a bad cut and then saying we made it a bit worse. Saddam Hussein was not killing people in any where the numbers that are dying today, the threat of Civil war wasn’t as close, and Iran wasn’t as bold. We the US started off with a glorius idea and we’re just holding on now.

And while I agree a Humanist response might be to support Iraq while it gets a new government, how do we do it? As you Stefanie ask “Do we support a candidate to get us out of the war and leave the Iraqi people to sort it out themselves? Do we endorse a candidate who aims to fix the issues we exacerbated by toppling Saddam? I don’t think either of those answers is likely to work.

I think a civil war is coming. Given that belief , I think we either have to pick sides or get out. So I think getting out may be the best thing we could do if we can maintain humanitarian aid. We need to admit it’s a mess and try to limit further damage by helping those who will be hurt in the upcoming war.

“I think a civil war is coming {…} and we either have to pick a side or get out”. Who are we kidding? A civil war is already here, we just don’t want to admit it. The only thing preventing full-scale violence from springing to the foreground is the American Military presence. The Shi’a-Sunni-Kurd issue has plagued Iraq since it was penciled in on a map after World War I and if it were only Shi’a – Sunni – Kurd, this would be a far less complex issue. Unfortunately, Iraq is full of tribal rivalries, feuds and associations. Luckily, under Saddam Hussein’s 24 year reign, the rivalries and feuds were kept to a minimum. Saddam himself still privileged his own sect (Shi’a) and tribe (the so called Tikriti connection) above all others while clearly discriminating against anyone else. However, his brutal reign prevented most of the animosity from bubbling over.

Saddam was an authoritarian leader and tyrant. Secret police were everywhere and he knew everything. The plethora of statues of him served as a warning not to go beyond the boundaries that he set. Amidst this, the Iraqi people still led normal lives. They had homes, jobs, families, social lives. The excess of state violence (Human Rights Watch and Stanford University estimate Saddam killed 600,000 people in 24 years) meant a virtually non existent crime rate. The Iraqi people may have lived in fear of Saddam, but they were not living in fear of looting, rioting, car bombing or any other event common in a war torn region. Today, most Iraqi people do not have the necessities in life, from clean water to a job. Additionally, in the five years since the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom, it is estimated that somewhere between 86,-89,000 civilians have been killed. Additionally, we killed any semblance of order as well. We have a responsibility to return things to normal.

There are no simple answers to the Iraq question. However, there is the ethical question of what to do. If we leave Iraq and force the Iraqis sort it out themselves, it will be a brutal struggle with a minimum life of ten years. Think Somolia, with fewer tribal loyalties and higher stakes. It’s difficult to pick a side or get out. The US has never been good at picking the right side. We pick the “safe” (from a national security point of view) side, which ultimately turns out to be the wrong side, then it blows up in our face. If we pull out, it wouldn’t be possible to give aid to the Iraqi people. We’d be giving it to the equivalent of war lords. If we stay in Iraq, it may take twenty to fifty years to construct a working bureaucracy. Ethically, it is our responsibility to help in establishing a government.

We forget how many people, myself included, originally supported military action. Everyone now says how ridiculous it is that we believed there were WMDs in Iraq, but at the time, there was every reason to believe. Including the fact that Saddam had WMDs of the chemical variety at the end of the 1991 Gulf War. Naturally he was ordered to destroy them and never recreate them, but Saddam rarely follwed International demands. Remembering we went into Iraq with flawed information does not ensure a lack of flawed information in the future. In fact remembering does very little good, unless we choose to actively prevent a lack of education in the future.

A common catchphrase amongst academics is “Hindsight is 20/20.” This catchphrase is especially relevant to most events since 2001. However, I find the catchphrase to be more of a warning about perspective. Perspective is a powerful tool and essentially creates our worldviews. The more we learn, our perspective changes. Ironically, we very rarely remember what our perspective regarding certain events was years later. This is problematic when dealing with certain issues, like Iraq and national security. Unfortunately for us, we never are aware of the consequences before we make the original decision. For example, Iran wasn’t so bold before because of the long standing competition for most powerful and feared nation they had with Iraq. When we eliminated the Saddam dictatorship, we set the scene for Iran to be more influential. If only we knew then what we know now.

Stefanie, I think you make some good points about how we weren’t aware of the consequences before we made the original decision. Given that I retract my statement about getting out and giving aid or choosing a side. I haven’t thought it through particualarly well and so I agree first and foremost lets think before we act.

I don’t know if we can stay for 10 years or if we can really get a government in place in that time, but if we can get enough evidence that that is the most reasonable course then it may be the way we have to go. I would like to see more UN involvement etc (even though it was the US fault) so it seems less like we’re colonizing Iraq and perhaps in that way more being done to allow Arab and Muslim input into the handling of the region.

The whole USer military/imperialist/colonialist regime decided to take down Iraq within 5 minutes of bin Laden’s gentlemanly reminder that many, many Muslims abhorred the idea of USer military forces in Saudi in such proximity to Mecca and Medina.

“We” will be in Iraq until hell freezes over–or until Pakistan, or Turkmenistan, or Uzbekistan, or Kazakhstan offers “us/US” military conveniences (air bases, mostly) suitable for the exertion of USer “influence” (down bomb-sights) in that part of Central Asia and the Caspian Sea region where “we,” the Chinese, the Russians, and the Indians are competing over the last really big, mainly unexploited pool of oil left in world.

Imho, that was the first of three motives for the ICORP (Invasion, Conquest, Occupation, Rape & Pillage) of Iraq, the other two being to undo the ‘intemperate’ deals Saddam Hussein’s government had struck with non-US interests to exploit Iraqi oil, and to eliminate Iraq as a threat to Israel (the latter of which will funally be accomplished by the partitoning of Iraq into three fiercely competitive, balkanized ’states.’

Jende Huang (2008-03-18) in replying to “A Case of Invasion” objects to my implication that “liberal hawks” (however defined) applied no “rigorous or critical thought” in the run-up to the war. Indeed, there was little of that kind of thinking anywhere. One example, the inspections. Each week there were more inspectors; each week there was less, if any, uninspected territory. A probability curve could have been created from the continued weekly negative reports, that probability approaching zero. Iraq was large but not infinitely so. There were about 1700 inspectors. When they returned in late November, 2002 they were given complete cooperation by Saddam’s administration. Dr. Hans Blix, head of the UN inspection team stated in early March 2003 that in a few weeks he would be able to issue a statement indicating a close to zero probability.

The infamous “aluminum tubes” was another example of non-thinking let alone “critical” thinking. Consider all, the following were known shortly after that subject arose. Those tubes had been purchased by Iraq on the open market before (it was not a secret buy), they were in Iraq’s parts inventory and the dimensions were identical to one of their other rockets (Italian origin). If that was not enough a simple call to a senior techie at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory would have done it.

Finally, I missed a typo in the last paragraph; there are 5 million orphans in Iraq not 5000.

Lisa’s (2008-03-18) remark that our attention to Iraq took away resources and thus the possibility of sending help to Darfur and other distressed regions was well made.

Stepfanie (2008-03-19) bought into the administration’s representation of an Iraq where the people “had no freedom and for the most part lived in fear.” They have She might want to inquire more deeply into the “status” of the Iraqi people paying particular attention to the role of women. She is correct in recognizing that Saddam was not capable of “provoking any of Iraq’s neighbors.” These exact appraisals were made by both Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell before they were given their marching orders. She misrepresents my writing by claiming I use the catastrophic blunders as the reason for leaving Iraq; nowhere did I address what we should do now or when.

She comments, “the military was extremely successful (remember how quickly Baghdad fell).” This was not unexpected; the most powerful military that ever existed on the planet invaded a second-world country that 1.) had been in a vicious eight-year war (one million casualties) with Iran (we sold equipment and reagents for making poison gases to both sides) and 2.) was soundly beaten while retreating from a disastrous invasion of Kuwait (an invasion for which Saddam rightfully believed we had given him permission).

Lisa (2008-03-19) correctly concluded that “a civil war is coming.” Indeed, Maliki’s attempt to take control of Basra is likely Iraq’s Fort Sumter.

Stefanie (2008-03-20) is all around correct; their civil war is already here. She recognized that “the Iraqi people still led normal lives” under Saddam. “They had homes, jobs, families, social lives.” She is right to remind people that now “most Iraqi people do not have the necessities of life, from clean water to a job.” Readers should also be reminded that a decade of extreme economic sanctions were responsible for Iraq’s crippled infrastructure resulting in a paucity of clean water and sewerage, as well as the untimely deaths of perhaps 500,000 children. Madeleine Albright (to her everlasting shame) thought that number to be “a fair price.”

She is mistaken in writing “there was every reason to believe” that “there were WMDs in Iraq.” And wrong to state “we went into Iraq with flawed information.” We invaded Iraq not as a result of flawed information but because of a lying, deceitful, malignant propaganda campaign that would have made Goebbels proud.

She concludes by writing “If only we knew then what we know now.” The great sadness is that we did know then what we know now but not enough people knew it.

Woody (2008-03-24) is to be congratulated for remembering that the primary motive for bin Ladin’s attack was the presence of American military in Saudi Arabia. His “gentlemanly reminder” was successful; our military is no longer there.

I close with this paragraph sent to me by a friend, a physician and scholar:

“The “liberation” of Iraq by the US is hubris squared! Only ignorance of history and cultures would make one believe that a Muslim society would be thankful for its “liberation” by a Christian military force? What they need is help in rebuilding schools, hospitals, medical services, power plants–help from volunteers, not from soldiers in combat boots.”

As to what we should do now with and in Iraq I offer this link. If it doesn’t open directly try Ctrl-click or find it at Information Clearinghouse. The title says it all. I concur.

Click here: Gen. William Odom: Rapid Withdrawal Is Only Solution

We can’t unspill the milk (blood, really), but we can learn from past errors. Maybe.

The sponsorship of Saddam Hussein by the US as a proxy warrior has as context the Iranian Revolution, in which a theocratic, anti-west, anti-US movement gained control of a national government. Saddam’s interests coincided with those of the US govt, temporarily.

The Iranian Revolution itself has context, in this case, decades of brutal rule by the Shah of Iran, whom the US installed after the CIA carried out a campaign to scuttle the government of Mohammed Mossadegh in 1953. Mossadegh’s main offense, it is now apparent, was his opposition to giving British Petroleum monopoly control of Iran’s oil resources. Partial Iranian control was propagandized as communistic confiscation, so as to justify the overthrow.

The BIG past error we’re still getting fallout from was, of course, precipitously toppling a government the US found objectionable and installing a “friendlier” one (though not friendly at all to its opponents), including training SAVAK “interrogators”, which was a betrayal of America’s supposedly democratic values. More than 50 years on, the lingering effects of that colossal act of state sabotage continue to echo forward to the present day.

Other than learning from a two-generation-old decision, what about today?

Unfortunately, we will likely be stuck in Iraq for many months to come even if a candidate is elected who denounces the war. For the simple reason that our “friends” in the Iraqi parliament must govern a country with a wracked-up infrastructure, several insurgency movements, and a simmering civil war, they’ll need military assistance for some time to come. That’s a conundrum, because of course the longer a foreign enemy stays on someone’s soil (and make no mistake, there are plenty of Iraqis who see us as foreign enemies), the more provoked the insurgents become. Circular illogic.

(How would American insurgents behave if a foreign power was occupying US soil and building more than a dozen enduring bases after having presided over the cataclysmicly destructive process of throwing out a government that the foreign power had formerly helped bring to strength in past decades?)

If we are ever able to quell the violence adequately, we’ll then have to, in effect, throw money at the problem (beyond paying insurgents not to shoot Americans, which has already been reported). We’ll have to invest many millions in the rebuilding of Iraq, just as we should have done in the early 1980s in Afghanistan. And if we don’t, and allow Iraq to continue to decline into further confusion, we’ll either have to stand aside and watch the forces of radicalism flourish, or we’ll once again be accomplices in a government as harsh as Saddam’s, because that will be the only way to contain the chaos…

…for a while, until a new radical movement captures enough momentum to take charge in Baghdad, as they did in the late 1970s in Tehran.

We are “in it for the long haul” in Iraq, disgustingly. It is not at all certain how long, nor is it certain how much more violence will transpire as we struggle to finally “get it right” enough that we can actually leave.

Surely there was a better way to neutralize our former pet dictator.