The two papers of record both claim it has been a good week for this administration. First, the WaPo:
It has been a week of sweet vindication for those who promulgated what they call the Bush Doctrine.
Beginning with the capture of Saddam Hussein a week ago and ending Friday with an agreement by Libya’s Moammar Gaddafi to surrender his unconventional weapons, one after another international problem has eased.
On Tuesday, the leaders of France and Germany set aside their long-standing opposition to the war in Iraq and agreed to forgive an unspecified amount of that country’s debt. On Thursday, Iran signed an agreement allowing surprise inspections of its nuclear facilities after European governments applied intense pressure on the U.S. foe. On Friday, Libya agreed to disarm under the watch of international inspectors, just as administration officials were learning that Syria had seized $23.5 million believed to be for al Qaeda.
To foreign policy hard-liners inside and outside the administration, the gestures by Libya, Iran and Syria, and the softening by France and Germany, all have the same cause: a show of American might.
Now the NY Times Op-Ed page:
James Baker III is quickly showing how old-fashioned diplomacy can advance Washington’s policy objectives. In his first trip as President Bush’s Iraqi debt negotiator, Mr. Baker met with five European leaders and emerged with declarations endorsing a substantial write-off of the $40 billion in old loans and accrued interest that Baghdad owes major developed countries. The five countries Mr. Baker visited, together with the United States, account for roughly $25 billion of those obligations. That’s only a start
Gary Farber
I’m confused. What does the opinion of drooling ninnies matter?
John Cole
Hehe. I was actually going to point out how this op-ed was still snarlingly anti-Bush, yet praising the diplomacy conducted by Baker at Bush’s behest, but felt no need. But since you insist…
JKC
One wonders how such diplomacy would have fared in Baghdad, if tried there.
Flames on, boys…
John Cole
The 12 year record would indicate that it failed.
Hal
Uh, John…
In what sense was diplomacy a failure? He didn’t have WMDs, nor the means to deliver them. He didn’t have Al Qaeda connections. True, he was still in power and had WMD ambitions. But geez? What was he actually in violation of other than gross human rights abuses?
Tell me? We democrats are just too dim to see the logic of your statement and thesis.
Dean
In 2003, he was in violation of UNSCR 1441.
It wasn’t a matter of whether he had them or not. It was a matter of telling us what he did WITH THE ONES HE HAD HAD. Something no one, neither pro- nor anti-war has yet come w/ a solution to.
BTW, since I evidently have to ask this question of each liberal: Exactly what did Milosevic do that justified a “technically illegal war”? And what did Saddam do in 1998 to justify Operation Desert Fox?
Hal
Ah. So a technically illegal war is morally equivalent to a technically legal war? The moral calculus must be mind numbingly complex.
Kimmitt
The UN resolution is irrelevant to the theoretical legality of the war either way — the “proportional” response to Saddam’s failure to account for his weapons was the sanctions, which were UN-approved.
Of course, the real problem with the war is that it and its aftermath were sold to the American public based on what appears to be the Administration’s basic incapacity to hear things it doesn’t want to hear. The CIA made pretty clear that it didn’t think Saddam had Al-Qaeda connections and that his chemical and biological weapons stockpiles were tiny, if extant. The State Department and parts of the armed forces warned that the occupation would take tens of thousands of troops (preferably hundreds) and that Iraq’s oil revenues would not be sufficient to cover the tab. The Administration’s response to both of these was to denigrate the capacities of the professionals and create separate, parallel organizations for the purpose of ensuring sycophancy (e.g. ‘stovepiping’ intelligence).
Not a great decision-making model, really.
Dean
No, Hal, it’s not all that complex.
I actually have few qualms about the war w/ Iraq. I sleep fine at night.
Just wondering how, in your musings and concerns about this putatively illegal war, you slept during the days when poor, poor Serbs and Iraqis were dying under cruise missiles fired w/o benefit of your logic.
As for Kimmitt’s statements regarding “tiny, if extant” WMD holdings, I find this fascinating. I didn’t realize those NIEs had been released. Your cites, please?
Hal
I’m not sure what the point is, Dean. One was done with NATO and one was done with some UK troops and a couple of Australians. I didn’t lose sleep because the UN wasn’t opposed to it.
In Iraq, the UN and NATO were opposed to it. Including world public opinion.
Now we look like fools parsing technicalities to justify our actions.
Again, it’s pretty hard to justify international action without real international support – UN, NATO. Take your pick.
I also seem to remember there was a heck of a lot of talk about Europe dealing with European problems back then. So it’s no wonder the technical lineage of the justification is murky.
Still don’t lose any sleep over it.
Hal
Oh, and about the NIE:
Sounds like a load of Bollocks to me.
Dean
From the same link:
“The document still concluded that Iraq had chemical and biological weapons as well as missiles with ranges in excess of the 150-kilometer (93-mile) limit imposed by the UN Security Council. It also said that Baghdad did not have nuclear weapons.”
Sounds like your definition of Bollocks and mine are somewhat different.
So, the NIE concludes that they HAD BW and CW and long-range weapons, and you conclude that therefore Saddam didn’t have WMD?
Kimmitt
We knew Iraq had weapons with inappropriately long ranges. That’s why the UN inspectors had the kind of fun job of watching the Iraqis run bulldozers over them. It’s not a great argument for invasion.
wallster
Dean – the Kosovars were being brutally put down, and we feared that genocide could occur on the level of Srebrenica (sp?).
Saddam’s genocide ended in 1991. Yes, he continued to suppress democracy and deserved his fate for what he did in the past. There is truly no comparison, however, between Serbia and Iraq, no matter what desperate Bush apologists put forward for invasion justification now that the ‘WMD’ reason has proven meritless.
Dean
Really, Wallster?
So, where are the mass killing fields that were being bandied about at the time, supposedly filled w/ Kosovars?
Is a suspicion really sufficient to violate a nation’s sovereignty and wage a bombing campaign?
And what was the death rate from Uday and Qusay? Are you sure it wasn’t comparable to the POTENTIAL that Milosevic MIGHT have achieved?
I think it’d be a little hard to find all those mass killing fields of Kosovars, since, while there were killings, it didn’t quite live up to (down to?) what Clinton and company said. Should we now hear a refrain of “Clinton lied, Serbs/Kosovars died?” (Remember how WE bombed at least one big convoy of Kosovar refugees?)
Don’t get me wrong—I’m not one of the folks who argues that Milosevic was some kind of defender against Islam or other nonsense. My only point is that intel is always messy, and the history of accurate reporting, esp. under the glare of CNN kleig lights, is poor.
That, and if you’re going to be consistent, it’s gonna be hard to justify one war (Iraq-’03) and not the others (Iraq-’98, Kosovo-’98). Simply getting NATO to go along does not make it “legal” in any meaningful sense of the word. (‘Course, I’ve wondered just how the UN derives ITS authority, but that’s a separate issue.)
Kimmitt
I would have been thrilled to the tips of my toes if President Bush had sold the Iraq war as exclusively a war to liberate the Iraqi people. I’d’ve been absolutely baffled, but I’d have been credulous.
Dean
I give you points, Kimmitt. At least you didn’t say you’d have BELIEVED him, nor said that you would have SUPPORTED him.
I don’t think I’d believe YOU if you said that.
But thrilled (for a moment at least)? Yeah, I’ll buy that.
ChrisL
“I would have been thrilled to the tips of my toes if President Bush had sold the Iraq war as exclusively a war to liberate the Iraqi people”
the humanitarian justification likely wouldn’t have been supported by the people of the US – ask Gallup.
”
Asked to rate the legitimacy of eight different justifications sending troops to war, more than four in five Americans agree war is justified when another country declares war on the United States(83%) or when the United States is attacked (81%). Americans are more ambivalent when the threat is less acute — such as when another country harbors groups that present a clear threat to the United States (43%), or to honor U.S. treaty commitments with other nations (34%). Americans are much more circumspect about the legitimacy of war when it is launched merely for humanitarian reasons (18%), or in order to liberate the people of another country (13%).
”
so, liberating Iraqis was a good thing. but without the scary (and iffy) stuff, there’s no way Bush would’ve seen 70+% approvals for his war.
Dean
Now, wouldn’t THAT be a twist?
A war that was waged for humanitarian ENDS, but justified on realpolitik grounds!
The exact flip side of the argument that so many blogs have been witnessing.
If true, the irony is simply, in the words of Joker (from the TV series) “Delicious!”
HH
Yes, Saddam didn’t have WMDs, and we can say this as we have people placed in every single square inch of the globe and they report that they’re not there.
JKC
Of course, by Henry’s logic, the same can be said of Mexico, New Zealand, and Micronesia.
Kimmitt
“A war that was waged for humanitarian ENDS, but justified on realpolitik grounds!”
Right, but the act of false justification belies the likelihood of the humanitarian ends.
Like I said, I’d have been credulous; I’d’ve given him a lot more benefit of the doubt than I otherwise did.
Dean
Illogical, Kimmitt.
IF this war was a humanitarian one, but justified on realpolitik grounds b/c the American public wasn’t about to justify the potential of hundreds or thousands of dead GIs otherwise, then:
1. The Admin could hardly say, “We’re really fighting it for humanitarian purposes” in public.
2. In fact, it would look pretty much like it does now.
3. In which case, you’d show the very skepticism that you’re showing now.
4. And you’d dismiss any possibility of humanitarian justification just as you are now.
That’s not to say that we DID fight it for humanitarian ends, just that there’s no way the Admin could have done so in any way that you’d accept, short of having it briefed to you by Bush/Cheney. And even then…
Kimmitt
Interesting point, but I’m still having a hard time imagining a state of mind where I care deeply about the human rights of the Iraqi people but am willing to outright lie* to the American public in order to whip up support for a war.
There would be one big difference, though — I would have planned the aftermath a bit more thoroughly, and things would likely have gone better.
*note that I believe the situation to be more complicated than “Bush lied, soldiers died.” This is for the sake of argument.
dave
What I want to know is, why didn’t Donald Rumsfeld just handcuff Saddam back in ’83. That’s when Ronald Reagan sent him to Iraq as a special envoy to let Saddam know he was one of our favorite brutal dictators. Reagan said the US would do everything we could to help him fire missles at, gas and otherwise slaughter all those pesky Iranians who held Americans hostage for so long. As we now know, Reagan later sold weapons to Iranian “moderates” in exchange for other hostages, to the dismay of Rumsfeld’s new buddy, Saddam.
I repeat the question: Why didn’t Donald Rumsfeld simply handcuff and arrest Saddam when he shook his hand 20 years ago? Remember Saddam’s been a brutal dictator and himself a “Weapon of Mass Destruction” for three decades… including the Reagan 80’s.