<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <HTML><HEAD> <META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> <META content="MSHTML 5.50.4916.2300" name=GENERATOR> <STYLE></STYLE> </HEAD> <BODY bgColor=#ffffff> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>by far it is to be found at Max's blog today, by Max himself:</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><A href="http://maxspeak.org/gm/">http://maxspeak.org/gm/</A></FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV> <P align=left><B>Sunday, October 20, 2002</B> </P> <P align=left><B>HONORABLE MEN ON THE ROAD TO HELL.</B> An explanation of the Bush Administration's ambitions in the Middle East and South Asia need not resort to speculation about conspiracies, electoral party politics, payoffs, revenge, or an interest in manipulating the price of oil. All of this is the stuff of agitational efforts, but it derives from arguments that are not very strong.</P> <P align=justify>For purposes of dispassionate analysis, we should assume that they are all honorable men. This forces us to look first at their stated rationales, and second for the underlying political-economic factors in play. I would rather confront the best case for an Iraqi invasion, rather than flimsy ones.</P> <P align=justify>By stated rationales I do not mean obvious short-term excuses that change every week. I mean the discussions of high policy that emerged in watered-down form in Condoleeza Rice's strategy document issued by the White House. There is an ample published record. No radical worth her salt relies on conspiracy theories. These discussions can readily be translated into at least two benign stories:</P> <P align=justify>(1) The world's economy depends on petroleum that originates in a highly unstable region. The volatility of oil prices contributes to instability and damage throughout the world. It is thus in the interest of all to pacify this region. Moreover, the construction of democratic institutions would be a boon to the peoples of the region, all of whom suffer under one or another sort of autocracy. </P> <P align=justify>(2) We could also imagine a more narrow view which takes its point of departure from the expectation that oil will become more scarce in this century. The interest of the U.S. is to make sure it gets the oil it needs to get through this period. Once again, control of the region is the fundamental strategic prize. How other nations will get by is their problem, not ours.</P> <P align=justify>In either case, the Iraqi mission makes sense as a first step in a process to control the entire region. What could be wrong with the first internationalist view summarized above? Only that it's a formula for mass death and economic calamity. The project embodies all the systemic defects of Wilsonian imperialism: subjugation of peoples who will resist with force, the inevitable corruption of the enterprise by narrower self-seeking interests, and the intrinsic incapacity to construct the idealized democratic societies held before us as goals.</P> <P align=justify>One added ingredient in the mix is the threat from mobile, stateless terrorist groups who will be empowered by U.S. action, even as state-based elements like the Saddam clan are obliterated. We note that notwithstanding the U.S. mission in Afghanistan, our own CIA director claims Al Queda is fully reconstituted and ready to strike. The invasion of Iraq will do nothing to limit Al Queda's logistic capacities. The destruction of the Iraqi state makes possible the disperson of Iraq's state-controlled weapons of mass destruction to Al Queda. What is the U.S. option if Al Queda strikes after an Iraqi invasion? Against whom will the U.S. retaliate?</P> <P align=justify>A second added ingredient is the dependence of the world on a stable supply of oil. Disruption of this flow can cause serious damage to the world economy, including the U.S. This would remain the case even if the U.S. imported no oil at all. The reason is that domestic prices follow the world market price. If you are pumping oil in Oklahoma, why would you sell it here for less than you could obtain elsewhere? Will the Bush Administration nationalize U.S. oil fields?</P> <P align=justify>I don't doubt that military action can secure control of oil. I very much doubt that such a move will enhance my own security, or that it will herald the liberation of subjugated peoples elsewhere. Insofar as the public is supporting the direction Bush has taken, it is not for the goals most likely to be achieved, but for ones that could be positively thwarted tenfold.</P> <P align=justify>Some in the soft left urge us to take the Administration's goals at face value and equate doubts about Bush's integrity, so unimpeachable in all other contexts, with anti-Americanism. But integrity is not fundamentally what is at issue. What is at issue is the foreseeable consequence of a violent takeover of an Arab country. Just because the Administration says they want a democratic Iraq does not mean that they can pull it off.</P> <P align=justify>So far Osama Bin Ladin's strategy seems to be working out pretty well. Maybe we haven't given him enough credit. By launching attacks on the U.S., it looked as though he envisioned the U.S. getting bogged down in Afghanistan just as the Russians did two decades ago. The U.S. has certainly been forced to commit some resources to Afghanistan indefinitely. But OBL was never an Afghani nationalist. He is an Islamist internationalist. Maybe he envisioned attacks on the U.S. from widely dispersed points, all the while offering few targets for retaliation. Maybe he reasoned that in an effort to assert itself (as the Russians did in a relatively small-scale way, in Afghanistan), the U.S. would overreach and be forced to withdraw to a position of less power that what it began with.</P> <P align=justify>The sniper case in D.C. is a good example of how it works. One or two people have tied up a huge amount of law enforcement resources and otherwise disrupted all sorts of ordinary community activities. The more you have, the more you have to lose. By terrorist standards, the sniper is just a pinprick. Welcome to assymmetric warfare.</P> <P align=justify>Even allowing for good intentions, especially in light of the terrorist threat, the Iraqi venture is a gigantic exercise in overreaching. A bridge too far on a grand scale. It's the well-intentioned who are most dangerous.<BR></P></DIV></BODY></HTML>