Win, Lose or Draw in Iraq

The troops are almost home; the president has given a speech, and the final barbs are flying.  Should we have done it?  Many now say no, but studying some hypotheticals based on that pivotal decision point in 2003 might be worthwhile.  So here goes....

Had we not gone in a lot of troops and civilians would still be alive today.  Troops, most probably yes, civilians maybe--but it's hard to know how many the Butcher might have killed anyway.  And the troops figure is assuming Saddam would have stayed in his box. 

Had we not gone in Saddam would have probably stayed in his box.  With help from the American no-fly zones and UN sanctions, perhaps.  We also thought--knew--he had WMDs and/or know-how. The sanctions and no-fly zones were a major part of bin Laden's fatwa against America in 1998, by the way, since our planes were flying out of Saudi Arabia.  So remaining status quo would have continued to piss off the guy who attacked us on 9/11.     

The inspectors should have been allowed to do their jobs.   The only way they got UN inspectors back into the country in 2003 was massing several hundred thousand troops on their regional doorstep.  Saddam was also profiting handily from the UN's Oil for Food program, adding cash to his stash that presumably went into building more palaces, or other unknown bribery to eventually lower the sanctions.   Had Bush backed down after massing the troops that triggered the inspectors then Saddam would have undoubtedly pushed to have the sanctions dropped or laxed.  The Kay and Duelfer Reports both mentioned his ability to reconstitute.  America would have been humiliated in the international community after coming near war only to have Saddam claim he didn't have weapons.  The no-fly zones might have disappeared, leading to who knows what.
 
Saddam wasn't a threat to America or the Middle East.  Well yes, except when he was cutting checks to the survivors of suicide bombers in the Palestinian territories or harboring various terrorists.  It's true he was a "check" on Iran, but that's like saying Stalin was a check on Hitler.  As to his threat, it was well established and not all based on Chalabi or Curveball, even before the WoT.   Well before.  And the dabblings his intelligence service had with AQ, also established, have never been fully explained.   We killed Gaddafi for less. 

Had we left things alone the Arab Spring would have eventually come along and displaced Saddam. Would the "Arab Spring" have occurred at all with Saddam still in power?  Some folks took the fall of the statue as a seminal moment for persons under dictatorship; before the Arab Spring there was a Cedar Revolution in Lebanon.  Iraq was different than the other Sunni-dominated Arab countries due to its mixed sects, and was more ripe for a civil war than a revolution.  Besides, with Saddam still in power how would the Israelis have reacted to the ouster of Mubarak?  Imagine a world where the Muslim Brotherhood, Saddam, Assad, HAMAS and Hizballah surrounded Israel.

Of course none of these questions are knowable--we enter the future with the future we have, not the future we wanted.  It's possible Saddam would have stayed in his box and behaved himself and later died allowing a chaotic revolution but the way his regime was structured it would have been a long shot.  Even Curveball admitted as much.  It's also possible he would have passed on weapons knowledge to a terror group. We spent a lot of money and lost a lot of lives to make sure that didn't happen.  But it won't, at least with his regime.  Because he's dead.  

Ironically, and sadly, one of the highest-profile writers in favor of taking out Saddam has passed from us--RIP to Christopher Hitchens.  His wit, wisdom and insight will be missed, even if he missed the obvious signs of a universal creator.    He had a way to make both left and right think he was their man, when not being hated alternatively by both.  If only more of us could be as non-partisan.

Hitchens versus Obama

Christopher Hitchens appears to be on a quest--make everyone in the world hate him before he takes leave.

First he supported the Iraq war, angering his lefty friends but gaining a strange new alliance of pro-war Bush-loving conservatives, most of whom probably weren't aware of his overall politics. Then he attacked God, leaving most of those new-found friends in a frenzied lerch, unsure how to take their new ally. Next he declared waterboarding to be "torture", which warmed him further to his former pals on the port side, who'd previously declared him a bigger Judas figure than Lieberman.

But his recent column should dispel any notion he's on anyone's side:

If there is one element of moral and political certainty that cements the liberal consensus more than any other, it is the complacent view that while Iraq is "a war of choice," it is really and only Afghanistan that is a war of necessity. The ritualistic solidity of this view is impressive. It survives all arguments and all evidence.

Indeed he's right, there are two exercises that can accompany any attempt to convince anti-war liberals of their failed logic in this arena, one is bashing one's head against a brick wall and the other is falling into a catatonic trance. All three seem to produce equal results. The anti-Bush crowd is so deeply invested in Iraq's failure that letting go might be a fate worse than 20 years of continual Reagan movies.

In reality, those folks should have collectively apologized to America when the WMDs weren't found. It was Bill Clinton who "fearmongered" about Saddam to justify his Mesopotamian bombing raids (and the one over Khartoum) in the name of stopping the maniac Butcher from one day raining terror across the world. Instead, most lefties decided the best defense was a good offensive and blamed everything on Heir Bush, and with selective help from some in the media they've largely succeeded.

Ah, but all roads now lead to the ultimate point of that offensive, regaining the White House. Hitchens' main focus was their presumptive candidate and his near scatological approach to the conflicts we face, made clear again today by the latest flop, which McCain jumped on like a cat on a crippled rat:

"Senator Obama is departing soon on a trip abroad that will include a fact-finding mission to Iraq and Afghanistan," McCain said in prepared remarks.

"And I note that he is speaking today about his plans for Iraq and Afghanistan before he has even left, before he has talked to General Petraeus, before he has seen the progress in Iraq, and before he has set foot in Afghanistan for the first time. In my experience, fact-finding missions usually work best the other way around: First you assess the facts on the ground, then you present a new strategy."

This dovetails well with Hitchens' reminder of this now almost forgotten golden moment, quite appropriate as Obama begins his mystery tour of the war zone:



For awhile those comments created a mini firestorm in the primary season, which translated into this classic exchange on an MSNBC debate:



Hitch also noticed something else Obama's rivals didn't at the time:

Did he mean to say that, come to think of it, we had enough troops to occupy three countries instead of the stipulated and solitary one? Or would he just exchange Iraq for Pakistan? At least we do know for sure that Pakistan has nuclear weapons acquired mainly by piracy and is the host and patron of the Taliban and al-Qaida.

Case in point, Obama calls the fight in Iraq a "war" while calling the war in Afghanistan a "fight". That's clearly designed to differentiate one from the other to appeal to those incapable of following the above logic.

But he can't even get Iraq right. Tom Maguire pointed out yesterday that simply saying he'll "stop the war" in Iraq won't act as some kind of magic wand if indeed there is really a civil war there now; if anything it'll be a worse civil war upon our departure. So the "war" will only be stopped as far as the US is concerned, despite the regional chaos we might leave behind.

Behold, the problem with politicizing a war. The more Obama tries to contort his views to anything but Bush, the more convoluted and illogical and inconsistent he becomes.

Hitchens versus God

This post was supposed to be about the Hitchens/Sharpton debate since it had produced at least one headline of note before the passing of Reverend Falwell, but Hitchens' Hitler-like eulogy for the late pastor simply cannot pass unnoticed here based on all the times I've used him in support of removing Saddam.

Speaking of which, let's hope the neocons who've so comfortably used his Slate columns for years to support the Iraq war (me included) didn't find themselves in the nearest emergency room (waiting in line behind illegals with runny noses) after hearing his recent comments.

Although I stand accused this turnaround didn't come completely without warning. Funny, the biggest shock wave might come from the lefties who foolishly branded him a neocon only for his war stance. Some might now be in therapy, or is that an oxymoron?

Regarding Falwell I'm not convinced he's right nor wrong since the Reverend was never one of my favorites. Matter of fact there are a lot of televangelists who fit that bill, however, Hitchens pissed me off when he threw Billy Graham in the same pot. Graham has more sincerity in his little finger than Hitchens entire body or most other living men. On that count it's funny--he has a new book trashing religion yet he's hated by the folks on his own side (left) and is in the process of alienating his adopted fans on the right. That's a heckuva marketing strategy.. "let's tick off everybody!".

Then there's Reverend Al.

Few men are sharp enough to match wits with the Hitch and despite his name, Reverend Sharpton cannot be counted among the few. He allowed Hitchens to trash the Bible and most everything in it while scoring some points by saying flawed religion doesn't disprove the existence of God. He's correct, but of course nobody can disprove God anyway. Besides, why become a Reverend and preach the Bible if you can't defend it? What, is he some kind of closet Deist?

He even lost the brief exchange about Saddam's WMDs, to which Hitchens called him a sap.

At the end Hirsi Ali, a member of the audience, stood up and aksed the Reverend a time-worn question, boiled down to "who begat God"? He could have said "nobody", since it's impossible for we humans to understand infinity while living our temporal lives. It's an indisputable reply. But he mumbled something, made another crack about Iraq and it was over, Al the Charlatan revealed. Hey, perhaps Hitchens might end up doing some good in his quest to kill God, even if he doesn't believe in the concept.