Dreams and Nightmares
September 26, 2002
At last we are beginning to have a real public
debate about the imminent war on Iraq. Senator Tom Daschle has charged
that the Bush administration is exploiting the war for political purposes
and defaming its Democratic critics by implying that their concern for
national security isnt all it might be.
Daschle may have a
point, but he might achieve more by demanding that President Bush take
responsibility for the wars outcome. Can Bush assure us that
defeating Iraq and toppling Saddam Hussein will make Americans safer
from terrorism? Will he admit failure if the result is an increase in
terrorist attacks on Americans, at home and abroad?
A year ago Bush
warned that the war on terrorism would be long and hard, and that we
might never know when we had achieved victory. Such a potentially
endless war against an elusive and ill-defined enemy calls for a high level
of sustained morale, something Americans arent noted for. But
Bush assured us that our will and resolve were up to the task.
But hasnt Bush
himself essentially admitted the futility of that war by changing his
target from Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda to Saddam Hussein and Iraq? He
has made fitful efforts to connect Iraq to al-Qaeda, but they have
convinced nobody. Even British prime minister Tony Blair, one of
Bushs few allies, supplied no evidence of such a connection in his
recent address to Parliament.
Under what conditions
would Bush admit a mistake? The philosopher Karl Popper said that
scientific propositions are meaningful only when they are falsifiable. A
theory is empty unless it is possible to prove it wrong.
If the war on Iraq fails
or backfires, resulting in a new surge of anti-American terrorism, is Bush
prepared to admit he was wrong? Of course not. He is a politician, and
politicians dont confess mistakes (except when caught taking
bribes or committing adultery then they call their crimes and sins
mistakes).
Bushs apologists in the media should also be forced to
say what they think the war on Iraq will achieve. Will it reduce the danger
of terrorism? Will they admit error if it has the opposite effect, or if it
proves to be a military disaster, or if it makes this chaotic world even
more chaotic? Or will they try to claim some sort of vindication no
matter what the outcome is?
Probably the latter. If
Bush loses his war, the journalists who now support him will turn against
him, arguing that he didnt fight the war the way they urged him to
fight it. Many of them still complain that his father didnt
follow through on his victory in the 1991 Gulf War by
capturing and occupying Baghdad, thereby allowing Saddam Hussein to
survive defeat.
Unlike victory over
terrorism, victory over Iraq should be fairly easy to recognize. But the
incumbent Bush still hasnt explained what the one war has to do
with the other. Besides, the defeat of Iraq, in the narrow sense of toppling
its government, may be attended by costly side effects that Bush
hasnt acknowledged. He seems to assume that Iraq can be defeated
with surgical precision, without creating unpredictable ripples throughout
the Middle East.
What if, for example,
Ariel Sharon seizes the opportunity of a U.S. war on Iraq to drive all Arabs
out of Israel and the occupied territories? This is not only possible but
probable, given Israels record of exploiting American
preoccupations elsewhere and Sharons special penchant for
murderous aggression. So much for the Palestinian state Bush says he
believes in. Israel already has the weapons of mass destruction Bush
accuses Saddam Hussein of coveting, and Sharon is just the man to use
them.
This is only one of
many possible nightmare scenarios. But Bush doesnt seem to have
any nightmares; he lives in a dream, in which military action has only the
desired consequences and no allowance is made for possible surprises. The
most frightening thing about him is his apparent assumption that
everything will go exactly as planned.
It wont. The
only certainty of war is the unexpected. Even the staggering military
power of the U.S. doesnt guarantee control of events once the
shooting starts. This is why Bush should be forced to tell the American
public just what he expects.
Joseph Sobran
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