The Long Run Authorizes Every King Of Humbug
Since, unlike the present, tomorrow is always imaginary, such idolatry can be manipulated in many ways. On the one hand, of course, the Stalins of the world can demand the death of millions in the name of a future paradise. This is an especial concern of Camus, who complains of those who “glorify a future state of happiness, about which no one knows anything, so that the future authorizes every kind of humbug.”…
Given the ironic character of history, we should, at the very least, make sure that our actions have some value in the present. The future that we imagine is unlikely to come about, if it does come about it will not last, and when it does come about we will probably despise it. ~Joshua Foa Dienstag, Pessimism: Philosophy, Ethic, Spirit
It seems perverse to speculate on how much worse things might have been in Iraq had the United States not launched an unnecessary and illegal invasion that toppled Hussein’s regime. Much like the demagoguing of Iraq’s potential threat to the U.S. before the war, supporters of the invasion make up for their complete lack of evidence by asking us to imagine the very worst things that might occur if we had done nothing.
One thing we can be fairly sure about is that thousands of Americans who are now dead would still be alive and tens of thousands of Americans who are now wounded, some of them catastrophically, would not have been. We also know that America would not be perceived throughout the region and the world as lawless aggressor, our relations with any number of important allies, including Turkey, would not have been badly damaged, and jihadists would not have been given an open killing field on which they were largely free to murder people by the thousands, nor would jihadists have been given such a powerful boost to their propaganda and recruiting. We know that American attention and resources would not have been distracted for years from the war in Afghanistan, which might have otherwise been brought to a close by now, and the American military would not be so badly strained and overstretched. If the U.S. had not invaded, Iranian influence in the region would not have grown as much as it has, a refugee crisis in which millions have been displaced and Iraq’s professional classes have been decimated would not have occurred, and the complete dismantling of the Iraqi state and military apparatus would not have happened.
It is actually very difficult to imagine the anarchy and mass violence that we did see if there had not been an international occupier disbanding the Iraqi army and an outside political force causing the collapse of state institutions. If the U.S. did not directly cause the sectarian violence that followed, we made it impossible to contain. Hussein’s regime would probably have been succeeded by another dictatorship, and possibly it would have been one that is no more prone to torture and disappear its enemies than the current Iraqi government.
Last night, Obama referred to the invasion as a “war to disarm a state,” which was the official justification given by his predecessor. If we grant that this was the purpose of the war and not the pretext for regime change, it really makes no difference whether a far-off post-Saddam Iraq would have been better or worse than the one that has emerged now, because it means that the U.S. had no business invading on the Bush administration’s own terms. As Ross wrote in early 2009:
Strip away Saddam’s (supposed) rearmament and the imminent threat it (supposedly) posed, and the fact that you had nine other “here’s why this might be a good idea” reasons for war did not a strong-enough justification for war make.
Similarly, one cannot summon the specter of possible worse disasters that might have unfolded in the absence of an invasion to get around the responsibility supporters of the invasion have for the consequences of the war. Then again, if the primary purpose of the war was always regime change regardless of whether or not Hussein was already disarmed, an antiwar argument focused on preserving Iraqi and regional stability becomes even stronger.
Yes, the oil boom of the 2000s would have made Hussein’s regime richer, but like all the other petro-states that flourished during the boom Iraq would still have been limited to projecting power in its immediate neighborhood. In other words, Iraq would have continued to be an annoyance in the way that Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela is an annoyance. Meanwhile, if Hussein were still in power, there would still be a fiercely anti-Iranian Iraqi government in Baghdad rather than a fairly pro-Iranian one. I am less concerned about that than most, but it doesn’t make much sense why people who irrationally exaggerate the threat from Iran are so comfortable with this outcome. Once the financial crisis and recession happened, and the price of oil dropped from the stratospheric heights of mid-2008, Iraq would have gone from being an annoyance to being something even less menacing. So instead of having a minor annoyance that represented no meaningful threat to U.S. interests, the U.S. has a dysfunctional sectarian dependency, and the U.S. will continue to have 50,000 soldiers in the country to continue enabling its dysfunction, sectarianism, and abuses of power.
8 Responses to “The Long Run Authorizes Every King Of Humbug”
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Don’t forget that every soldier, marine, and American contractor lost something from our decade of war – time away from their families. It must be over a million years apart from these relationships.
And every combat returnee (which is almost all of them) has some type of shell shock and had some type of difficulty re-adjusting to stateside life.
It’s a national disgrace that just a small sliver of our population had to endure that. All the rallies, songs and car magnets don’t mean a hill of beans compared to the difficulties our returning armed forces have to face. Even those that returned and look fine.
I’m sure it’s just an oversight – and of course, it is not particularly relevant to the realist calculus you’re largely framing this post in, but it still important to acknowledge, apart from all the disasters you’ve already listed, the tens of thousands of Iraqi’s killed by US and allied troops, and the hundreds of thousands whose deaths would not have occurred has the invasion happened and for which the invaders thus bear direct responsibility.
Furthermore, those of us who opposed the war opposed it at the time for both long- and short-term reasons. Everything you’ve listed was foreseen by opponents and detailed at the time. In this case, there’s no satisfaction in being right.
“We also know that America would not be perceived throughout the region and the world as lawless aggressor”
I rarely have the opportunity to say this, Daniel, but you’ve got an overly rosy view of American foreign policy. Recall that al Qaeda attacked us multiple times before the invasion, and their list of grievances were not figments of their imagination or marginal concerns in the region. America had a better reputation elsewhere, but I don’t think our loss of reputation in the first world matters much. Things have gotten worse in the Middle East (and that is a problem as long as we keep going over there and letting them in here), but they weren’t good before.
Good point Penelope, and the millions of displaced Iraqis. I think the criticism is directed at people who ignore such things. David “Axis of Evil” Frum has a very, very long list of things he must ignore to remain unapologetic.
Greenwald has some more criticism for the hoocodanode brigades.
PS Talk about pessimism, Uff-da!
Another way to pose the issue is to ask the average family of four “would you mind donating $10,000 ($2,500/person) for the overthrow, destruction and rebuilding of Iraq?” Considering how things have turned out, it is difficult to imagine sane folks saying “Sure…here’s my check!” But that is a conservative estimate of what that same family of four is on the hook for.
Peace be with you.
Also, regarding the Frum piece you reference, it’s incredibly disingenuous of him (I know, big surprise) to talk about the huge rise in oil prices over this timeframe. While difficult to quantify, there is little doubt that the war ITSELF drove a portion of that increase. The destabilizing effect of the conflict, the actual damage to the oil wells, and the simple fact that war (especially the US method) consumes vast amounts of fuel all contributed to the very price increase that he claimed would have benefited Saddam!
Also, he tries to deflect the responsibility (accountability?) that we have vis-a-vis Iraqi’s killed as a result of sectarian violence. However, as I recall, during the WWII war crimes trials, were not the Germans also held responsible for the civilians that were killed by Allied forces? The rationale being that, as aggressors, you put forces in motion that ultimately led to the deaths of those same civilians.
I say that instead of the old NBC show Fear Factor, we have a new show called ‘Frum Factor.’ Instead of having to eat worm souffles and scorpion eggs, you have to read one of Frum’s pieces to the end without laughing, crying, or getting angry to get a chance at $50,000. No way that I could win.
Peace be with you.
ps. Now that I think of it, David does have that ‘game show host’ look to him. Surely he’d be better at that than as speechwriter or pundit?
cfountain72, I would be surprised if an actual charge of a war crime was applied to the Allied killing of German civilians, but I’m guessing.
Your ps was awesome. I agree, he could be a star. Merv Griffin used to say the bigger the head (physically, not egotistically) the bigger the star. Pat Sajak was cast on this principal. David’s noggin seems big, and he’s Canadian, which seems to help media personalities, especially comedians. As for what show, an absolutely simplistic game like “Tic Tac Toe” would be perfect.
All I want to know is why the hell everyone ignores the $17,000,000,000 in cash that “disappeared”. It’s infuriating that someone in Congress can’t take a page from Harry Truman’s book and start sending out subpoenas. There has to be some paperwork, start with the last person to actually see the pallets of cash.
As for the ongoing war in Iraq, we’re just going to replace our soldiers with more-expensive mercenaries. Ironic on a day when a major news story is how we allow a clerical error to deprive New Jersey’s children of 400 million, while we unquestionably accept the waste and fraud of our all-consuming war machine.