Sometimes, just to test my point of view, I like to take the opposite side and defend it. For example, I think attacking Iraq was a huge mistake. So today I will make my best argument for the other side.
First, you have to separate the outcome, which is unknown, from the original decision to attack. Hypothetically, it could be a good decision to attack, based on what you knew at the time, but things could go wrong for unforeseen reasons. Likewise, it could have been a bad decision to attack, based on the evidence at the time, and somehow by luck, things might turn out well. So you have to look at the decision and the outcome separately.
For the outcome, I would argue no one can predict the fate of Iraq more than a few years out. For situations this complex, the unintended and unpredictable consequences generally dwarf the predictable parts.
Lots of people have died in Iraq, and will continue to die. We created a breeding ground for terrorists. We took our eye off of the ball in terms of catching Bin Laden when we had the chance. And it will cost a trillion dollars. The costs are immense.
On the plus side, Iraqi Kurdistan is doing well, and might become the sixth largest source of oil reserves. If they avoid war with Turkey, they could become a prosperous democracy regardless of what happens to the rest of Iraq.
Al-Qaida overplayed its hand in Iraq and proved it’s not a war between the Christian crusaders and Islam. Al-Qaida targeted Muslims and caused the U.S. and the locals to join forces against them. That could turn out to be a good thing in terms of the battle for the hearts and minds of Muslims.
Iraq is Al-Qaida’s flypaper. They entered Iraq in large numbers, discredited their own movement by killing Muslims, and are now getting killed themselves. They did what the United States couldn’t do on its own, in making the U.S. occupation seem beneficial to the security of the locals.
Violence in Iraq is trending down. No one thinks there is a smooth ride ahead, but it’s obvious to all parties that continued violence isn’t going to make life better for anyone. There’s no “winning” to be had. Now that the U.S. presence is improving security, and our forces are moving up the learning curve in figuring out how to be less hated and more useful, there’s a legitimate chance that things could keep trending well.
The cost of the war in Iraq is immense. But it has several potential benefits:
1. Al-Qaida showed itself to be everyone’s enemy.
2. Iraq has potential to be a U.S. ally, even if true democracy doesn’t take hold.
3. The U.S. sharpened its war-making tools and showed it is willing to use them.
4. Iraqi oil production will eventually increase, even if it takes 20 years.
5. The U.S. has a permanent military base in the Middle East.
On balance, are these benefits worth the costs? Probably not. But all of the unintended consequences haven’t played out. For example, in the long run, I’d expect events in Iraq to have a big impact on Iranian politics. Some of those changes could be good for U.S. interests.
What about the original decision to invade? If you believe the president KNEW Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction, it was clearly a bad decision. I believe the president and his advisors believed we would find WMD. After all, Saddam had a history of seeking WMD, a motive for doing so, and he resisted inspections.
If there is a tiny chance your sworn enemy is building nuclear weapons, and you have a nearly 100% chance of stopping him, even at a very high cost, it seems sensible to do it. It would be rational self defense to risk losing thousands of U.S. troops to reduce the perceived risk of nuclear attack on the U.S. by 1%.
If you say you KNEW there were no WMD in Iraq, you’re either a liar or an idiot. It was unknowable. If you thought there was a 1% chance Saddam was building WMD that could get into terrorist hands, then the decision to attack Iraq was rational for American self defense, even if the outcome turns out bad.
From a moral perspective, the huge Iraqi losses have to be included in the calculation. Morally, you wouldn’t want to kill a thousand people in a different country to protect one person in your own. But from a national defense perspective, which is the responsibility of the president of the United States, he has to count American lives as more valuable than other lives. That might seem evil, but that’s the job we hired him for.
All things considered, the DECISION to attack Iraq was correct, given the perceived risk of Saddam developing WMD. Likewise, the decision NOT to attack North Korea is rational because doing so would increase the odds of a nuclear attack on the U.S. and its allies, not decrease it. They already have functional nukes and a much tougher army.
When a venture capitalist invests in a particular company, and it goes out of business, he doesn’t conclude that he made a bad decision to invest. He concludes that his strategy is good because he only needs one in ten companies to succeed.
Likewise, you can’t view the decision to attack Iraq in isolation. It is part of a larger hard-ass policy of attacking anyone who looks like they can be conquered at an acceptable cost and might pose catastrophic risks to our security. To pick an obvious example, if we attacked Iran, and discovered they ARE building a nuclear weapon and planning to use it, that would validate the strategy of attacking Iraq. One out of two ain’t bad.
In fact, if we attacked three or four countries looking for WMD, and found none, it still doesn’t invalidate the strategy. You only need to find one country that actually has them, and might use them, to make the entire strategy sensible. At the very least, all that attacking gives some teeth to the U.N. inspectors.
That’s my best argument for why attacking Iraq was both sensible at the time and might work out well in the long run.
I just wish I believed it.