24 February 2007
On Iraq
I wish I hadn't supported the war in Iraq. I wasn't in favour of it because I was duped on weapons of mass destruction, but because I assumed that the opportunity to depose a murderous dictator was worth taking. If I'd known how much al-Qaeda would be able to do to prevent the coalition from restoring order, and how bitter the rivalry was between the Sunni and Shia factions, I would have argued against. I would have said that deposing him was a good idea, but that America and Britain, with their terrible reputation among Arabs and with their electorates' fickle support for long-term military operations, weren't the ones for the job. It wouldn't have made any difference of course, but I still feel guilty.
On Wednesday, Tony Blair announced the withdrawal of about a quarter of the British troops. Given that the security situation doesn't seem to have changed, it's reasonable to assume that the decision is political. My country is fed up with Iraq, and soon the other three-quarters of the soldiers are going to come home too. Ann Treneman, writing in The Times, makes this assumption, and she's pleased as punch: "It was the best news on Iraq in ages". Is she right?
If she is, it's not because of the number of military casualties. Soldiers do have a right to object to some levels of pointless risk: if I'd been in Siegfried Sassoon's shoes, I would have written a letter to Parliament as well, complaining about the World War I strategy of condemning millions of men to "walking very slowly towards the enemy machine guns". Or was that Blackadder? Anyway, 100 deaths out of 7,000 soldiers over four years in southern Iraq isn't a massacre; especially not compared to the number of Iraqi dead. If Ann Treneman's going to convince me, she'd better prove the case that Iraq would be better off if the British armed forces left now. And the American ones too, unless anyone can see a reason for one lot staying and the other lot going.
At the moment there's no Iraqi government to speak of. There's a lot of sectarian violence, but I bet the American forces are keeping that down, at least in some areas. Is this positive effect outweighed by the target effect - as Malcolm Rifkind puts it, "the ability of al-Qaeda and other terrorist organisations to use Iraq as a battleground"? That's the golden question. The head of the British Army, General Sir Richard Dannatt, has answered it yes, and that's got a lot of weight. But there are people in Basra who don't want the British to leave because stability might disintegrate when rival Shia militias try to take advantage of the power vacuum. This is Basra, right next to Iran and away from all the Sunnis - if the threat of the insurgency outweighs that of the civil war anywhere, it's here. So if even Basra values the coalition's presence, that has weight too.
Of course I don't have anywhere near enough information to be sure about this, but I suspect a coalition withdrawal now would do more harm than good. I suppose what I'm saying is that we should stay in Iraq indefinitely: we'd be waiting for a strong, democratic central government to emerge. Or failing that, a strong central government. Or failing that, any kind of government at all. And we'd be waiting for the Iraqi army and police to weed out those people among their own members with divided loyalties. You can't do either of those things quickly. I realise my suggestion would have more weight if I'd been against the war, and that it's politically impossible to follow anyway. So that's two more reasons to regret the attitude I took in 2003.
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8 comments:
Don't feel bad about having supported the war. It seemed like a good idea to me at the time (at least not quite so barbarically stupid). And if you feel bad, how do you think Colin Powell feels?
The big question, as I see it, is: Would keeping coalition troops in Iraq put us in a stronger position if Israel bombs Iranian nuclear facilities?
I wonder how Colin Powell does feel.
A stronger position to do what?
Why depose Saddam Hussein in 2003? He wasn't the only dictator in the world, or the worst, and not even close to being the easiest to depose. I'm surprised you fell for that one.
As for "staying till we've cleaned up" - no. There's a good reason these things should be managed by the international community at large (in that case, of course, I'd be ashamed if British troops didn't help out under their direction.) If we'd listened to the world four years ago, it wouldn't be in this absolutely fucking abhorrent mess now.
I remember arguing with you about this in the JCR at the time, although not for the reasons that have become transparently obvious since (I had the 'they'll install another strongman' theory, as I recall, which'd probably be preferable to the current situation continuing). I suppose the relevant question is how much of the violence is being committed by Coalition troops, and how much of it is causally related to their presence, in the sense that if they left, the Iraqis would have more incentive to sort it out amongst themselves (although Partition-like scenes clearly could result)?
Robin, when you decide who's the easiest dictator to depose, the answer depends on what you take into account. Given that George Bush wanted to invade Iraq, Saddam was the easiest to depose by a long chalk. I remember people arguing that Britain shouldn't join America because they weren't taking out the nastiest despots first, and I was unconvinced.
Do you think it's likely that a coalition withdrawal would lead to an international force stepping in to help? I agree with you that four years ago was a good time to seek that, but what about now?
Rob, I'm happy with your phrasing of the question. Are you tempted to answer it in favour of a pull-out?
Yes, I think I am. But I'm not really obviously in a posiiton to say.
A stronger position to stop all out war in the Middle East. If Israel go after Iran it could get *very* messy and (unfortunately) we are on Israel's side.
I'm not sure that freeing the Iraqi people from Sadam was ever a reason for the invasion. Wasn't it more about whether or not he posed a threat to American/Western/Israeli interests? He didn't pose as much of a threat as we were told, of course.
One of the reasons that the UN did not sanction the invasion was because it was not what China, Russia, Syria, Iran etc. wanted. The international community is made up dictators and military powers. No wonder they didn't feel that human rights violations and (putative) chemical weapons were a just cause for war.
If you pulled out all the troops tomorrow then it would just be a civil war with rival factions fighting for power. The coalition has a duty to try and minimise the damage they have caused and cannot rely on international help. When Russia gave up on Afghanistan the Taliban took over. If we give up on Iraq it could go exactly the same way.
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