Was there any justification for the war in Iraq?

[elscorcho768]

I've been a regular reader of this forum, and the politics section specifically. Now it has become apparent to me that this section is predominantly liberal. As a conservative, I hold no disdain for this forum. So what if this forum is mostly liberal. But there is a question I must ask of everyone in this forum, with the knowledge that most opposed the Iraqi War.

Forgetting the reasons the Bush administration gave for invading Iraq (WMD's) and for the (in my opinion)lackluster handling of post-war Iraq, would you have supported the war in Iraq based on the pretenses that a) removing Saddam was a good thing b) spreading democracy in the middle east is in our best interest and/or c) in a post 9/11 world, enemies in the mideast (particularly those who have professed a desire for our destrctiion) should be destroyed?

My point in bringing up this question is that i feel many who oppose the war and Bush do so based on false promises and mistakes of the Bush admin. instead of actual sound reasons for the war and overall strategy in the war on terror. My personal belief is that whether or not one would agree that the way we tried to adress the problems of the mideast was a success, one cannot deny that to win this war on terror, massive reform needs to be taken towards democracy in the mideast and the war in iraq was an attempt at it.

So what do people think? Is our aim for democracy in the middle east admirable but our execution a disaster or should we not even try to expand democracy in the region? Should we look at ourselves in order to win the war on terror and not try to change others attitudes towards us?

Let me know and i will offer my opinions throughout the thread.

[ACPlayer]

Too hypothetical.

All we can and should do (at a pragmatic level) is evaluate the administration's reasons for going to war and judge the administration based on that and its post war handling.



If the admin wanted to go to war for other reasons they should have offered them. As it is the Administration gets an F for its justification for war (and even a staunch Bush supportor who is being at all rational should agree) and a C- for the handling of the war.

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My point in bringing up this question is that i feel many who oppose the war and Bush do so based on false promises and mistakes of the Bush admin.

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Well, if the promises were not false then those who opposed the war would have been wrong. Now that we know the promises are false, the apologists trot up other reasons.

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instead of actual sound reasons for the war and overall strategy in the war on terror.

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Iraq had nothing to do with the war on terror. That was one of the debunked reasons (fear mongering IMO) that was offered by the admin.

[Cyrus]

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Would you have supported the war in Iraq based on the pretenses that
a) removing Saddam was a good thing
b) spreading democracy in the middle east is in our best interest and/or
c) in a post 9/11 world, enemies in the mideast should be destroyed?

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(a) "Good thing"? Foreign policy cannot be based on feel-good objectives.

(b) If spreading democracy was the objective, it would be reasonable to start from the worst offenders. Such as Saudi Arabia, the emirates, and others like them which are outright dictatorships of the most anachronistic kind.

(c) Something similar was also asked of Michael Corleone, in Godfather, remember?
--You wanna kill 'em all, Mike? --No. Just my enemies.
(He wounds up killin' 'em all anyway.)

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To win this war on terror, massive reform needs to be taken towards democracy in the mideast and the war in iraq was an attempt at it.

[/ QUOTE ] You cannot deal with this immense issue without addressing the whole of it -- from the terrorist threat to America to the root cause of the anti-American hatred. There is simply no exclusively military victory possible in this, more so because the enemy has no territories nor central government. The biggest problem is the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, whereby the Islamic/Arab world correctly perceives a pro-Israeli bias from the U.S., a bias that has helped bring us to the current, extremely bloody, extremely incendiary impasse.

If we had genuine democracies around the Middle East right now, most probably anti-American governments would be voted in. Just like it almost happened in Algeria (the secular nationalists, something like the Ba'athists, intervened illegally and retained power). The Arabs are getting more and more radicalized in response to America's long history of pro-Israeli bias and to Israel's own arrogance, brutality and expansionism.

But all the above presumes Washington genuinely wants the terrorist threat to disappear completely. Does it? I'm not so sure.

[cambraceres]

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But all the above presumes Washington genuinely wants the terrorist threat to disappear completely. Does it? I'm not so sure.

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By Washington you mean what?

The senior leaders?

The Administration?

Congress?

C'mon now, who actually wants this to continue?

[tomdemaine]

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Now it has become apparent to me that this section is predominantly liberal.

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Let me stop you right there. Liberal in the old sense of the word maybe, but this forum is practically a Cato institute subsidiary. No wonder you guys thinks there's a liberal media, jeez.

[Myrtle]

[ QUOTE ]
I've been a regular reader of this forum, and the politics section specifically. Now it has become apparent to me that this section is predominantly liberal. As a conservative, I hold no disdain for this forum. So what if this forum is mostly liberal. But there is a question I must ask of everyone in this forum, with the knowledge that most opposed the Iraqi War.

Forgetting the reasons the Bush administration gave for invading Iraq (WMD's) and for the (in my opinion)lackluster handling of post-war Iraq, would you have supported the war in Iraq based on the pretenses that a) removing Saddam was a good thing b) spreading democracy in the middle east is in our best interest and/or c) in a post 9/11 world, enemies in the mideast (particularly those who have professed a desire for our destrctiion) should be destroyed?

My point in bringing up this question is that i feel many who oppose the war and Bush do so based on false promises and mistakes of the Bush admin. instead of actual sound reasons for the war and overall strategy in the war on terror. My personal belief is that whether or not one would agree that the way we tried to adress the problems of the mideast was a success, one cannot deny that to win this war on terror, massive reform needs to be taken towards democracy in the mideast and the war in iraq was an attempt at it.

So what do people think? Is our aim for democracy in the middle east admirable but our execution a disaster or should we not even try to expand democracy in the region? Should we look at ourselves in order to win the war on terror and not try to change others attitudes towards us?

Let me know and i will offer my opinions throughout the thread.

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....before this thread can go anywhere in a meaningful way, the statement 'war on terrorism' needs to be defined.

[JimBob2232]

Justification: He invaded Kuwait, and did not abide by the seize fire agreement. Thats all the "justification" you need right there.

[Felix_Nietzsche]

Iraq violated the armistice from the first Gulf War multiple times and refused to abide by the terms despite multiple threats. Some of Iraq's violations included attacking coalition aircraft. This alone was justification for war..............

In war, if a losing nation signs an armistice with a victorious nation then they must abide by the terms of the armistice. Failure to do so means that legally and morally the victorious country may commence the war again. If the USA allows countries to violate armistices with no consequences then:

(1) Armistices with the USA are impotent and only allow the losing country time to regroup and reorganize their military.
(2) Sends the message to other countries that if you are losing a war, just agree to an armistice and violate the terms as soon as most of the American troops return to their bases.
(3) Makes the USA look weak and encourages more attacks and transgressions against the USA.
(4) Based on 1, 2, and 3 will cause more wars.


If Clinton would have had a pair of balls and invaded Iraq for their repeated violations of the armistice then a message would be sent to countries like North Korea and Iran that if they [censored] with the USA there would be consequences. Therefore increasing the likelihood of peace.

There is a lot of savage murdering criminal scum in the Middle East and the USA are experiencing first hand of what these people do. To keep the peace, Hussein felt with some justification that you had to kill these people. You can’t argue with results, Hussein kept the peace better than the coalition troops are. The fact that Hussein killed innocents along the way does not merit an attack by the USA. If this were the case the USA would need to invade the majority of African and Middle- Eastern nations.

As for democracy in the Middle East, if it works out in Iraq it will be a MAJOR coup for the USA. Iraq will have the opportunity to become a truly wealthy nation and make the likelihood of peace in the Middle East a possibility.

[timotheeeee]

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Now it has become apparent to me that this section is predominantly liberal.

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Let me stop you right there. Liberal in the old sense of the word maybe, but this forum is practically a Cato institute subsidiary. No wonder you guys thinks there's a liberal media, jeez.

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Lol. Seriously. There's maybe a few American-style liberals, far outnumbered by libertarians and anarchocapitalists. My guess is that he's one of those people that think being in opposition to the war in Iraq by definition makes someone a liberal.

[sweetjazz]

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Is our aim for democracy in the middle east admirable but our execution a disaster or should we not even try to expand democracy in the region?

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Your post is a nice one. In my opinion our aim for democracy in the Middle East is admirable, but it is also misguided. Because of the current perception of the United States -- justified or unjustified as it may be -- our involvement in Iraq has been a constant lightning rod to rally fundamentalists. That is despite the fact that the American intentions in Iraq are good.

While there have been some tactical errors made, I think that the Bush administration is generally overcriticized in this regard. Many of the problems that have emerged -- especially the sectarian violence -- were pretty predictable and would have likely happened eventually no matter what course we pursued. However, that makes the decision to democratize Iraq one that is much less wise than people here seem to think.

For better or worse, we are currently occupying Iraq. Our intentions may (arguably) be better than those of other occupiers, it does not change the historical reality that occupied people almost universally resent their occupiers. Attempts to democratize other nations and westernize their political institutions have been tried before and failed miserably (e.g. Algeria).

So I think the Bush administration had a noble goal and that they are right in thinking that Iraq would be better off if it were "democratized," that is if its political institutions became westernized. Unfortunately, I think they failed to learn from history that attempts to bring about democratization through occupation are generally doomed to failure. Given the high cost of our involvement in Iraq, I think it was an error in judgment to devote so many resources when the most likely end result has always been either a long civil war or the return of an authoritarian rule.

Fortunately, we have not yet reached either of these long-term dead ends, but I fear the likelihood that one or two of these possibilities will have occurred within 10-20 years of our occupation is so high as to make the original decision to try to westernize Iraqi politics a mistake.

BTW, I only addressed the democratization of Iraq, your reason (b) for invading Iraq. I think the issue of Saddam Hussein is largely separate and would require a separate post.

I don't really understand your reason (c). Who are the enemies you are referring to? I don't understand your reason (c) enough to be able to understand why we would topple Saddam and occupy Iraq but not do anything militarily vis-a-vis Iran. Unless reason (c) is the position of those who think we should use a military option against any perceived enemy of the U.S. (or just those in the Middle East [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img])?

So anyway I think (a) and (b) are reasonable reasons to support the decision to go into Iraq, and I believe the Bush administration did always buy into them from the beginnning (though whether they were the primary reasons, or just nice side benefits after removing the WMDs, is unclear to me). I personally think both arguments, though having an air of plausibility, are ultimately flawed. I have tried to share why I think (b) is flawed and I would be happy to do the same with (a) if you like.