Article I Promised From the Other Thread: Warning....LONG

[STEVE IN MASS]

10 reasons why the USA should not attack Iraq

by Bill Winter
LP News Editor


[February 3] For a Libertarian, there's only one valid reason for the United States to go to war: Self-defense.

The party platform makes that clear. It states: "Any U.S. military policy should have the objective of providing security for the lives, liberty and property of the American people in the U.S. against the risk of attack by a foreign power."

Such a "risk of attack" must obviously be immediate, grave, and unequivocal. Otherwise, the government could point to almost any risk -- no matter how unlikely or insignificant -- as a rationale for war.

Given this straightforward self-defense mandate, is the United States justified in going to war against Iraq?

The Bush administration says it is. It argues:

1) Iraq posses nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons of mass destruction (WMD) that threaten the security of the United States.

2) Saddam Hussein is a past and future ally of terrorists who threaten the United States.

Below, we will address each of these arguments.

The Bush administration has offered other rationales for war: Saddam is a thug who oppresses his own people and threatens his neighbors. He has violated U.N. and international agreements. And he has hindered U.N. weapons inspections.

Those accusations all seem to be true. But for a Libertarian, they are not valid reasons to go to war, since they go far beyond any proper defensive role for the U.S. military. It is not the job of the United States to liberate the oppressed people of the world, nor to defend Arab nations against aggression, nor to enforce international treaties, nor to compel Hussein to open his borders to U.N. weapons inspectors.

What about the U.N. report that says Iraq did not prove conclusively that it dismantled its weapons of mass destruction? The mere possession of weapons is not a valid reason for the U.S. to invade a sovereign nation. After all, Iraq is not the only nation with such armaments. According to the Pentagon, 12 nations have nuclear weapons programs, 13 nations possess biological weapons, 16 nations have chemical weapons, and 28 nations are armed with ballistic missiles.

"But no other of those nations is facing the threat of having its leadership overthrown [by armed invasion]," note Ivan Eland and Bernard Gourley in a briefing paper for the Cato Institute (December 17, 2002).

In a similar vein, most of the more colorful anti-war allegations from the Left are also irrelevant: That a war is a ploy to capture Iraq's oil fields for Bush's oil-tycoon friends, or to distract attention from a frail economy, or a son's effort to finish what Bush Senior started. Those allegations merely distract from the central question: Is a war with Iraq necessary for the security of the United States?

An examination from a Libertarian perspective of the arguments for war presents an unambiguous answer: No.

The evidence makes it clear that Iraq does not pose an immediate, grave, and unequivocal threat to the security of the U.S.

Eland and Gourley sum up the view of most libertarian defense experts. "Hussein's threat to the United States has been overstated," they write. "Evidence that Hussein presents an imminent and uncontrollable threat is simply not there. Neither does evidence exist that having Hussein in power is any more threatening than the rule of other despotic tyrants around the world."

Writing in Foreign Policy (January/February 2003), John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt agree. "The campaign to wage war against Iraq rests on a flimsy foundation," they write. "Americans should understand that a compelling strategic rationale is absent."

Summarizing the research of these and other foreign policy experts, here are 10 reasons why the U.S. should not go to war with Iraq:

1) Even if he does have nuclear weapons (or other weapons of mass destruction) Saddam Hussein would not risk using them on the United States.

While there is clear evidence that Iraq possesses a variety of chemical and biological weapons (including mustard gas, nerve gas, and anthrax) – and while he may be working to build nuclear weapons -- there is almost no chance that Hussein would use them to attack the United States.

Why? Because Hussein has no wish to die. The Iraqi dictator understands that if he attacks the United States, he faces massive, devastating retaliation.

"Hussein had an opportunity to use chemical weapons against U.S. troops during the Persian Gulf War, and he did not," note Eland and Gourley. "The lesson to be drawn from this is that Hussein was deterred from using chemical weapons against an adversary capable of massive retaliation."

Even CIA director George Tenet in a letter to Congress, admitted that Iraq would not risk an attack on the world's only superpower. He wrote: "[Iraq] for now appears to be drawing a line short of conducting ... attacks with conventional or chemical or biological weapons against the United States."

But might Hussein use WMD against the U.S. because he is insane, irrational, or reckless? No. Contrary to Bush Administration allegations, Hussein is neither a madman, nor irrational.

"Hussein, while he may not act morally, is rational in the sense that economists and political scientists use the term," write Eland and Gourley. "Although he is prone to take risky and even foolhardy actions, he always does so with one eye focused on maintaining power over Iraq. [Hussein] holds his physical and political survival as paramount among his preferences."

2) There is no evidence that Saddam Hussein helped the September 11 terrorists.

Is Hussein an ally of al Qaeda? No, say Mearsheimer and Walt.

"There is no credible evidence that Iraq had anything to do with the terrorist attacks against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon," they write. "Hawks inside and outside the Bush administration have gone to extraordinary lengths over the past months to find a link, but they have come up empty-handed."

This isn't surprising, note Mearsheimer and Walt, because "relations between Saddam and al Qaeda have always been quite poor."

"Osama bin Laden is a radical fundamentalist, and he detests secular leaders like Saddam," they write. "Similarly, Saddam has consistently repressed fundamentalist movements within Iraq."

Given the non-alliance between Hussein and al Qaeda, an invasion of Iraq would represent a setback in the U.S.'s efforts to seek justice for the September 11 attacks, argue Eland and Gourley.

"Instead of being part of the war on the terrorist network that remains viable and is still attacking the United States, an unprovoked invasion of Iraq would detract from it," they write. "Scarce intelligence resources, special operations forces, and the attention of policy makers would need to be shifted [away from al Qaeda] to an attack on Iraq."

Hussein has given aid to Islamic terrorists -- most recently, to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers -- but "the terrorist groups that Iraq supports do not focus their attacks on the United States," writes the Cato Institute's Ivan Eland (August 19, 2002). "Such groups concentrate their attacks on targets in the Middle East."

3) Hussein is extremely unlikely to give WMD to al Qaeda for future attacks on the United States.

Hussein would not give al Qaeda nuclear or chemical weapons because doing so would pose a danger to the Iraqi dictator's favorite cause: The longevity of Saddam Hussein, argue Mearsheimer and Walt.

"Saddam could never be sure the United States would not incinerate him if it merely suspected he had made it possible for anyone to strike the United States with nuclear weapons," they write. "The U.S. government [is] already deeply suspicious of Iraq, and a nuclear attack against the United States or its allies would raise that hostility to fever pitch.

"No one knows just how vengeful Americans might feel if WMD were ever used against the U.S. Indeed, nuclear terrorism is as dangerous for Saddam as it is for Americans, and he has no more incentive to give al Qaeda nuclear weapons than the United States does."

So, they conclude, even if "Saddam thought he could covertly smuggle nuclear weapons to bin Laden, he would be unlikely to do so."

There's another reason, too, write Eland and Gourley: Al-Qaeda is so "ideologically incompatible" with Hussein that the dictator fears the terrorist group "could ultimately turn on him and use [WMD] weapons against him."

Continued on next post (sorry, the software said I had too long a post.....)