September 9, 2002

From 9/11 to the intervention in Iraq

By Terry Burke

In the summer of 1914 Europe blithely entered World War I, little reckoning the consequences. It is hard not to hear echoes of the "guns of August" in the present historical moment and the feckless calls for the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.

COMMENTARY

Edmund "Terry" Burke is a professor of history at UCSC and chaired the ad hoc faculty committee on current events, formed in the wake of the September 11 attacks. Photo: Tom Van Dyke

The outcome of the current struggle in Washington between the imperialists (those who favor the overthrow of Saddam Hussein) and the multilateralists (those who propose working through established international organizations) is freighted with consequences.

The choices are between an international system governed by law, and an adventurist U.S. policy bent upon remaking the map of the Middle East. The guns of August are already firing.

How have American responses to the events of 9/11 led us to the prospect of a unilateral invasion of Iraq, especially in the absence of any evidence that Iraq was involved in the attack on the Twin Towers?

The attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, were a devastating blow to America. Many of us have still not recovered from the sense of powerlessness and rage brought about by the attacks. We all grieve the victims.

Unforeseen by those charged with safeguarding our national security, the events of 9/11 have propelled us into a world both starkly new, and strangely old. They have also opened the door for those who would play the sorcerer's apprentice in the Middle East.

How did things get this way? In response to the events of last September, President Bush declared an open-ended war on terrorism and gathered a coalition of forces to root out al-Qaida throughout the world. This campaign achieved some successes, notably the overthrow of the fanatical Taliban regime in Afghanistan and the installation of Hamid Karzai as head of a pro-Western Afghan government.

However, Osama bin Laden and Mullah Umar (if they are still alive) are still at large, and Afghanistan remains plagued by instability--indeed increasing numbers of Afghans see President Karzai as an American puppet.

As enunciated by President Bush in the months since 9/11, the war on terrorism has taken the form of a crusade against a never-defined "terrorism" and an "axis of evil." While the moralism of this campaign has been resisted by most of the world, in the short run the war on terrorism has enjoyed considerable domestic public support. However, it has also brought about a deepening rift between the United States and Muslim countries, which given the integration of the latter into the U.S. Cold War alliance system, represents a historic shift of major proportions.

Which in a curious way brings us to Iraq and current plans for unilateral U.S. intervention. While there is little doubt of the brutal character of Saddam Hussein's government, what is the real threat he poses? Here opinions are divided. Many experts believe that Iraq's possession of weapons of mass destruction does not constitute a clear threat to world order. The sanctions regime, they say, is working and can be further refined. War is not inevitable.
Another argument against unilateral U.S. intervention is that it would be profoundly destabilizing.

The turbulent history of modern Iraq and its ethnic cleavages (60 percent of Iraqis are Shi'ite Arab Muslims, 20 percent Kurdish and 20 percent Sunni Arab Muslims) make it unlikely that intervention will result in a democratic state. Were Saddam Hussein to fall, Iraqi Kurds might seek a state of their own (which could potentially include Kurdish populations in Turkey, Syria and Iran). Shi'ite Iraqis might seek to join Iran or to form a state of their own. U.S. intervention in Iraq is more apt to resemble a chain collision on the freeway than an orderly process of political change. It will lead to further wars, rather than bring peace.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly in this moment of deep economic uncertainty, proponents of intervention have yet to explain how they will pay for this war, the cost of which is estimated at $40 billion to $60 billion. The 1991 Gulf War was paid for by the members of the member states of the allied coalition. But this time there is no coalition. Why then are proponents of the war so insistent upon unilateral intervention? And why have they not explained how it will be financed?

Iraq is the second leading producer of oil in the world. According to a published statement by proponents of intervention, the seizure of Iraqi oil will enable the United States to pay the costs of the expedition. Seized Iraqi oil, they also assert, will provide a means of restoring U.S. leverage over the international oil business. Yet few Americans are aware of this cynical calculation.

Nor is this all. Some in the Bush administration have made no secret of their desire to use the overthrow of Saddam Hussein to provoke a dramatic reshaping of the political map of the Middle East. This complex and risky scheme has obvious implications not just for the Middle East, but for the whole system of international relations that has governed the post-1945 world. This is why the proposal for the unilateral invasion of Iraq has provoked so profound a sense of unease. We all have a stake in the outcome.

It has been a strange and windy road indeed from last September 11 to the present prospect of an invasion of Iraq.

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