Because We Could By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN The failure of the Bush team to produce any weapons of mass destruction (W.M.D.'s) in Iraq is becoming a big, big story. But is it the real story we should be concerned with? No. It was the wrong issue before the war, and it's the wrong issue now. Why? Because there were actually four reasons for this war: the real reason, the right reason, the moral reason and the stated reason. The "real reason" for this war, which was never stated, was that after 9/11 America needed to hit someone in the Arab-Muslim world. Afghanistan wasn't enough because a terrorism bubble had built up over there — a bubble that posed a real threat to the open societies of the West and needed to be punctured. This terrorism bubble said that plowing airplanes into the World Trade Center was O.K., having Muslim preachers say it was O.K. was O.K., having state-run newspapers call people who did such things "martyrs" was O.K. and allowing Muslim charities to raise money for such "martyrs" was O.K. Not only was all this seen as O.K., there was a feeling among radical Muslims that suicide bombing would level the balance of power between the Arab world and the West, because we had gone soft and their activists were ready to die. The only way to puncture that bubble was for American soldiers, men and women, to go into the heart of the Arab-Muslim world, house to house, and make clear that we are ready to kill, and to die, to prevent our open society from being undermined by this terrorism bubble. Smashing Saudi Arabia or Syria would have been fine. But we hit Saddam for one simple reason: because we could, and because he deserved it and because he was right in the heart of that world. And don't believe the nonsense that this had no effect. Every neighboring government — and 98 percent of terrorism is about what governments let happen — got the message. If you talk to U.S. soldiers in Iraq they will tell you this is what the war was about. The "right reason" for this war was the need to partner with Iraqis, post-Saddam, to build a progressive Arab regime. Because the real weapons of mass destruction that threaten us were never Saddam's missiles. The real weapons that threaten us are the growing number of angry, humiliated young Arabs and Muslims, who are produced by failed or failing Arab states — young people who hate America more than they love life. Helping to build a decent Iraq as a model for others — and solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — are the necessary steps for defusing the ideas of mass destruction, which are what really threaten us. The "moral reason" for the war was that Saddam's regime was an engine of mass destruction and genocide that had killed thousands of his own people, and neighbors, and needed to be stopped. But because the Bush team never dared to spell out the real reason for the war, and (wrongly) felt that it could never win public or world support for the right reasons and the moral reasons, it opted for the stated reason: the notion that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction that posed an immediate threat to America. I argued before the war that Saddam posed no such threat to America, and had no links with Al Qaeda, and that we couldn't take the nation to war "on the wings of a lie." I argued that Mr. Bush should fight this war for the right reasons and the moral reasons. But he stuck with this W.M.D. argument for P.R. reasons. Once the war was over and I saw the mass graves and the true extent of Saddam's genocidal evil, my view was that Mr. Bush did not need to find any W.M.D.'s to justify the war for me. I still feel that way. But I have to admit that I've always been fighting my own war in Iraq. Mr. Bush took the country into his war. And if it turns out that he fabricated the evidence for his war (which I wouldn't conclude yet), that would badly damage America and be a very serious matter. But my ultimate point is this: Finding Iraq's W.M.D.'s is necessary to preserve the credibility of the Bush team, the neocons, Tony Blair and the C.I.A. But rebuilding Iraq is necessary to win the war. I won't feel one whit more secure if we find Saddam's W.M.D.'s, because I never felt he would use them on us. But I will feel terribly insecure if we fail to put Iraq onto a progressive path. Because if that doesn't happen, the terrorism bubble will reinflate and bad things will follow. Mr. Bush's credibility rides on finding W.M.D.'s, but America's future, and the future of the Mideast, rides on our building a different Iraq. We must not forget that.
"But I will feel terribly insecure if we fail to put Iraq onto a progressive path. Because if that doesn't happen, the terrorism bubble will reinflate and bad things will follow." Opportunity/cost...Was the terrorism "bubble" not SIGNIFICANTLY inflated by attacking Iraq? How many more conscripts have signed-up with the Islamic terror orginizations?
I would tend to agree with most of this... Probably none. If anything, it probably curbed it. Those who were willing to die for Allah have already signed up in the fight. Those who were not are more cowed than anything after this. That is Friedman's point.
I like Thomas Friedman immensely, but he is just plain wrong about there being "no al-Queda connection".
Good ole johnheath... Still jerking off to last month's newspapers. You must have a really good source to be right about stuff even strong supporters of this war are now backing off of.
A great article and also a good indicator of why most American's don't care if Bush used his info in a manner to fan the flames of war. It was simply the RIGHT thing to do. DD
I disagree with much of what he has to say, but I enjoy how he says it, and I think that this is a much more defensible pro-war position than most. It's flaws, however, are still legion IMO. That said, good read, good write, nice find, Mr. C.
While I agree with your last point, I don't see why you always have to bring liberal vs. conservative into everything.........
I don't see where I did this in this thread, can you help me out here, I may be going blind from diddling in my tutu. DD
it was a joke, DD...ok, try this one instead... "It was simply the RIGHT thing to do." Yeah.....WAAAAAY RIGHT.
I think this point is worth noting . . . . While many Americans may not care whether or not the WMD intelligence info was accurate, much of the rest of the world does. There will be times in the future when we will need cooperation from other countries (even France) for diplomatic, economic and maybe even military matters. If we continue to damage our own credibility and act as if the reasons behind our motives are irrelevant, we will find that cooperation will be harder and harder to come by.
Since the UN Security Council, Hans Blix, and the UN inspections team all agreed that Iraq had WMD and was not complying with inspections, how does this affect the credibility of the UN?
Since the UN Security Council, Hans Blix, and the UN inspections team all agreed that Iraq had WMD Except they didn't. http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/06/05/sprj.irq.wmd.controversy/index.html <I>In New York, chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix told the Security Council Thursday that inspectors found no evidence before the March invasion that Iraq had reconstituted its chemical, biological or nuclear weapons programs.(Full story) "The commission has not at any time during the inspections in Iraq found evidence of the continuation or resumption of programs of weapons of mass destruction or significant quantities of proscribed items, whether from pre-1991 or later," Blix told the Security Council in what is expected to be his final report. But he also said Iraq was unable to account for chemical or biological weapons it claimed to have destroyed, and weapons inspectors were unable to clear up discrepancies before they left Baghdad in advance of the invasion. "This does not necessarily mean that such items could not exist. They might. There remain a long list of items unaccounted for," Blix said. "But it is not justified to jump to the conclusion that something exists just because it was unaccounted for." </i> He basically said they didn't find anything, but they could exist. This may not affect Bush, but it could very well get Britain and Spain's leaders voted out of office. That certainly wouldn't help our efforts in the long-run. <I>Critics in Europe are also raising questions, forcing British Prime Minister Tony Blair to defend his support for the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. Spain's opposition Socialist Party has formally requested that Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar explain to parliament what happened to Iraq's reputed weapons of mass destruction. </I>
I read this article this morning, it was fantastic. However I don't think I agree with the following.... If he implies the "real reason" is a decent enough reason, I think he wrong. If we don't succeed in...... We will have potentially increased terrorism by increasing the..... Who have only 1 goal in mind. Unlike Saddam and others with political stakes (for negotiating and being concerned with our retailiation--which is why Saddam didn't use WMD in Gulf War I, these people provide the greatest threat, not organized (even if despicable) nations.
This is typical bs by Friedman. He always tries to be too clever by far and speaks out of both sides of his mouth. he often poses as a liberal. The "real reason" for this war, which was never stated, was that after 9/11 America needed to hit someone in the Arab-Muslim world What stupidity. How immoderate. How anti-Arab, how pleasing to the Arab haters. Just hit "someone" as long as they were Muslim and Arabs. Afghanistan wasn't enough because a terrorism bubble had built up over there Colorful, but bs nonetheless. Once the war was over and I saw the mass graves and the true extent of Saddam's genocidal evil, my view was that Mr. Bush did not need to find any W.M.D.'s to justify the war for me. He is either dishonest or a moron. How could a guy spend 20 years living and writing about the Middle East and not know there were mass graves. Many of the mass graves discovered were from when we encouraged the Shiites under Bush Sr. to rise up but allowed Sadam to slaughter them. Friedman was always for this war for the same reasons as the other neocons Perle, Wofowicz etc. But I will feel terribly insecure if we fail to put Iraq onto a progressive path. Because if that doesn't happen, the terrorism bubble will reinflate and bad things will follow. Mr. Bush's credibility rides on finding W.M.D.'s, but America's future, and the future of the Mideast, rides on our building a different Iraq. We must not forget that. Typical Friedman. He jumps in at key moments to push for the war or in this case justify it after the postwar is going badly. He tries to distance himself from the neocons, good cop bad cop style, while supporting them 100% over and over again at key points when the war push was not going good or as here the neocon plans for the postwar are going poorly. I liked Friedman's original Pollitzer Prize winning book, "From Beirut to Jerusalem". There were reports that he was disciplined by the more conservative Jewish elements for the book as it was seen as too evenhanded in its treatment of the Palestinian situation. . He has gotten more anti-Arab since then, but it is also possible that he has legitimately adopted that stance as the years have gone by. It is maddening to see him sneakily try to pretend that he has a relatively neutral attitude toward Arabs and Muslims while supporting the Wofowicz camp.
