i don’t buy any of it. let’s start at the beginning. before the list even begins safire writes that he will “Set aside the tens of thousands of lives saved each year by ending Saddam's sustained murder of Iraqi Shia and Kurds, which is of little concern to human rights inactivists.” thus safire implies that saddam was murdering tens of thousands of people every year, right up to the present. but this is not true. while opponents of the regime would continue to disappear each year, saddam’s mass murder tended to happen in spurts. first there was the slaughter of the kurds in the 1980s and then there was the slaughter of shiites in 1991. you can also throw in all the people who died during the iran-iraq war if you want (although death in war, even a useless war is not generally considered to be “murder.” if it were, president bush would be a murderer too). so if you average the deaths over the course of his rule you may get into the “tens of thousands,” he hasn’t come close over the last decade or so. also, saddam’s various massacres do have some common characteristics, all were done with either the tacit support of the u.s, or at least with signals that the u.s. would not act to oppose him. thus, in 2003 and 2004 there was little realistic chance that saddam would have murdered thousands more people. safire’s implication to the contrary is simply wrong. (furthermore, the massacre of the kurds, shiites and the casualties of the iran-iraq war were all heavily covered by international human rights groups. safire’s slap at them is totally unfounded).
so then safire goes into his formal list of accomplishments. number 1 is qaddafi’s decision to abandon nuclear weapons and to allow international inspectors in. safire writes: “The notion that this terror-supporting dictator’s epiphany was not the direct result of our military action, but of decade-long diplomatic pleas for goodness and mercy is laughable.” when i read this paragraph i couldn’t help but think that safire stopped following libya’s political development sometime around 1989. the 1989 lockerby bombing was the last time libya made a big splash in the american news media, so in one sense i can’t really blame safire for not keeping up with stuff after that. but before he dismisses other viewpoints as “laughable” he should consider qaddafi’s almost desperate attempts at international acceptance in the past 15 years while most of the u.s. media was not looking. since safire stopped paying attention, libya has made several attempts to remake its image from what it had in the 1980s. the country has, as far as anyone can tell, not sponsored any terrorist attacks since the 1980s and it agreed to turn over its own citizens (and probably its agents) to an international tribunal concerning the lockerby incident. it has virtually dropped out of the arab league (although it is still technically a member) and instead libya has tried to rebrand itself as an african country. in fact, the “african union” (modeled after the european union and a successor to the organization of african states) is basically qaddafi’s brainchild. libya has sponsored peace talks for virtually every conflict in africa over the past decade. after 9/11 libya has been extremely cooperative with the u.s in sharing information about al qaeda.
all of the above took place before the american invasion of iraq. qaddafi’s decision to let nuclear inspectors in, must therefore be viewed as part of a long term strategy by libya to rebrand itself to the outside world. while i think that particular choice (nuclear inspectors) at this time was influenced by the whole iraq thing, i do not think that libya did it because it thought it may be next on the invasion list as safire and others have implied. rather, qaddafi chose to announce a change in its nuclear policy because he (correctly) calculated that after iraq it would get more attention that his other efforts to normalize relations. from what i have read, it seems that libya’s nuclear program was pretty rudamentary in any case, so qaddafi figured by letting inspectors in he was giving up very little for a relatively large p.r. payoff. even if we had never invaded iraq, qaddafi would have tried something to further normalize relations with the outside world. It may not have been nuclear related, but it would have been some gesture. and make no mistake, this is really merely a gesture. libya’s nuclear program was a long way off from being a threat to anyone. the only laughable part is how safire and other hawks are buying into qaddafi’s latest p.r. that he is a new man.
next safire sites the recent constitutional convention in afghanistan as something that is “spinning into control.” while it is important that the loya jurga came up with a constitution, the real test is putting the thing into effect. it’s simply too early to applaud afghan democracy when there is no such democracy except on paper. and as mustang bobby has pointed out afghanistan is still a dangerous violent place and it is unclear whether anywhere outside of kabul is getting more or less stable. the place is spinning alright, but it remains to be seen in what direction.
safire also argues that the reopening of secret peace talks between israel and syria are a direct result of the iraq adventure. he claims that the talks “would not have happened while Saddam was able to choke off illicit oil shipments to Syria.” here safire is simply wrong. this is not the first time that israel and syria have engaged in secret peace talks. previous talks took place while saddam ruled iraq even though iraq could have choked off oil shipments to syria. saddam did not because his regime was completely dependant on the revenue the shipments produced.
the fourth numbered accomplishment that safire cites is the strangest of the bunch. i really have no way of summarizing this one, so i will simply quote the whole thing:
On the West Bank, incipient Israeli negotiations with Syria — on top of the overthrow of the despot who rewarded Palestinian suicide bombers — further isolates the terror organizations behind Yasir Arafat. Under the pressure of Israel's security fence, and without the active support of Egypt and Saudi Arabia (each eager to retain protection of a strong-willed Bush administration), Palestinians now have incentives to find an antiterrorist leader who can deliver statehood.
notably, this paragraph does not explain how the arafat isolation as a palestinian leader is related to america’s adventures in iraq. that was the whole point of the column, right? the only connection i can see is his attempt to created link between arafat’s political strength and the israeli negotiations with syria. as explained above, safire has not convinced me that the syrian negotiations are related to iraq, so this point about arafat is all the more tenuous. in addition, safire’s conclusion in this paragraph doesn’t really make much sense when he writes: “Palestinians now have incentives to find an antiterrorist leader who can deliver statehood.” does that mean they didn’t have an incentive before? what about the embarrassing fact that palestinians have not actually replaced arafat. even if we assume that getting rid of arafat would be a good thing, can we really say that anything has actually been accomplished on this point? having more incentive really doesn’t say much when you think about it.
next he moves onto iran. what safire and most conservatives are blind to is that the reform movement in iran has been active for the past 7 years. in 1997 the current reformist president was elected and the reformers and hard-liners have been battling it out ever since. in 1999 there was a major series of demonstrations, just as there was last year. the wingers, of course, attributed all of last year’s political activity to the bush administration, but that ignores what happened in 1999. the democracy movement there long predates “the presence of 130,000 U.S. troops near the border.” if anything, the presence of u.s. troops strengthens the hard liners, not the democrats in iran. the mullahs only consolidated power during the iranian revolution when iraq attacked the country. for years they have clung to power by citing threats to the country from the outside, usually threats originating from the u.s. over time the younger generation has ceased to believe their religious leaders, and is slowly but surely rebelling against the mullah’s authority. but when the u.s. actually does threaten the regime, it only plays into the mullah’s hands
here’s another example of how u.s. strong arm tactics are hurting not helping the democracy movement there: for years the iranian government has been sponsoring anti-american demonstrations on the anniversary of their revolution. by the mid-1990s these demonstrations were sparsely attended and, in fact, encouraged a people who opposed the regime to adopt a more pro-u.s. stance. after 9/11 there was a large spontaneous pro-american candle-lit vigil in central tehran. then bush listed iran as part of the “axis of evil” in his 2002 state of the union address. that came as a blow to the reform movement. anti-american demonstrations suddenly reappeared in tehran and the reform movement took over a year to recover. the democracy demonstrations in 2003 in tehran probably would have occurred earlier if bush had not been so stupid with that “axis of evil”. the democracy movement there marches on despite, not because of, bush’s policies.
next safire repeats what has become a conservative mantra as violence continues in iraq: “In Iraq, where casualties in Baghdad could be compared to civilian losses to everyday violence in New York and Los Angeles, a rudimentary federal republic is forming itself with all the customary growing pains.” add safire to the list of people who do not understand the concept of a ratio. safire, like others, compates the gross number of people killed in iraq and comparing it to the gross number of people killed in new york and los angeles. but that’s not fair. there are only 130,000 troops in iraq and over 8 million people in new york. even if new york has a greater gross number of deaths, the odds of actually getting killed if you serve in iraq is much much greater in iraq as ntodd points out. using ntodd’s figures, a soldier is 53 times more likely to be killed in iraq than in new york. maybe that’s why i didn’t see anyone in body armor when i was there last weekend.
safire’s seventh and last point is the least coherent of the bunch. let’s face it, north korea is not a success story any way you try to spin it. the question here is not whether safire is right in seeing a causal connection between a development in the world and iraq, but rather whether these is anything good to see. when bush came into office, north korea was a non-nuclear power. now it probably has two nuclear weapons and is plugging away at getting an arsenal of about 20 warheads. the bush administration has done nothing to stop it and in fact, seems pretty powerless in the face of what is becoming a real WMD threat as opposed to the fantasy threat that was iraq.
safire claims that all of this adds up to a foreign policy that is spinning into control. none of his claims withstand any sort of methodical scrutiny. i can’t see how anyone could agree with safire unless they were pre-disposed to find foreign policy successes for this administration.
