Could Saddam Have Been Contained?

The writer of this article lays out a convincing argument that the 2003 Iraq war was unnecessary because past efforts to contain Saddam have worked. (hat tip, curious m)

My problem with this argument is that it is the same logic the US and world applied in 1993 to the Saddam issue - Saddam is better than the other options, he is containable, and it's not worth the money. Further, there are negative consequences, ie incentives for NoKo and Iran to get nukes, further hatred of America, etc.

But the writer has completely overlooked 1993-2003 when we tested his theory of Saddam containment. We saved money and we were prosperous. But Iraq and the middle east moved backwards for 10 more years....that's 10 more years of economic stagnation, political tyranny, corruption, 10 more years of children raised without prospects, ten more years of women without rights, of governments passing the torches of leaderships to spoiled and sometimes psychopathetic children.

And you say, well, that doesn't affect us. What do we care? We powered our cars off of their misery that they've become accustomed to.

But the negative side effect of doing nothing was the empowering of Islamic fundamentalists, who opposed the tyrannical governments of the middle east and the US government which they said, propped them up.

So they question is - are we better off sitting back and hoping that one day democratic or political revolution happens in this region? That modernization will just spontaneously occur if we keep suggesting to thugs and dictators that they should loosen up, while we line their pockets with billions of dollars in "aid"?

Will we be safer bonking Saddam on the head once each time he fucks with us? Will we be safer just by prosecuting terrorists when we can find them in time?

Or does there need to be a seismic shift in the region? A complete overhaul, change in attitude?

I think the latter, he seems to think the former.

UPDATE: Of course saying the Middle East needs a seismic shift does not ensure we can deliver it. But utilizing the same failed policy over and over again despite access to new information and new world developments is downright foolish.

Iraq is certainly a different place than in early 2003. Is it getting better or getting worse? I think there is slow and steady progress at great short term cost. But so long as the wheels are turned in the right general direction and continue in the right direction, the long term benefits to the region and the world will be huge.

What do we want Iraq to look like in 2013? How do we achieve that? Is pulling out our troops and declaring the war a mistake the answer?

Here are some notes by a recent visitor to Iraq, indicating progress.

Isn't all this anti-war sentiment more about American fatigue, than actually about Iraq itself? Americans traditionally get tired of war after 3 years, even WWII. I think that is generally a good thing. But does it mean it's the right thing?

UPDATE 2: I have never said that the US always supported democracy in the Middle East. We haven't. We've supported stability at the expense of democracy and the output was Saddam, the Royal Family, and cheap oil. The negative byproduct was the rise of fundamentalism. Post-9/11, we needed to take a different track...I'm not positive that removing Saddam was the right move, but it sure as hell is a lot more promising than complaining about how the US has treated the region in the past, which is about the only thing the Muslim world or the liberals seemed willling to think 9/11 warranted - some type of renewed discussion.

Iran's reform president was unsuccessful because the Ayatollah's have an essential veto on any policies he tried to implement. That is why Bush included Iran in the axis of evil, because they have a government where the power lays in the hands of a counsel of Ayatollah's who rely on a paramilitary police force of thugs to keep the country in line. To say that it's the US fault for not allowing the theocratic country to reform is absurd.

Turkey, from a strategic standpoint has never supported removing Saddam because of issues related to their own Kurdish population, whom they fear would seek independence if the Iraqi Kurd population sought independence. The Kurdish people are the largest population of people on earth without a country of their own and they yearn for a Kurdistan, a combination of Kurds from Iraq, Iran, and Turkey. None of the countries in the region want this...so while Turkey's democratic majority did not support the Iraq invasion, one might consider why they wouldn't want such a thing, and then ask yourself whether it's just. Shit, we're a democracy and we voted for George Bush, right?

And let's not kid ourselves, people around the world range for a dislike to a strong hatred of the US for two reasons: 1) envy and 2) inept leaders find blaming the US the easiest way to gain short term popular support. The US, moreso than nearly any other country in the modern world, has generally done good. Yet, people far and wide hate the US, cherry picking grievances that have had zero effect upon them. Anger at the US exists when we invade Iraq, but the anger still would exist if we didn't do anything about Iraq or the region. So I don't think we should kid ourselves by turning to the popularity of the Iraq war around the world as some type of measure of whether it was the right thing to do - my point is, no matter what policy we have, whether it be invading Iraq, to complete isolation, to donating our GNP to all the poor people in the world, people would still be angry at us.