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Allies: Why the West Had to Remove Saddam
Author: DJ07.04.2008
In addition to reading Kagan’s book, we were randomly assigned a book to read. For my assignment, I had to read Allies: The U.S., Britain, and Europe in the Aftermath of the Iraq War by William Shawcross. Since we don’t read just for fun, our task was to make a presentation of the assigned reading (summary and suggestions for further research). I was happy to be given this book because it provided me with more understanding of the current situation in Iraq.
Allies: The U.S., Britain, and Europe in the Aftermath of the Iraq War by William Shawcross starts out by depicting the Arab world through the Arab Development report created by the United Nations Development Programme in 2002. The report delivers a grim outlook on the Arab world from a social, economical and political perspective.
The combined gross domestic product of all Arab countries combined in 1999 was less than that of Spain. Productivity is declining, wages are down and with the current trend it will take the average Arab 140 years to double his income. Unemployment is high and many Arabs live in poverty, about one fifth is living on less than $2 per day. The report also concluded that out of the seven regions of the world, the Arab region had the least freedoms of all.
The report attributed much of these problems to the lack of good governance of Arab countries. One of the most prominent countries with such problematic governance was, of course, Iraq. Ruled by one of the most ruthless dictators the world ever has witnessed and rising through the Baath Party apparatus, Saddam Hussein became president of Iraq in 1979.
After a long and bloody war with Iran, Hussein attempted to annex ate its smaller neighbor Kuwait which was the direct cause for retaliation of the US-led Coalition in 1991: Operation Desert Storm. Desert Storm was won swiftly but Saddam’s military rule was ultimately not overthrown, not through external forces and neither did an internal revolt of Kurds and Shiite cause this regime to topple.
After the cease-fire, the UN Special Commission on Iraq (UNSCOM) was created to inspect Saddam’s Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) of which he proved little hesitations to actually implement them on his enemies within Iraq and Iran. However, these inspections led to a persistent prevarication, obfuscation and harassment of UNSCOM personnel. After 1998, the UN inspectors were not allowed to return to Iraq for four years which was unacceptable to the world community. Inspections could no longer deal with the long-term threat posed by Saddam’s regime that apparently was determined to defy the world.
The Clinton Administration had decided to leave Saddam “in his box”, a policy of containment, and continued to pressure the regime through economic sanctions which turned out to be ineffective in the long run. Saddam resistance defied the world, weakened the United Nations and the international rules of law. The UN’s inability to force permanent compliance by Iraq through disarmament and monitoring measures led to the case of regime removal. The end of Saddam’s regime also demarcated a significant change in the transatlantic relationship within the coalition of the West.
After president Bill Clinton left the Office in January 2001, George W. Bush took his position as president of the United States. Religiously motivated, perhaps not a dazzled speaker like Clinton and probably more comparable in his presidency to Reagan than to his father, Bush senior, George W. Bush experienced the epical 9/11 terrorist attacks early in his presidency.
After 9/11, Bush increasingly expressed himself through religious language which became a problem for the secular, agnostic and even atheist Europeans. Men like Jacques Chirac of France or Gerhard Schroeder of Germany almost boasted their rejection of religion. Javier Solana, the European Union foreign policy chief said in 2003 that the US policy was becoming a more binary model: all or nothing. According to Solana Europe saw the world much less in black and white terms. Nevertheless, one important European leader shared Bush’s vision and Christian beliefs: Tony Blair of Great Britain.
Unlike his secular European partners, Blair tends to describe major issues in terms or right and wrong, well-aligned to Bush’s stream of thought. Blair also cared much about the success of the European Union, much more than most of his fellow Britons. His support for President Bush separated him much from his won party that is traditionally suspicious of the US. It appeared as if Blair became a unique political hybrid: a British neoconservative.
In the US, the philosophies of Neoconservatives became increasingly influential under Bush, especially after 9/11. Neoconservatives draw heavily on the crusading traditions in American thought that characterized Wilsonian ideals, with the exception that they distrust international frameworks and collective security. They also tend to believe that we live in a special moment in history where America’s unparalleled military power is a common ground to expand the boundaries of democracy in the world. The status quo should be challenged and thus, evil governments can’t be reformed but must be removed. Neoconservative thinking dismisses, thereby, one of the founding principles of the United Nations.
Since 9/11, the US has developed its measures against terrorism which includes prevention, the expansion of military capacity and preemption. To some degree, this has unsettled many of America’s allies. Preemption carries great risk. Bush was prepared to take these risks to end Saddam’s defiance of the United Nations and international law and the threat he posed by his alleged possession of WMDs. Blair agreed with Bush wholeheartedly, many of America’s allies did not. This dissonance created the greatest split between the former Atlantic allies since 1945.
The Cold War ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989. This “success” for the Western societies was mainly based on the consistent deployment of US military and financial power. Europe was heavily dependent on the US during the Cold War period. The US thrived even more after the Cold War and globalization in the 1990s induced an apparently unstoppable Americanization on the world. This was reason for resentment of many Europeans. Anti-Americanism became the new “rock ‘n roll”.
The US hegemony continued to grow in strength and was further emphasized during the Balkan wars in the former Yugoslavia and Kosovo, where the European Union proved totally incapable of mustering its own effective response. With US help, NATO intervened in Yugoslavia and Kosovo, and, without the authority of the UN Security Council. US military technology and power were pivotal to the successful interventions in former Yugoslavia and Afghanistan. Europeans couldn’t match the power of the US and, therefore, emphasized the vital importance of international structures and law.
French president Jacques Chirac had build narrow political and economic ties between France and the Iraq regime of Saddam Hussein. During the late 1990s under Chirac’s watch, France continually sided with Iraq when other members of the Security Council sought to punish Iraq for resolution breaches. His German friend Gerhard Schroeder ran for reelection in 2002. High unemployment continued to undermine the German economy and Schroeder sought to avoid this election pitfall by heavily relying on the German anti Iraq war sentiments for his own reelection. Through the help of this “Iraq card”, Schroeder won the reelection but at a heavy price for transatlantic relationships with the US.
Despite French and Russian resistance in the Security Council, resolution 1441 was passed unanimously in 2002. This was a genuine effort by the US to use the multilateral process and a success for Blair keeping Washington committed to the UN. Opposition to Anglo American tactics had become almost hysterical in many parts of Europe, especially in Germany. Many Germans saw Bush as the real enemy. This was the moment when the Bush government made a distinction between “old” and “new” Europe. Old Europe had grown rich under the shelter of the American umbrella since 1945 and the new European-post Iron Curtain- nations tended to see the US as the centre that held during the Cold War. Most of the new European nations supported the US in its actions against Iraq.
On February 5, 2003, Colin Powell gave a dramatic presentation to the council to demonstrate Iraq’s pattern of concealment of its illegal weapons. The British and Americans engaged in a frantic five week search for the nine Security Council votes needed to pass a second resolution under heavy political resistance of the French. A swift solution was needed; British and US troops around Iraq could not stay indefinitely in the desert. Although a second resolution couldn’t be reached, Blair won a crucial vote in the British parliament that preluded the bombing of Iraq on March 19, 2003. Less than 3 weeks later, Baghdad fell to the Americans.
Although the war was a brilliant tactical success, the first few weeks were a disaster. Ruthless looters and a crippled infrastructure brought the country to its knees. It was if the coalition had not drawn up any plans for post war reconstruction. Flawed policy and incompetent administration followed after the military campaign. Existing government structures were controlled by the Baath party who were still Sadammist. A Coalition of Provisional Authority (CPA) was installed as a temporary government by the US.
French, Belgian, German and Luxembourg leaders proposed a military headquarters for the European Union in Iraq on April 29, 2003. This was immediately seen by Washington and London as an attempt to dilute NATO. The US rejected calls for European headquarters but requested military capacity from European nations under the flag of NATO. France, and the European Union’s, struggle against US hegemony was in vain. Europe was no longer the central theater of geopolitical competition.
Nevertheless, the critics of the war had a field day when it became clear that the allies could not quickly find weapons of mass destructions. This discovery was more important to Blair than to Bush, because it was the British parliamentary justification for war. President Bush had insisted that Iraq had supported terrorism was ill-advised when he declared “mission accomplished” on the deck of an aircraft carrier on May 1. However, many weapon experts and independent reports supported the Bush/Blair decision to preemptively attack the ability of Saddam Hussein to create and use WMDs.
Unfortunately, among old allies the old enmities flared again. France decided to lead the charge against US control of Iraq by demanding a swift timetable from the handover of power to the Iraqi provisional government. France and Germany rejected a US draft resolution that suggested a retained US command in Iraq. It almost appeared as if the French and Germans wanted any attempt to rebuild a better Iraq to fail. Despite many positive changes in Iraq and its neighboring countries such as Libya, the “old European” criticism of the US policies and actions were cynical and overwhelming.
The failed ambition to make Europe a counterweight or rival to the US proved itself to be a delusion. Blair even considers this European vision as “dangerous” and an “anachronism”. Above all, Blair fears America being driven into isolationism and considers a partnership between the US and Europe as essential to face the common threats in this world such as Islamic fascism.
Suggestions for further research
There are a few questions derived from the book “Allies” that deserve further research. Firstly, the question is if “we (the Western world) can afford to continue to do business with these obsolescent polities that rule through repression“. This question arises in the light of the UN Development Programme report on Arab society that qualifies many Arab regimes as corrupt, autocratic and based on nationalism, socialism and brutality.
A second important issue is that “it is not enough to denounce unilateralism unless we (the UN) also face up squarely to the concerns that make some states feel uniquely vulnerable, since it is those concerns that drive them to take unilateral action“. In this respect, unilateral actions of the US possibly saved the UN as an institution because the US’s power politics are a vital resource for enforcing UN Security Council Resolutions. Without the ability to enforce a resolution, the need to draw such a resolution might become pointless.
The role - and perhaps necessity - of unilateralism within multilateral institutions such as the UN Security Council, therefore, needs further research.
April 8th, 2008 at 8:28 am
Helpfull summary. I am going to read that one
April 9th, 2008 at 2:48 am
When President Bush came into office, he inherited unresolved problems in regards to Iraq. I think the Clinton admininistration’s decision to leave Saddam ”in his box” or “containing him” is reminscent of Britain’s policy of appeasment as we way to deal with Hitler’s bullying his neighbors with his imperialist attitude. Both dictators fail and refuse to comply with the sanctions impose on them because the enforcer ( U.N. and Britain and allies) did not scare them into compliance or follow through with the necessary punishment. In Hitler’s case he continue to break the sanctions impose on him because nobody was doing anything to stop him. Giving in to him to avert war or conflict was a huge mistakes because he saw that as a green light to rebuild his army, to take over his neigbors etc. As result, the policy of appeasement was a contributing cause of WWII.
Clinton’s policy of containment had the same effects on Saddam. It did not work because the U.N. did not punish him when he thumb his nose a them by doing whatever he wanted.
In regards to Blairs fear that the U.S. will revert to the policy of isolationism… I do not forsee this happening. We tried this during President Wilson’s presidency and it did not work! He kept the U.S. out of WWI(1914-1918) as long as possible with our policy of isolationism and neutrality, but that lasted until 1917.
Our foreign policy will prevent us from reverting to isolationism. According to Condolezza Rice, “The goal of transformational diplomacy is to work with others to build and sustain democratic, well governed states that will respond to the needs of their people and conduct themselves responsibly in the international community. We seek to use America’s democratic power to help others better their lives and transform their own future.” The U.S. can not accomplish this if they isolate themselves from other people or distance themselves from world conflicts. Yes, there are plenty of people who will see this as a way for the U.S. to occupy their countries instead of as an mediation or intervention.
April 9th, 2008 at 9:56 am
U.S foreign policy doesn’t change much no matter what party is in the office and will not change in the future I think after September 11. Can we export democracy at gun point? As powerful as the US is, I don’t think the country can go along for too long without friends.
I don’t know if the American people really want to take care of the world’s problems. The price tag could be too hight for some of us.
April 9th, 2008 at 5:14 pm
Darly,
I guess we can call our allies “friends”. We have many countries that have benefitted from their relation with us economically and politically. As for democracy, if we use force to spread it then it contradicts the ideals of it. We have to respect the rights of others and their opinions. If they do not want democracy in their country then let us leave them alone.
This election has really highlight the overwhelming frustrations Americans feel about using our resources, power, money and influence to try to solve the world’s problem. Maybe, we need to focus more on our domestic issues instead of the international conflicts.
April 11th, 2008 at 5:48 am
It’s all about the national interests, giving and taking. The American government used to support dictators all around the world in order to stop the spread of communism. Now the theme is democracy. It’s about cleaning up the mess the previous administrations created in before 1990’s.
Kagan himself is a neoconservative and pointed out that everything we do is based on interests, what is at stake for the Americans.
Many are saying that half of the world’s problem can be traced back to the US. Just look at Laos for example. The US nor the American taxpayers are ready to clean up the mess over there.
The war in Iraq is about “energy security” rather than spreading democracy.
Since both books were written by American authors, there was a little bit of bias to say the least.
April 13th, 2008 at 7:58 am
It strikes me as extremely odd that someone actually would believe that the Neocon agenda is to “spread democracy” and any international military intervention is considered an altruistic one.
Being narrowly focused on self-interest is precisely the reason why your soldiers are in the Middle East. Forget about the “noble” propaganda of helping people that has been whispered to you by Fox news through your desert cable.
Focus on domestic issues? This whole campaign is solely about domestic issues. Like many people said before: “It is the economy, stupid“. It is an attempt to battle the debt crisis through military means. It is a shame one would not see this. Misleading…
April 13th, 2008 at 4:15 pm
Padek and Darly, one of the goals of our foreign policy is to spread democracy and yes sometimes it is an altruistic one and sometimes it is for purely selfish reasons. There are times when the U.S. has intervene because they are trying to make a difference in the region. We can make assumptions about the motivation and speculate about we is there to gain. However, when it comes down to it the government is not always going to tell the truth.
One of my favorite Historian and author is Howard Zinn. I use his history book as a source in my class because it is uncensored. It does not not sugar coat anything. Also, I like what he says about war and that there is no such thing as a “just” war. Bottom line is war destroys lives whether it is cause by nationalism, imperialism, or militarism.
I am fully aware that the “focus”of the election is on domestic issues such as : the economy, heathcare, etc. All the candidates are doing right now is “talking” about the issues and laying out their plans. It is all talk, but in order for them to solve those domestic issues it will take more than one term in office. I for one do not believe that the next president will be able to bring such a “great change” in such a short amount of time.
We can not focus on domestic crisis if we keep sending billions of dollars in aids to other countries as well as the global fight on terror. Recently, on March 12, Condolezza Rice asked the House of Committee for 6 billion dollars to support U.S. initiative in foreign affairs. http://video.state.gov/?fr_story=9b46452f613700e09a5ecc08bb7a594ef670731f
April 14th, 2008 at 6:09 pm
Karmadiva, you strike me as a person that will Google all night to find a link just to prove your point. However, you are failing terribly.
Let’s face it: you are an extreme right winger who won’t shy away from refusing health care to immigrants. You further prove my point by advocating US isolationism in every comment you make. And then, you refer to Howard Zinn as one of your favorite historians, a renown Marxist/Socialist? That is insane…
My further objections to your posts are that you take these “Googled facts” and post them as the truth and only truth. Are you afraid 6 billion dollar of aid to poor countries is going to kill your precious economy?
Dear Karmadiva, The Netherlands (16 million inhabitants) build an annual budget of $6.1 billion in foreign aid.
_> The US spends less in foreign aid than the mini Euro state of The Netherlands.<-
So, what are you babbling about? Don’t talk about numbers that are out of proportion, will solve nothing and, worse, stigmatizes people.
Look at the US war budget, the military spending, your insane interest payments of a country that is knee deep into debt, a banking system that is utterly corrupted and build on hot air. Too afraid to see the real pains you reside to hammering the weak (immigrants, foreign aid). That is sickening, especially for someone with your background.
Once again you insist in proving that you haven’t spend one day in a statistics book, lack any fundamental knowledge about comparative analysis and you never had any clear direction of thought anyway, except for extreme right wingism as your only response to environmental uncertainty.
April 15th, 2008 at 1:10 am
Padek, you are funny! Thanks again for the laugh! Believe what you will. :)
April 15th, 2008 at 4:14 am
Yes, I am a riot. Contrary, I thank you for the amusing posts. Easy target