Sunday, March 06, 2005
The power of example
At the end of the interview, which was conducted last week, Assad said: "Please send this message: I am not Saddam Hussein. I want to cooperate."
There were any number of reasons, spoken and unspoken, why it was in the interests of the United States and its allies to invade Iraq. As I wrote in my massive post on strategic rationale for the Iraq War, one of those reasons was to demonstrate resolve, so that both al Qaeda and Arab dictators would perceive our threats as credible.
Put simply, after September 11 we had to wreck a country in the Arab world, occupy it, sustain ourselves in that occupation, and never waiver. ...[I]t was Iraq's misfortune that we had the best casus belli and the least need for the continuing services of its regime.
Under this view, smashing Iraq achieves two objectives. First, assuming we persist in Iraq, we will have dismissed Bin Laden's charge that America lacked the stomach to wage this war. We are making Bin Laden a liar with every casualty we suffer in Iraq. Second, we needed to reinforce the credibility of our threats aimed at other regimes that might otherwise consort with terrorists. If even a few of these weasel Arab dictators believes "there but for the grace of Allah go I," then the war was worth it.
There will of course be those who claim that the Cedar Revolution and Assad's reaction to it has quite simply nothing to do with the Iraq War -- that it is all the natural consequence of emerging democracy in Lebanon, which uniquely among Arab countries had a substantial democratic tradition. Bashar Assad is apparently not one of those people.
CWCID: Captain Ed and the Commissar.
1 Comments:
By 
Sluggo, at
Sun Mar 06, 06:44:00 PM:
There are those who believe the fall of Communism had nothing to do with Reagan and the election of Lincoln had nothing to do with the Civil War. These events are complex enough that virtually any back story can be created. The test is to remove elements one by one from the scenario and justify the flow of events. If the invasion of Iraq had not occurred or had failed, would we have seen as cooperative a PA, as rueful a Libya, as suddenly democratic a Mubarak, as confident a movement in Lebanon, etc.
Please.
