Killing Iraq With Kindness?

Despite my love of history, I am usually disappointed when historians take to the Op-Ed pages. For some reason people who are intelligent scholars go off the rails when trying to connect history to current events. Ian Burma's Op-Ed in the New York Times to day is no different. Killing Iraq With Kindness starts off with a exaggeration when it states "One year later, most of the stated reasons for invading Iraq have been discredited." What? I will admit the the WMD case has revealed just how little anyone knew about what was actually happening in Iraq but I fail to see how that discredits "most" of the stated reasons for the action. Did focus on WMD distract from the other reasons? Sure and I might have structured the arguments differently. The larger strategic reasons for our actions remain solid, however, as I noted yesterday in reference to a Michael Ignatieff piece.

With this bad beginning Burma proceeds to bungle a decent point. Burma's underlying points seems to be that attempts to impose universal values by force usually backfire and lead to instability and rebellion. This is an issue well worth discussing. Many conservatives that are leery of the action in Iraq, or were opposed to it, shared this concern. They too wondered if liberal democratic capitalism could be imposed on a country with little or no history of such development to use as a foundation. Russell Kirk and other conservative thinkers have long insisted that conservatism views society and government as necessarily organic to the community; rooted in time and place. Thus they sought to avoid foreign adventurism of this sort because it was costly to liberty at home and unlikely to succeed.

But Burma doesn't make this case coherently. Instead he discuss the Napoleonic wars of Europe and compares it to US action in the Middle East. In his view Napoleon's wars created a backlash that led eventually to Russian and German totalitarianism. In this same way, American action could undermine the very moderate Muslims we are seeking to encourage. This is a silly comparison. Napoleon's goals were territorial and connected to power not based on universal ideals. Oh sure, his ego led him to believe he could enlighten the world after he conquered it, but he the endless wars he launched were not idealistic at heart.

Our goals are not entirely idealist either. They are in fact a unique mix of national interest and universal values. The US has no interest in territorial acquisition or conquest but it is acting in what it sees as its own interests. The original Gulf War was fought to rebuff an attack on Kuwait and a threat to Saudi Arabia and was fought under UN auspices. The second war was a result of the failure of Iraq to live up to the commitments that ended the first. Over the course of a decade or more the US went to considerable cost and trouble to attempt to use the international community to force Iraq to comply with these commitments. Once war became the only viable vehicle for regime change, a great deal of work went into making the action as humane and precise as possible. This is not how Napoleon went about liberating Europe. These are not the actions of a crusader. The US was simply seeking to remove an unstable and dangerous threat in an age where the level of acceptable risk had been lowered by the events of 9/11. The military actions were undertaken because of our responsibilities and our interests in the region. We undertook them because we thought they were necessary and would be effective in strengthening our position and our security. We acted for pragmatic and realistic reasons but that is quite different from territorial conquest.

The universal aspects, however, are wound up in the way we decide act and the way we communicate about our actions. An important component of post 9/11 thinking was the belief that the US could no longer allow despotic regimes to fester in this region only to blow up and lash out at us. If you are going to go in and remove a threat, however, you must have something to put in its place. Based on its values and its view of history, the US felt that a liberal democracy was the best structure for a post-Saddam Iraq. Most Americans believe that freedom and democracy best align with what we know about history and human nature; that at base there are universals. They fell that a participatory and open political system is most likely to lead to peace and stability in the long run. They understand that people have different cultures, religions, and traditions but believe that despite these differences some basic freedoms are valued by all. No one chooses to live under a cruel dictatorship where a knock on the door brings instant fear. No one wants a system where their thoughts and ideas have no value and can lead to torture and death; where they are unable to participate in the building of society but bear the burden of its cost. Given these values and our realistic understanding of other cultures, the US isn't seeking to impose a particular system of government on Iraq but rather create the necessary space that will allow them to construct a peacable and functioning government of their own. They will have to find the balance on issues as important and diverse as religious freedom and economic structure. They must reconcile freedom with order and justice; they must meld their traditions and faith with their own conceptions of government and authority.

In this sense Burma's connection to Napoleon is misplaced. Napoleon sought to impose a code and government structure on the countries he conquered and usually appointed a relative as ruler. He was not offering liberty or equality in any real sense but rather seeking to impose his thinking on the whole of Europe. America isn't seeking imperialism or conquest but rather is attempting to plant the seed for self-rule.

Burma's last point is that this action makes it harder for moderate Muslims to succeed and easier for radicals to recruit. With all due respect to the moderates, they have done little to reject or ameliorate their radical brethren in the past. And secondly, the national interest and security issues remain. In the short term, American action in Iraq might very well make life more complicated for moderates, although I think this is arguable, but in the long run a democratic and peaceful Iraq will serve as a example of moderate Islam. If the moderates really want to promote peace and stability there is no better place to fight for it than in Iraq.