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| November | 01 |
| 2006 |
A virtuoso piece by Daniel Finkelstein on why the decision to remove Saddam was right:
The outcome of any political decision is uncertain. You use your best estimate of the probabilities of different results and make a choice. Even if you have calculated the probabilities correctly and made a sensible choice, the outcome might still be a poor one. Only an analysis of the results of repeated decisions can provide a proper insight into whether your choice was a good one....What if, instead of viewing the Vietnam War as a single episode, you view the decision as one of a long series? America decided to confront Soviet influence aggressively wherever it reared its head. Mostly this strategy was successful but, naturally, sometimes individual decisions produced a calamitous outcome. Luck plays a role as well as error. The Cuban missile crisis is viewed as a great triumph. It is separated by the thinnest margin from being the worst event in the history of mankind.
Apply this to the Iraq war. The critics believe that Mr Blair should have defied the request from our closest ally and chosen to stand aside and do nothing about Saddam.
They reach this point with two sleights of hand that make the decision to go to war seem impossibly stupid. The first is to criticise the known outcome of the course taken without reference to the unknown outcome of the course not taken. Not prosecuting the war would have meant leaving Saddam in power, followed in due course by his mad, murderous sons. If you ignore the possible result of allowing this then, of course, the war becomes difficult to explain.
The second thing the critics do is to consider the Iraq war as an isolated decision, rather than one in a long series. It can’t be looked at like that.
Even if you consider the history of policy towards Saddam alone, the decision to remove him is simply one among many. But the Iraq invasion also has to be seen as one decision among many in the War on Terror, in the recent history of liberal interventionism and in the long course of the special relationship.
On the whole, I believe that robust partnership with the United States, and a strong military approach to dangerous, aggressive dictators with nuclear ambitions is a better foreign policy than the alternatives. And on the whole, I think that believing intelligence reports about weapons of mass destruction is a more sensible thing to do than ignoring them.
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The man was a loose cannon and should have been removed in '90 but for the agenda which presaged a return. His removal was certainly part of it but the agenda was far more reaching than just Saddam. They didn't remove him anyway - the Kurds took him.
Before the Iraq war, Muslim terrorists had never launched an attack in Britain. Now they have - citing the Iraq war as one of their reasons.
Before the Iraq war, Iran and North Korea were nuclear-free states. Now one of them isn't and the other is intent on joining them in the nuclear club - with both citing the Iraq war as one of their reasons.
Before the Iraq war, Muslim terrorists weren't murdering British soldiers. Now they have an entire country in which to practice their skills.
So the Iraq war has i) failed to prevent terrorist attacks in the UK, ii) failed to prevent the nuclear programmes of other states, iii) failed to deliver democracy and law and order in Iraq and iv) cost the lives of British servicemen and women. By any standard, clearly, it has been a triumph for Labour.
I was always opposed to the war in Iraq for the simple reason that I have always seen Iran as the major threat and a war on both would be next to impossible. I have rarely spoken out on the subject because of the kind of company I would have had to keep in the anti-war movement.
With that in mind, let's examine a few of Ted's assertions:
"Before the Iraq war, Muslim terrorists had never launched an attack in Britain. Now they have - citing the Iraq war as one of their reasons."
Support for Israel (or at least goverment support - there is next to no support amongst the general population) was one of the main reasons the attacks on London took place. That and the rise in Islamofascism in the UK and the enormous cultural divide which exists between the great majority of Muslims and the rest of the population.
To prevent attacks in future, my advice would be to do what your forbears did in the 1930s and 1940s - appease the aggressors and allow them to murder Jews at will. Abandoning what passes for Christianity and embracing Islam certainly won't do you any harm either. Given your history and culture I don't believe you will find any of this too difficult.
To be serious, I don't believe that that advice will work. Naturally, as I am on the other side of the political and religious divide I have absolutely no real knowledge about this, but I believe it is already too late. My own feeling is that a major terrorist attack (probably in the form of a "dirty bomb") will target the City of London in the not too distant future. Such an attack will obviously kill many and devastate the world economy.
"Before the Iraq war, Iran and North Korea were nuclear-free states. Now one of them isn't and the other is intent on joining them in the nuclear club - with both citing the Iraq war as one of their reasons."
The invasion of Iraq took place on March 19, 2003.
North Korea's nuclear weapons programme began around 1993 when it threatened to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and refused inspectors access to any of its nuclear sites.
The existence of Iran's nuclear weapons programme became apparent in August 2002 when an Iranian dissident, Alireza Jafarzadeh, blew the whistle on two secret nuclear sites in Iran. Also in 2002, Iran announced that it had bought gas from China, a gas that could be used to enrich uranium for the production of nuclear weapons.
"Before the Iraq war, Muslim terrorists weren't murdering British soldiers. Now they have an entire country in which to practice their skills."
Ted's TV has a very serious problem. Obviously it shuts down when news about Afghanistan is broadcast.