In all the discussion about the current U.S. bombing of Libya, something important has gone almost unnoticed -- the lesson the United States is teaching the government of every country on earth. That lesson is: no matter what, no matter the inducements or pressure, never ever give up chemical weapons or a nuclear weapons program. Doing so will not ensure that the U.S. does not attack you -- on the contrary, it will make it much more likely.
The U.S. already delivered this lesson very powerfully in 2003 by attacking Iraq, a country which had no biological or chemical weapons or nuclear weapons program after 1991, twelve years earlier. Moreover, according to the CIA's 2004 WMD report, Saddam Hussein had begged the Clinton administration for better relations, promising that it would be Washington's best friend in the region bar none. In fact, Iraq said that if it had a security relationship with the U.S., it would be inclined to permanently discard even the ambition for WMD.
In Libya's case, Muammar Gaddafi announced in December 2003 that it was renouncing all WMD -- Libya possessed chemical weapons, ballistic missiles and a nuclear weapons program -- and invited international inspectors to certify its compliance. The U.S. declared that this "demonstrates that, in a world of strong nonproliferation norms, it is never too late to make the decision to become a fully compliant NPT state," and that Libya would be "amply rewarded." From the perspective of many governments, Libya is now receiving its reward, in the form of hundreds of Tomahawk missiles and the likely downfall of the regime that agreed to disarm.
Every government on earth has different factions with different views of the best strategy to deal with the world, factions that constantly battle each other for supremacy. Whether or not Iran has an active nuclear weapons program (it's still the official position of the U.S. intelligence community that it does not) we can be sure the Iranian faction that wants nuclear weapons has been tremendously strengthened by the attack on Libya. And the faction that believes Iran would be safer without nuclear weapons is much weaker, and in fact is probably being ridiculed for its embarrassing naiveté.
Something similar is going on inside the North Korean government. Anyone within the regime who's been pressing for North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons is now in a much worse position.
But here's what no Americans know: the current attack on Libya is not an unforeseen glitch in our efforts to get them to disarm. Instead, it was the explicit policy of the U.S. to get countries to disarm so that we would be able to attack them.
This may sound ridiculous to many Americans. After all, no president ever puts it like that. Instead, they say: our enemies must disarm because they threaten the precious lives of our citizens! But in fact when talking to each other, U.S. government officials say it over and over again: we don't oppose countries like Iraq, Libya and Iran having WMD because we're scared they're going to attack us with them. Instead, we oppose them having WMD because that would allow them to deter us from attacking them.
For instance, here's a little-noticed January 2001 memo by Donald Rumseld just after he became Secretary of Defense:
Several of these [small enemy nations] are intensely hostile to the United States and are arming to deter us from bringing our conventional or nuclear power to bear in a regional crisis...And here's a September 2002 speech by Philip Zelikow, executive director of the 9/11 Commission and author of the 2002 National Security Strategy, about the threat posed by Iraq. The threat was not that Iraq would attack us, but that WMD would make it possible for someone to deter us (and Israel):
[U]niversally available [WMD] technologies can be used to create "asymmetric" responses that cannot defeat our forces, but can deny access to critical areas in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia..."asymmetric" approaches can limit our ability to apply military power.
I criticise the [Bush] administration a little, because the argument that they make over and over again is that this is about a threat to the United States...
Now, if the danger [from Iraq] is a biological weapon handed to Hamas, then what's the American alternative then? ... they now can deter us from attacking them, because they really can retaliate against us, by then.
This point was made over and over again in "Rebuilding America's Defenses," the infamous paper from Project for a New American Century. Page 6:
...the United States also must counteract the effects of the proliferation of ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destruction that may soon allow lesser states to deter U.S. military action by threatening U.S. allies and the American homeland itself. Of all the new and current missions for U.S. armed forces, this must have priority.
Page 51:
When their missiles are tipped with warheads carrying nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons, even weak regional powers have a credible deterrent regardless of the balance of conventional forces.
Page 54:
In the post-Cold War era, America and its allies, rather than the Soviet Union, have become the primary objects of deterrence and it is states like Iraq, Iran and North Korea who most wish to develop deterrent capabilities.
In 2008, former senators Daniel Coats and Chuck Robb explained the problem in the Washington Post:
...Iran would not need to employ a nuclear arsenal to threaten U.S. interests.Simply obtaining the ability to quickly assemble a nuclear weapon would effectively give Iran a nuclear deterrent...
And lead author of "Rebuilding America's Defenses," Thomas Donnelly -- a longtime member of the U.S. foreign policy establishment now working at the American Enterprise Institute -- also wrote a paper called "Strategy for a Nuclear Iran":
The surest deterrent to American action is a functioning nuclear arsenal...
To be sure, the prospect of a nuclear Iran is a nightmare. But it is less a nightmare because of [a] high likelihood that Tehran would employ its weapons or pass them on to terrorist groups—although that is not beyond the realm of possibility—and more because of the constraining effect it threatens to impose upon U.S. strategy for the greater Middle East.
That's why we pressed Libya to disarm -- not because of a threat to U.S. citizens, but because of the threat of a "constraining effect... upon U.S. strategy for the greater Middle East." And it worked: right now we can implement our strategy with far fewer worries.
So that's the lesson the Obama administration is teaching the world: listen to what U.S. officials say about their plans, and take it very, very seriously. Don't make the mistake that Iraq and Libya made and disarm—it's not a path to safety. Instead, it's the quickest route to your own destruction.
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Better to stand with the peaceful (until attacked) democratic forces than to stand against whatever radical militancy will take hold if the innocent and idealistic are left to slaughter. Make no mistake, there is no turning back for these people. It's freedom or death when the dictators are on the attack.
It speaks well of you that you want do that, assuming that some part of the opposition to Gaddafi actually is peaceful, innocent and idealistic. (Just because he's a bad guy doesn't make the opposition, some of whom probably fought the U.S. in Iraq with al Qaeda, extra-nice.)
But your own personal moral fervor won't affect the actions of the U.S. government (which has a decades-long history of brutal colonialism in the mideast) or the French government (which has an even longer history of brutal colonialism in northern Africa) at all, except to enable them to do what they wanted to do anyway -- and which has nothing at all to do with the well-being of Libyans.
I don't dispute our history in the Middle East or France's but as I pointed out the Middle East is changing whether we like it or not. Is it so hard to imagine that we should adjust with it? I think it's a false analogy to conflate Libya with Iraq or Afghanistan because no one in either country was talking about, let alone engaging in, democratic revolution and certainly few, if any people in either country asked us for help! Really our choice was to watch Gaddafi commit mass murder and be emboldened in the process while teaching the lesson that brutal repression will be ignored by the West to OTHER despots or to at least give the rebels a chance to live and maybe win. I think we were right to stop Gaddafi's brutal advance and give them that chance.
It overlooks the fact that Qaddafi responded to peaceful protests and demands for reform by brutally engaging in the wholesale slaughter of innocent people.
It fails to distiguish between indisciminate bombing and our present effort which entails selectively targeting military installations that had been used by Qaddafi in attacks on his own people.
If there is a lkesson being taught here to foreign governments it is that tyrants who respond to demands for reform by unleashing violence on their own people risk facing the use of outside force by multiple nations more powerful than themselves.
Once upon a time wife beating was seen as a private domestic matter of no concern to society, but fortunately this has changed. I believe that we are in the midst of a similar transition in which domestic abuse of civilians is no longer seen as a purely internal matter, but a matter of concern for many nations, and this is a positive change.
1) You are suggesting Saddam Hussein was an honest broker and never lied to us when you assert that he, "...begged the Clinton administration for better relations, promising that it would be Washington's best friend [and] if it had a security relationship with the U.S., it would be inclined to permanently discard even the ambition for WMD."
Basing a rationale for a national security argument on a man known for saying one thing and doing another is hardly a great foundation from which to work.
2) Quoting papers from the PNAC and someone affiliated with the AEI is like saying a Republican President was swayed by policy positions held by the Center for American Progress. To link the idea of these papers, written by neo-conservatives and ascribing their stated goals and ideals to a Democratic President is a bit of a stretch.
3) It's a bit disingenuous that this President, who only reluctantly and belatedly initiated military action against Libya - AND only after the international community approved it and has their own military stakes in it - should be lumped in with largely neo-conservative thoughts and goals. The Arab League also asked for a no-fly zone to protect Libyan citizens, but you do not mention that nuance in your argument.
No, I'm not suggesting that. I'm accurately reporting that he begged the U.S. for better relations with us. We also know from interviews with him that he looked back nostalgically at the great days when he was allies with his favorite U.S. president, Ronald Reagan. The significance of that is that other governments are perfectly capable of perceiving that disarming, and then begging the U.S. for better relations, won't get you anything.
That said, I'll go beyond suggesting anything to state straight out that things Saddam Hussein said from 1991-2003 about what was going on in Iraq with WMD were far more accurate than anything you'd hear from U.S. presidents. That wasn't because he was an honest person and they weren't, just that he was bowing to pressure that forced him to say things that were pretty much true -- whereas there's no power anywhere that forces U.S. presidents to tell the truth.
"To link the idea of these papers, written by neo-conser vatives and ascribing their stated goals and ideals to a Democratic President is a bit of a stretch."
Good point, the idea that Democratic and Republican presidents have similar foreign policy goals IS a bit of stretch. Thank god I didn't claim something even more ridiculous, like that the Obama and Bush administrations had the same person as Secretary of Defense.
Fair enough. But the implication is that BECAUSE he "begged us" then you are suggesting that he WAS telling the truth. He also begged us to do lots of other things, and then promptly ignored what he'd said. Given that track record, I'm at a loss to understand why you think that just because he "begged us" to do something, that he would also "follow through." Please share your insight.
" things Saddam Hussein said from 1991-2003 about what was going on in Iraq with WMD"
Hmmm... Saddam said he didn't gas the Kurds, yet the evidence is pretty darn clear given the enormous health problems some Kurd have now that he lied to us about that. Try again?
And I never said that U.S. Presidents haven't lied to us, so that's a nice strawman, so it's really not relevant to my point about your article.
"he was bowing to pressure that forced him to say things that were pretty much true"
Actually, the reverse in many cases is true - he DID lie (or at best, equivocate) about HAVING WMD's to keep the Iranians off his back. In fact, I'd suggest he was doing us a favor at the time by saying so, as it kept the Iranians off balance. Now they're ascendant.
SecDef? Nice try. Foreign policy and DEFENSE may be related, but they aren't the same. And the President is... DIFFERENT!
But that's a good strawman conflation, again.
You are projecting. This is how US and West are.
Most ME oil reserves are within reach of Iran's tens of thousands conventional missiles. These missiles are mostly truck-mounted and ready to go within 30-45 seconds of an US intervention in Iran. US has no chance to take out all these missiles at once.
You can see the same deterrence from Iranian missiles in Lebanon. US has tried to disarm Hisbullah through UNSC, so Israel can attack Lebanon. It is obvious to Arab street that the primitive missiles that Iran has provided Lebanon, are the real deterrence and not Lebanese army. Iran keeps the more advance and accurate missiles for herself. If Iran has provided Lebanon with 50,000+ short range missiles, it is anybody's guess how many short range missiles Iran has, which are capable of reaching Saudi and Kuwait's oil fields.
As long as the world is dependent on ME oil, Iran's best deterrence is her conventional short range missile system.
Reading Iran's nuclear posture: Iran wants to be like Sweden, Germany, and Japan and wants to be able to make the bomb within months of US intervention. Iran blames rightfully an US intervention to Israelis lobby in US. The target of Iran's retaliation will be primary Israel.
Despite the west propaganda, Iran does not have a nuke and does not plan to make one, if she is not attacked.
Do you write an article and not expect any disagreement regarding your premises, oppinions and interpretations of facts? There would be no debate if we all agreed. No?
By the response you gave to my comment and some of the others you come of as a petulant child and very egotistical. May I suggest you take a deep breath and act more proffessional?
Those that disagree are not stupid. And yes believe it or not we are just as informed. We simply interprit things differently. To think that your the only one who knows everything and are right about everything is well, very Faux News of you.
"So what the writer is saying is: If a brutal dictator promises to play nice and says he won't use these weapons on his people or on other nations then let him build WMA?"
Here's what I said:
"I used to get depressed by how hard it is for many people to comprehend the actual words written by anyone (not just me) right in front of them. But now I just accept that that's just the human condition. "
I said it, I meant it, and I'll say it again: it truly does seem almost impossible for human beings to hear what other people say. Instead, they hear something different that's been garbled in its passage through their imaginations. A good movie about the near-impossibility of human communication is The Emperor's Naked Army marches on, which I recommend if you're curious about this.
In this case, you heard something via your imagination and attributed it to me -- something that's not only not what I said, but is almost exactly the opposite of what I said.
Respect goes both ways. If you want me to respect you, then respect me enough to actually read what I spent a lot of time writing, and if you disagree, quote specific things I said rather than putting words in my mouth.
It is a childish resistance to reality, which causes people to read something in their own language and interpret it as totally something else.
It is an art to read a piece written by an adversary and be objective. Some people are not born an artist.
A good writer, which I do think your are by the way, encourages debate. However in merely responding to those who disagree with the oppinion that they just don't understand or they didn't read the whole article is ridiculous. If you don't want to hear a dissenting point of view, then write about something less controversial then politics.
Further my hypothetical situation of "Hugo has the bomb" to any point where the US might have a Berlin Wall/middle east style democratic uprising, Venezuela would be an ace the hole to "unify" the country through a common enemy.
I'm going to stick with my bias and plan on advising other countries against acquiring WMD if they should ever occasion to ask me.
You're correct that the reason we're fine with Saudi Arabia helping to stamp out the revolt in Bahrain is concern that it would spread to the parts of Saudi Arabia with most of the oil, which are largely Shia. And I'm sure some of the short term concern is due to prices, too. But Libya also pumps some oil, and if our concern were just prices then we'd be helping Qaddafi put down the revolt there as well, not hindering it. Our biggest worry re Saudi Arabia is that the oil-rich regions would break off and become allied with Iran and no longer do what we tell them to with their oil wealth. We'd almost certainly invade rather than allow that to happen.
In any case, what you're saying is that we care much more about the control of oil there than anything about human rights, etc. That's exactly what everyone who lives there believes too.
The Libyan intervention only demonstrates this inconsistent policy, which is not healthy, but necessary at this juncture between a wavering recovery and public outrage. The US now has the unique ability to put pressure on the Sauds to make concessions, even if they are as small as letting women drive.
Also, it is my understanding that Libya has more oil reserves and has not been able to develop these reserves yet to maximize output. I agree with the threat of Iran. There is no doubt they will take advantage of any Shiite uprising, take credit for it, and try to influence it, and then ally with them. What to do with them, is beyond me. My best hope is to find evidence they support Chechnya to get the Russians less involved.
Thank you for the response.
There are too many negatives in that statement for there to be any clear lesson in anything except poor writing style. It took further reading to figure out what the author meant.
And the premise wasn't even correct. We are merely adhering to A UN RESOLUTION approved because Gaddafi was killing his own people,.. not due to any pretense of having WMDs. No personal vendettas of threats against the President's father, no cherry-picked intelligence, no lies about yellow cake....
Lots of leaders kill their own people with UN resolutions authorizing force. The reason this UN resolution exists is because we wrote it and pushed it through. The US largely controls the UN Security Council, and everyone who lives in the mideast is well aware of that.
Thomas Jefferson, in his Manual of Parliamentary Practice, commented: "If the treaty power is unlimited, then we don't have a Constitution. Surely the President and the Senate cannot do by treaty what the whole government is interdicted from doing in any way." Alexander Hamilton, who often disagreed with Jefferson, on this point held similarly that a "treaty cannot be made which alters the Constitution of the country or which infringes any express exceptions to the power of the Constitution of the United States."
Simply put we are finally showing the world that, yes, we will intervene to contain a massacre of 500K people. That's too simple - must be a bigger conspiracy to inflate Haliburton's profits.
The rest of the world has believed this for a very, very long time, and we do in Libya is not going to change that.
As several have pointed out, the one underlying theme is a power marker, OIL, is the current one and anyone who has been paying attention knows that this ever precious commodity will change geopolitics - humans continue to knock the crap out of one another to take what they want.
Bravo
Too often do people make comments short and long and not pay any attention to what happens to them.
As i said I dont agree with the author but his clear interest in what he writes and his follow up deserves respect. It really does, from all of us.
Keep writing, Jon, articles like this spark debate, and provide insight into how others think and rationalize their opinions. Obviously there is a limit, there is a limit on everything.