| Sidd Finch |
02-18-2016 04:19 PM |
Re: Iraq
Quote:
Originally Posted by Not Bob
(Post 499011)
But that's pretty much what we did do a little bit later - the no-fly zones in Northern Iraq allowed the Kurds to essentially set up their own little autonomous region. And we didn't have to occupy Baghdad or mediate between tribes and factions and sectarian groups.
|
Kurdish autonomy has its own problems (just ask Turkey), but in any event there are significant differences. The Kurds were not seeking (or being asked to) overthrow Saddam, the Kurds did not have a natural ally next door that was a sworn enemy of Saddam, Kurdistan is much further away from where Iraqi armor and troops were, and (I believe) the Kurdish region is less intermingled than the region of the Shiite uprising. Saddam could tolerate Kurdish autonomy, but not anything resembling that among Shiites.
Quote:
And it's ok to use pre-limited military means - it sometimes even works. See e.g. the former Yugoslavia (bombing and cruise missiles got the Serbs to the table, not the 82nd Airborne). But even if shooting down Saddam's helicopters ended up not working, it would have been worth it. Maybe GHWB shouldn't have encouraged the Shiites to rise, but once he did, a no-fly zone was really a no-brainer.
|
Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. I thought we should have bombed Serbian artillery positions in Bosnia. But that looked much more like a military invasion. In Iraq, the result of using limited military means would likely have been a slower -- and, over time, much more significant -- slaughter, as Shiites killed Sunnis and Sunnis responded, without aircraft but with the other capacity of the Iraqi military.
You shoot down the helicopters. So the Republican Guard rolls out tanks and armored vehicles and artillery and machine guns. What then?
We should not have used any military means in Iraq --- either then or in 2003.
Quote:
Sometimes we have to make a gesture towards preventing slaughter. I mean, could Clinton have stopped the massacres in Rwanda? No, but he could have (and I think has said that he *should* have) taken doable military action - supporting the French with logistics and transport, jamming the airwaves to prevent the government's radio station inciting and directing the mobs. And I realize that our interests prevent us from doing this (too many examples to list, but let's include our current unwillingness to even mention our objections to ethnic cleansing to the newly democratic government in Burma), but in Iraq it was in our interest, and in Rwanda it was not against our interest to do something.
|
We could have had some minimal impact in Rwanda, but I doubt much more. I don't think it was against our interests at the time, but I do think that efforts like this can have unpredictable and unintended consequences that are often not considered. That is exactly my concern in Iraq: I think we would have been drawn into a situation were ultimately we were stuck guaranteeing Shiite safety -- without being able to control how that safety was used, including whether it was used to expand Iran's influence.
Quote:
I'm fine with recognizing the limits of our power and the need to not put American lives at risk unless necessary. I just think it's a sliding scale - logistical support is low risk, smart bombs and cruise misses a little more risk, shooting down helicopters a little more (though Iraq's air defenses had been wiped out at that point) - and all are far less risky than sending in ground troops, which really should be avoided as much as possible. Afghanistan 2001? Absolutely. Kuwait/Iraq 1990? Strong yes. Peacekeeping in Bosnia 1996? Probably (it ended up not requiring combat, but that's ex post facto). Panama 1989? Maybe other options, but I thought it was a reasonable decision. Grenada 1983? Um, post-Vietnam muscle flexing, but at least the medical students were happy to see the USMC. Iraq 2003? Nope.
|
You are looking only at risk to American lives. I am looking at risk to American policy and interests, and the risks that putting our thumb on the scale in a nation creates to the people of that nation. We've seen so many examples in recent years of how an uprising against a dictator can turn into a civil war among multiple factions that range from mildly tolerable to fucking ISIS, that I have to reject the notion that just shooting down Saddam's helicopters would have accomplished much of any lasting value, absent a much longer and stronger commitment that no one wanted (or should have wanted) to make. |
