Category: Internet

Johann Hari shows the likely state of Iraq after the war:

Following the Gulf War, northern Iraq — where the Kurds were sheltering in the mountains from Saddam’s thugs — was not handed back to Baghdad. It became an independent statelet guarded by, yes, US and British military might.

What does it look like 10 years later? Is it governed by another mini-Saddam circa 1980, a cheap pro-American puppet? No. It is a self-determining democracy. It elects, freely, its own leaders. It has freedom of speech and of the press (in Sulaymaniyah alone, there are 138 media outlets, including literary magazines and radio channels). It lives under the rule of law, upheld by both male and female judges.

As Barham Salih, the prime minister of the Iraqi Kurdistan regional government in Sulaymaniyah, explained recently: “In 1991, we had 804 schools. Today we have 2,705. We started with one university in Arbil in 1991; today we have three. In 10 years of self-government, we built twice as many hospitals as was built for us in seven decades. Then we had 548 doctors. Today we have 1,870 doctors. I’m not going to tell you that everything is rosy… but it’s remarkable what we have achieved.”

If it were not for US military power, this democratic entity would not have existed for the last 10 years. Without US military power, it will not be extended throughout Iraq. Of course, it would be far better if we could establish a democratic Iraq without a war that will kill many thousands of innocent people. War is horrendous, but a small number of things are even worse: Saddam’s tyranny is one. Has the left really forgotten the fundamental principle that it is worth fighting to free 23 million people from tyranny and to help them to build democracy? What has become of us?

The Iraqi exile leaders gathering in London late last year ? disparate and fractured though they are ? agreed that northern Iraq must be the model for post-Saddam democracy.

Link via Dr. Frank.

Talking Points Memo points out that Saddam’s recent behavior belies the claims that he’s a rational actor who wouldn’t use a nuke irresponsibly:

We’re about to go to war with Iraq. It may be a terrible idea. It may go badly for us. We may get bogged down there for years. But one thing is absolutely certain: it will go terribly for Saddam Hussein.

That’s right, he could prevent the invasion by cooperating with Blix, but he steadfastly refuses. The fact that he also insisted on invading Kuwait when a gigantic global coalition told him not to should have been the tipoff.

The editorial pages of California’s major dailies were unanimous in their declaration that Sec. Powell made a convincing case against Saddam before the UN Wednesday, proving that the dictator has thwarted the UN inspections program and that he has significant, illegal weapons programs going on with no intent to disarm, but they’re divided about the next step.

The LA Times says: U.N. — Time for a Deadline

First, it must set an inviolate deadline. Hussein has smirked at and dodged U.N. resolutions for more than a decade. The chief U.N. weapons inspector, Hans Blix, and the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, reported last month that Iraq remained recalcitrant. They will be back in Baghdad on Saturday and will report their latest findings to the Security Council on Feb. 14.

The United Nations must then give Hussein one final chance to avoid war — by complying or fleeing — and be ready to launch missiles, planes and troops if he again disregards or disrespects the world’s clear disarmament demands.

The Frisco Chronicle agrees that Powell made a strong case for Saddam’s wickedness, but they prefer to follow the lead of France and Germany and do nothing about him:

Many Americans remain to be persuaded that Iraq poses a clear and present danger that would merit a rush to war — as opposed to the indisputable case that Hussein must be deterred and contained. Powell’s presentation, for all its detail, left far more to interpretation than Adlai Stevenson’s 1962 “smoking gun” photos of a Soviet missile buildup in Cuba.

The Orange County Register cloaks itself in isolationism and parrots the Chronicle’s rhetoric:

The case for a preventive strike to forestall a potential threat – not a pre-emptive strike, which would presuppose an imminent and visible threat of an obvious launch or massing troops for an invasion – would be stronger if links between al-Qaida or other terrorist groups and the Iraqi regime could be documented.

The issue before the UN, of course, wasn’t the details of Saddam’s next move with his weapons, it was whether he’s cooperated with the inspectors. This is the case because there are only two remaining options for the enforcement of UNSCR 1441: disarm through inspection or disarm by force. Proving that the inspection route is not going to work makes the latter inevitable.

The Contra Costa Times understands the options, and is sharply critical of those nations, like France, who want to play obstructionist:

If the United Nations is to remain a viable organization, it must enforce its resolutions or they will be meaningless. If some nations on the Security Council do not have the foresight to force Iraq to disarm, they can always abstain from any further U.N. resolutions. They need not decimate the credibility of the world body by using their veto power.

At the very least the Security Council should demand that Saddam allow scientists and their families to leave Iraq to talk with inspectors. He also must allow reconnaissance aircraft to patrol all of Iraq.

Saddam must be forthcoming about what he has done with chemical and biological weapons and what progress Iraq has made on developing nuclear weapons.

Saddam must do all of the above completely and immediately. If he does not, the United Nations must sanction military action to remove Saddam from power. The credibility of the world body is at stake. So is the peace of the region.

The Sacrameno Bee believes that Saddam could easily avoid war, but probably doesn’t want to:

The evidence laid out by Powell gives the U.N. inspectors more guidance for intensifying their efforts and forcing Iraq to show — now — that the U.S. case is bogus. If that were the case, Iraq should have no trouble proving it. Instead, its initial response to Powell’s brief was to call it a pack of lies and fabrications. But as always, more attention should be paid to Iraqi actions than its overheated rhetoric.

Saddam still has a small chance to avoid war. Will he take it?

The San Diego Tribune says the presentation was compelling, and now expects the Security Council to act. They also point out that the fence-sitting California senator had a change of heart:

One lawmaker who has been critical of the Bush administration’s approach, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., stated yesterday: “I no longer think that inspections are going to work.” The question Blix now must address honestly is whether his inspectors ever can accomplish their mission in the face of Iraq’s intransigence.

The silly San Jose Mercury News rewrites history in its attempt to duck the inevitable conclusion that force is now necessary:

Those are the reasons pre-emptive, full-scale military actions to remove even despised regimes have never been part of American policy. They shouldn’t become so now.

Actually, the vast majority of America’s military campaigns have been “pre-emptive” according to the first-attack doctrine, including Bosnia, Kosovo, Grenada, Panama, the Dominican Republic, Vietnam, Korea, Germany under Hitler, Germany under the Kaiser, Cuba, the Confederacy, and King George’s England; some of these nations had already attacked our allies, such as Hitler, but we were never in danger of attack here on our shores before we moved in with our military.

So here we are: the Security Council has already declared that Iraq must be disarmed, and gave them one last chance. Iraq continues to defy the UN, and is demonstrably not disarming. Is there any alternative to military force for enforcing 1441? I certainly don’t see it, unless Saddam has a Road-to-Damascus moment.

When asked which nations were not going to support regime change in Iraq, Rumsfeld told the Senate: “there are three of four who’ve said they wouldn’t help at all — Libya, Cuba, and Germany”.

Ouch, mein herr.

Why Germany? For one thing, they’ve played a major role in arming Iraq, and they know it.

It’s pile-on the French time, what with the offensive and clueless remarks emanating from Villepin yesterday and all. Chistopher Hitchens has The Rat That Roared at WSJ.com (requires a sub):

There is of course another France — the France of Petain and Poujade and Vichy and of the filthy colonial tactics pursued in Algeria and Indochina.

Andrew Sullivan has his say in The Anglosphere vs Saddam:

President Chirac also announced that his government will be sending 3000 advisors from the elite Force du Collaborateur Francaise (French Collaboration Force) to assist the Iraqis in collaborating with the Americans while pretending to be part of a non-existent resistance movement.”

And Mark Steyn soberly warns that France is no Eurowimp:

Let’s say Saddam has long-range WMDs. If he nuked Montpelier (Vermont), M. Chirac would insist that Bush needed to get a strong Security Council resolution before responding. If he nuked Montpellier (France), Iraq would be a crater by lunchtime.

All I’ve got to add to this is that one should never underestimate the French, for what they lack in strength, they have many times over in guile and cunning. Why do you suppose their neighbors hate them so much?

There’s an important article about the Middle East in The New Yorker this month. Here’s a teaser, and I’ll add more later.

Rumsfeld believes that one long-held belief among Middle East analysts is overdue for reconsideration: the idea that doctrinal differences prevent Sunni and Shiite Muslims, and religious and secular Muslims, from pursuing common projects in anti-American terrorism. This is a subject of great relevance today, because the Bush Administration contends that Baghdad is a sponsor of Al Qaeda; critics of the Administration’s foreign policy argue that bin Laden and Saddam Hussein are natural enemies. “The argument is that Al Qaeda has got a religious motivation, somehow or other, and the Iraqi regime is considered to be a secular regime,” Rumsfeld said. “The answer to that is, so what? The Iraqi regime will use anything it can to its advantage. Why wouldn’t they use any implement at hand?”

This just in from CNS: France Surrenders to Texas High School

Paris (CNSNews.com) – What began as a six-day chaperoned music tour by a group of suburban Houston teenagers ended in an epic conquest in the pre-dawn hours of Friday morning as French military and government officials offered their unconditional surrender to students of the Aldine, Texas Eisenhower High School Music Department.

Accepting the surrender, Eisenhower High School Band and Choral Director Gary Baumer praised the French for avoiding further bloodshed and vowed an immediate postwar rebuilding effort.

“We hope to achieve national recovery by prom,” said Baumer. “The seniors have voted for the theme “Springtime in Paris.”

In a goodwill gesture, Baumer said the victorious students would soon begin releasing most of the 400,000 French prisoners of war they had captured during the brutal three-day campaign.

“We want the prisoners reunited with their families,” said Justin Gonzales, a junior tenor in the Eisenhower Glee Chorus. “Besides, you can’t even begin to imagine the smell.”

Eisenhower High is planning a bake sale and car wash to send the football team to Germany, but that’s not really a fair fight.

Link via Captain Quick.

I set off the alarm while passing through the metal detector in an airport today, and the TSA guy made me take off my shoes, empty my pockets, and submit to a very careful hand scan. When he was done, he told me: “after we invade Iraq we won’t have to do this any more”.

So let’t get on with it.

Via Matt Welch, U.S. to Make Iraq Intelligence Public (washingtonpost.com)

“The United States possesses several pieces of information which come from the work of our intelligence that show Iraq maintains prohibited weapons,” Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said in an interview published yesterday in an Italian newspaper. “Once we have made sure it can be done safely, I think that in the next week or soon after we can make public a good part of this material.”

This “Adlai Stevenson moment” will end the debate.

ABC News reports: EU Increasingly Divided Over Iraq Issue

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was “making a charade of inspection,” signaling that the United States’ closest ally had only drawn closer. Straw said “time has almost run out. If this failure to comply continues, then Iraq will have to face serious consequences.”

Germany’s Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, however, left the EU meeting reasserting Berlin’s steadfast opposition to war against Iraq.

I wonder what part of “last chance” Germany fails to comprehend? Saddam has failed to cooperate with the UN inspectors, and has made it clear to its scientists that they had better not comply, under penality of death.

It seems to me that the last chance is over. The longer the charade continues, the better Saddam gets at hiding his weapons, the better he gets at building missiles to carry them, and the more weapons he builds. This is not supposed to be a game of cat and mouse.

I hope the President stresses the lack of cooperation and the Iraqi support of Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups in the speech tonight, and that we continue massing troops around Iraq. If the invasion is to be lead by a coalition of Anglosphere nations and sensisble Europeans, leaving Germany, France, Sweden, and Hollywood (“Now that I’m sober, I watch a lot of news”) out in the cold, so be it.