Steinbruner on Iraq

I usually limit my commentary about Iraq to WMD-related issues. That reflects both my own relative expertise, as well as my sense of futility about the entire endeavor.

The course of this catastrophe follows a terrible, inexorable logic that I believe immune to the efforts of policymakers or protestors.

In a way, that’s moral cowardice on my part—shielding my discomfort with the moral issues behind a thin veneer of detached fatalism.

So I am glad that my boss, John Steinbruner, has asked some tough questions about the moral implications of failure in Iraq.

The subject is a little off-topic, but John’s principal theme—the importance of legitimacy—will be familiar to any regular reader of the blog.

MORAL IMPLICATIONS OF FAILURE IN IRAQ

John Steinbruner
University of Maryland

As long as there is any plausible hope that the continuation of the United States military operation in Iraq will eventually produce an acceptable outcome, the Bush administration will predictably cling to it. So will the president’s domestic political base, the American press and much of the broader electorate. It is increasingly evident, however, that the circumstances in Iraq cannot be molded to American sentiment. It is time to begin to face the probable implications of what we have done.

It remains possible that the violent process of attrition now occurring will eventually turn in our favor and that those in Iraq who primarily want personal security and economic opportunity will be able to forge a political system able to establish basic legal order. It is at least as probable, however, and very likely more so that the insurgency generated by United States occupation will prove to be the social equivalent of a lethal infection as violent dissidents infiltrate and abort the efforts to establish viable Iraqi institutions. Unwelcome as the thought may be, we have to consider the grim possibility that continued American presence will drive the reconstruction process to a disastrous outcome – one that assures repression in Iraq and violence in the region for decades to come.

The irremediable problem is that the United States did not initially establish the legitimacy of its assault on Iraq and has no realistic prospect of doing so after the fact. With that vital ingredient missing, the United States cannot itself accomplish stabilization and reconstruction and cannot provide the tutelage that might enable an emerging Iraqi government to do so. Ultimate outcomes in these circumstances depend far more on legitimacy than on firepower, the adroitness of military operations or sheer political will.

Unfortunately and indeed tragically, arbitrarily scheduled termination of the United States military operation promises to be even worse than indefinite continuation. As is widely recognized, American withdrawal could readily trigger a yet more violent civil war in Iraq with yet more dangerous regional implications. The only meaningful alternative even remotely visible depends on transferring primary responsibility and operational control of the stabilization and reconstruction process to a more representative international entity not implicated in the original assault and better able to evoke universal justifying principles. That entity does not currently exist. It would have to be created for the occasion. The United States would have to provide financial and military support without attempting to exercise control.

Such a formula would be anathema to those who initiated the war and very unpopular within the American political system generally. It could well come to that nonetheless. Exploring the possibility can reasonably be considered a moral obligation.