Complex individual motivations

by James H. Noyes

The factors propelling United States policy toward war in Iraq derive from complex individual motivations. The Bush administration began with a determination to forge a new foreign policy distinct from Clinton's. Clinton's policies had exemplified a dawdling, futile indecision leading to Iraqi suffering, erosion of the US position in the Muslim world, and continuing doubt about Saddam's weapons programs.

After September 11, with evidence that Osama bin Laden's tentacles reached far beyond Afghanistan's Taliban, Bush advisors decided to employ full conventional military strength against terrorism: a forward military position in the Middle East independent of Saudi Arabia and its signs of instability. A new democratic Iraq could support sweeping American military and political pressure to reform Middle Eastern regimes while attacking the roots of terrorism. A proportionate response to 9/11 meant the threat of regime change by war, not merely the traditional pursuit of terrorists as criminals.

As in any calculus of US Middle East policy, Israel certainly was factored into these deliberations. Bush, we can reasonably assume, without experienced Middle East advisors among his immediate council, might well have been strongly influenced by Sharon. But while Bush acceded wholesale to virtually all Israel's moves vis-a-vis the Palestinians, Sharon of all people would have lacked credibility to advocate military occupation as a successful device for regime change. There was the dark history of his 1982 invasion and attempted regime change debacle in Lebanon, which was material to the birth of Hezbollah. And more demonstrably, there have been over 30 years of Israeli West Bank and Gaza military occupation with only the blood-drenched intifada to show for them.

More tellingly, Sharon might have argued that removing Iraq's threat would increase Israel's military security and potentially free more West Bank land for Palestinian rather than Israeli settlement. Ending Saddam's financial subsidies to the families of suicide bombers and his goading of radical rejectionist Palestinian elements would further promote the peace process and help reduce terrorism overall. Sharon might have even offered intelligence estimates on Iraq that surpassed or at least substantiated the alarm levels of the CIA and the Pentagon. While these exchanges with Sharon would have plausibly had influence, it seems unlikely they were a prime mover. The war would have occurred in their absence. Bush's group appeared to have made a decision on Iraq long before Sharon's inputs.

Moreover, it is often Washington lobbying groups like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee plus instruments of the Christian right that preempt official Israeli policy and assume a policy life of their own. The US Congress plays a uniquely powerful role on Middle East policy and combines with lobbying groups to support the views of executive branch officials who form a self-appointed vanguard for a particular definition of Israel's interests.

The much-discussed neo-cons fall into this category. Judging by their writings, speeches and association with Likud-linked think tanks, many view Israel as the central focus of Middle East policy issues. Grouped in Vice President Cheney's office and the Pentagon civilian staff, which is headed by a defense secretary fond of referring to the "so-called occupied territories," they invite a cabal image--a cabal assembled for the single goal of using US military power to rid Israel of regional state threats. Acceptance of this interpretation would suggest that Israel's supporters (not Israel) are to blame for Iraq.

Problems arise with such an interpretation, however. First, the neo-conservative movement has deep roots in US academia and demands major shifts in American foreign policy far transcending Israel's role in the Middle East. The aggressive use of military power, unilaterally if necessary, begins to define these shifts. September 11 opened policy doors widely for neo-con options: a different use of power for a different war.

Second, the simplistic cabal interpretation is ultimately based on speculation. We lack specifics about the final decision-making process on Iraq. We read neo-con statements, books, and articles about the Bush administration's inner workings. But speculation is not evidence. We do not know Bush's ultimate motivation for war. Neo-con views could have been incidental to a desire for dramatization of US power as riposte to 9/11. Or did Bush act based simply on his belief in the threat that Iraq would pass its weapons of mass destruction to terrorists or use them regionally? Memories are short; the former specter of an Iraqi regime tolerated by the United Nations and eventually controlled by one of Saddam's warped sons should remain in mind.

Finally, blaming the neo-cons exclusively for Iraq diverts an urgently needed national dialogue on foreign policy into the debilitating arena of personal attack. This starves the real debate and flirts with conspiracy theories. Moreover, its accusations revive the ugly American political tool of branding opponents with charges of extraterritorial loyalty--blame the Catholic for doing Rome's bidding, for instance. Policy analysis should be busy elsewhere. The neo-cons will then self-destruct if they are as wrong as they now appear.

-Published 15/7/2004