Remember the Clinton years?

02.10.2004

James Lileks, who I rarely have time to read anymore, posted this interesting piece of political history:

Okay, well, outtakes: went back to the microfilm today to February 1998, when the Clinton adminstration was making the case for attacking Iraq. How things change. Clinton was arguing that Saddam not only had WMD, but that one day he might want to make more WMD, and this wasn't acceptable. Interesting to read between the lines - the Clinton administration seemed to be arguing that the potential for future production was itself a valid reason to strike. Military force is never "the first answer," Clinton said, "but sometimes it’s the only answer." "It Saddam isn’t stopped now," the AP story said, quoting Clinton, "'He will conclude that the international community has lost its will. He will then conclude that he can go right on and do more to rebuild an arsenal of devastating destruction. And someday, someway, I guarantee you, he'll use that arsenal.'" Thus spake Clinton in 1998. He went on to note that the strikes planned could not possibly destroy Saddam's arsenal, because A) they didn't know where everything was, and B) they didn't want to kill Iraqis by unleashing clouds of toxins. And it gets better: a sidebar noted that this war plan – Desert Thunder – had been prepared weeks before, in case Saddam stiffed in the inspectors.

Bill Clinton had a plan to go to war before the crisis flared! What does that tell you? Obviously, he was looking for any excuse! Halliburton! We all know about the ties between Clinton and Halliburton – he gave them a sweet no-bid contract after his Balkans war, you know.

Anyway: it's deja vu all over again. You want to talk imminence? WMD? Democratic concern and conviction? Go back to the papers of 1998; it's all there, right down to the terrorist links: Hezbollah, for example, swears it will strike Israel if the US attacks Iraq. (A poll of Palestinians showed that 94% supported Iraq, and 77% wanted Iraq to kill Jews if the US attacked Iraq.) Bob Dole was quoted as supporing the strikes but urging Clinton to seek Congressional Authorization. A story on Bush 41's reaction said that the former president would completely support Clinton if he decided to attack, but noted that Bush 41 urged Clinton to get more international support - which was lacking at the time.

And indeed, Kofi struck a deal. Which fell apart by summertime. Which lead to cruise missile strikes. Which lead to boredom and disengagement. Which lead to half a decade of Saddam on the throne and the dissidents in the shredders and the tots in the gulag and dead people heaped in ditches and oil-for-palaces deals and Uday and Qusay pleasuring themselves in Rapeland Incorporated and Abu Nidal putting his feet up in a Baghdad apartment, pouring a nice cool glass of tea, and thinking: ah. This is the life.

I'm so old I actually remember when the Democrats cared about Iraq.

BTW, here's a post on another war in which American intelligence over-estimated another state's WMD program and went to war (in part) to prevent it, even though that regime hadn't attacked the US. The resulting war is now usually rationalized on humanitarian-ideological grounds.

Posted by Miguel at 04:14 PM

Comments

Its funny that you can state that "The analogy between Bolivian & Afghanistan is tenuous, at best." but at the same time allude that Hitler's Germany is comparable to Iraq. Comparing a World war between major alliances of superpowers and a 1 sided war against a dictator is ridiculous. I suspect you also would call them 'nucular' weapons rather than the proper nucular.

Posted by: AMPP at February 11, 2004 12:24 AM

Oops, I mean nuclear. Stupidity at the top is contageous to the masses.

Posted by: AMPP at February 11, 2004 12:42 AM

If there's one thing I love it is the irony of hearing conservatives, who despised every day Bill Clinton was in office, use the Clinton foreign policy on Iraq to justify Bush's foreign policy debacles. Suddenly, Slick Willy is useful to the same people who tried to remove him from office? No, I don't think so. Articles like this are not only funny, they smell of neoconservative desperation---"someone has got to agree with us somewhere, even if it's presidents we hate."

Seriously speaking though, pointing to the Clinton years does have some good effect. It provides a perfect example of another poor foreign policy in the region which attempted to free the Iraqi people by American force. In this case the force was by the means of containment, embargo, economic hardship, starvation, no-fly zones, random bombing, etc.

Supporters of the current war have got to stop grasping at these policy straws and deal with the reality of the situation, Iraqis need to free themselves without American help. That's it, pure and simple. Americans have no business telling Iraqis what kind of government they should have, or what the future Iraqi constitution should contain. In order for the constitution to have any legitimacy, this is a process that needs to unravel in Iraqi society. Look at the American constitution, one of the major reasons it has provided so much stability is because it was crafted entirely by Americans, for Americans. And the original American constitution had some highly offensive things in it (3/5 of a man, no vote for women), but we've managed to work our way through it.

So, the "Bill-Clinton-did-it-to" argument is a poor one to use on Iraq. An even poorer one is the "Saddam-is-Hitler-too" argument, but that's another post.

Posted by: Patrick at February 11, 2004 04:21 PM

Patrick:

First of all, Lileks is a registered Dem (as far as I know), and self-described liberal. So don't jump to conclusions. Second, I've told you before I think Clinton was a good president (a terrible human being, but a good president). Third, the argument that "Iraqis need to free themselves" is weak. Would you say it was the responsibility of Jews in Auschwitz to free themselves? Is a woman being raped on the sidewalk responsible to defend herseslf? Are you saying that we human beings have no moral impulse to help others in need? If that's the basis of your argument, you're no liberal I recognize.

Buzzoff:

Yes, the comparison between Bolivia & Afghanistan is tenous at best. For all the reasons I listed. The comparison between Saddam Hussein & Hitler isn't so far-fetched (a better comparison would be to Stalin). Let's see: a brutal, para-military one-party state that runs concentration camps for its dissidents, promotes aggresive war, development of WMDs, the anihilation of Jews, and kept in power by a regime of terror against its citizens. How unsimilar to a fascist regime is that? I'm dying to know.

Posted by: Miguel at February 11, 2004 05:52 PM