IF WAR ISN’T THE ANSWER, WHAT IS?

Last month I asked the question “Who’s Next After Iraq?” among the 81 countries (shown in purple on the map above) whose people live under undemocratic, mostly oppressive regimes, many with WMD or the potential to produce them, and most with long litanies of human rights abuses. The retort to the “Who’s next?” question is often another question “If war isn’t the answer, what is?” It’s a fair question, even thought it is obviously ironic when it comes from formerly isolationist neocons.

Assuming the objective is to turn the purple in this map to yellow, or at least orange, here are the options, along with my personal assessment of the appropriateness of each:

1. Military intervention – This is always the last resort, only to be used when there is ‘clear and present danger’. It always leaves a vacuum, always raises the spectre that what replaces it will be worse than what was vanquished, is always the most expensive solution in every sense of the word, and always leaves wounds that invite retaliation and prolonged violence. It also runs the risk of military failure and huge civilian casualties, either of which can escalate violence and destabilize whole regions, or the whole planet.
2. Military support for internal opposition – Same pros, cons and risks as military intervention, but sometimes more covert and cheaper, and often less effective. When it is effective, it’s more durable than military intervention.
3. Political assassination – Same pros, cons and risks as military intervention, but much cheaper. Also illegal under international law.
4. Sanctions and embargoes – These almost never work, since they punish the people not the administration. There is abundant evidence that sanctions aganst Iraq have led to untold suffering by the Iraqi people and the premature death of half a million people, and had no effect whatsoever on the Iraq government.
5. International political pressure – Always necessary but rarely sufficient, as anyone from Amnesty International can tell you.
6. International inspections – The ultimate compromise. May not work. Never really given a fair try.
7. International trials – Time consuming and risky. May not work. Won’t have a chance to work as long as Bush refuses the support, and continues to undermine, the International Court of Justice. A mechanism is needed for in absentia trials and for bringing those convicted and at large to justice.
8. International policing – Time consuming and risky. The counterpart and companion to international trials, this is more than just ‘peacekeeping’. 
9. Political support for internal opposition – Can be helpful, but rarely sufficient.
10. Do nothing

What do I think the answer is? It depends on what country we’re talking about, how much suffering the regime is inflicting, and what could work under the circumstances. In a country with a benevolent dictatorship like Singapore, I’d do nothing. In a country like Rwanda a combination of options 6 and 7, and a massive expansion of the already-in-use options 5 and 8, would probably have been necessary in 1994 to avert the genocide by machete of almost a million people in three days. Instead, we actually reduced the UN police presence in the area, and some feel we were therefore complicit in the massacre.

In Iraq, I believe the neoliberal-supported sanctions, which have caused massive suffering and premature death, have been as destructive as the neocons’ war. A combination of options 5, 6, 7 and 8 could have worked, and would have sent a much more effective and UN-endorsed message to the rest of the world’s despots, and the people suffering under them, than the cynical military adventure of the Bush regime. And this four-option combination might have actually led to freedom, instead of the Bush legacy the Iraq people must now face: anarchy, a crippled economy, military occupation, economic opportunism, deprivation and new tyranny.

Liberals and Democrats must stop condoning what Bush is doing at home and abroad, out of political cowardice, and instead start offering positive solutions and strategies to combat the incessantly negative, fear-mongering agenda of the Bush regime. Failing this, we risk losing our own freedoms.