Our Enemies Are Crazy... Our Allies?

One of the pretty constant lines of rhetorical attack you see, often from people who would prefer to shift from words to military action, is that the enemy state is "crazy". Its leaders are irrational, cannot be reasoned with, and will do terrible, apocalyptic things if we don't take dramatic action. Within this context, "crazy" often means "Behaves in pretty much the same manner as other despots and tyrants, but isn't on our team." The Shah of Iran treated his people terribly, reminiscent of Saddam Hussein, and lusted for western military weapons including nuclear weapons, and that was fine with us. Then Iran had a revolution, its new government was overtly hostile to the U.S., and Saddam Hussein seemed like somebody we could work with. Then the war he started with Iran came to an end, he invaded Kuwait, and... nutty as a fruitcake. Moammar Gadhafi was a terrible man, sponsoring terrorism, hostile to western interests, then he became a supposed "victory" in the "war on terror" by renouncing his "WMD programs", but after a few years of posing for pictures with world leaders who, no doubt, now regret the documentary evidence of their claims that he had reformed, he once again became a crazy enemy.

The point isn't that these tyrants aren't, to one extent or another, crazy. It's that "crazy" is rarely considered to be a significant issue until our nations' leaders decide it's a problem, and all of the quirks and bad acts that aren't worthy of notice or mention suddenly become evidence of irredeemable insanity. (Sort of irredeemable - as previously mentioned, Gadahfi, one of the nuttier despots of our time, did enjoy a few years of "redemption".)

One of the better aspects of democracy is that when elected leaders do prove to be nutty, they typically either don't rise to the highest offices or don't stay there for line. We may treat our Presidents and Prime Ministers as if they're monarchs, granting them mansions, gourmet personal chefs, personal jets, huge staffs... but we require an element of humility, the willingness for a peaceful transition at the end of the elected official's term of office. Some of our leaders do engage in over-the-top rhetoric about foreign states and leaders, but the leaders of "enemy states" generally take their anti-western rhetoric to a much higher level - volume, frequency and intensity all turned up to 11.

One of the over-the-top claims about Iran is that, if they are able to develop a nuclear weapon, they will immediately be itching to use it against another state. We're told that, unlike any other nuclear state in the world, Iran's leadership is so crazy that they won't be deterred by the fact that any nuclear attack that can be laid at their feet would trigger the annihilation of their nation. We don't talk that way about our allies. At least, most people don't.

Former Bush Administration official Bennett Ramberg is actually using an "Israel is nuts" argument to support... who knows? Invading Iran to stop it from developing nuclear weapons?

If Jerusalem really believes that a nuclear-armed Tehran poses an existential threat — and cannot be contained by a conventional military attack, sanctions, deterrence or regime change — there remains one option to end the threat that people fear to talk about: Israel’s use of nuclear weapons.

At any level, Ramberg's analysis would place Israel's government somewhere between "irrational" and "insane". I'll give him enough credit to assume that he's imagining a future in which Iran is not invaded, develops nuclear weapons, and can use small arsenal to deter any land-based invasion. Does Ramberg believe that Iran would keep all of its weapons and production facilities in one nice, consolidated, non-fortified location, far away from its civilian population such that Israel could swoop in with a nuke or two and eliminate the entire program? He couldn't possibly be that ignorant. So really, what he's proposing is that if Iran has any nuclear capacity, Israel will perceive as its only option a massive nuclear attack against Iran, devastating its urban centers and murdering tens of millions of civilians. There's an ugly word for that type of military action. And you know what? If Iran did have a few small nukes it could be counted on to try to launch them against Israel. So Ramberg is literally telling us that Israel's leadership is irrational, genocidal and willing to risk the annihilation of its own people in order to wipe an enemy off of the map. Which is pretty much exactly what other people in the "we must invade Iran" camp say about a nuclear Iran.

I disagree with Ramberg's analysis. They're at least as self-serving and prone to demagoguery as the leaders of any other nation and, yes, Israel's form of democracy results in some pretty extreme members within the Knesset. And like every other military power they tend to overestimate what they can accomplish through force and underestimate the benefits of resolving conflicts through negotiation - a peril of democracy: when times are good, voters don't want to change anything, and when times are bad, voters don't want to give anything to "the enemy". But they're not insane, they're not genocidal, and they're not going to kill tens of millions of people and send a cloud of radioactive fallout around the globe if Iran successfully tests a nuclear weapon, even if they believe the losses on their own side would be "acceptable".

I don't think Ramberg believes his own argument. If he actually believed that Israel, a nation that has shown past restraint with its nuclear weapons when faced with an actual land invasion, has joined the ranks of nations with "insane" leaders who can't be trusted with nuclear weapons, he should be advocating for the west to join Iran's proposal for a completely nuclear-free Middle East, backed up with thorough inspections of both Iran and Israel to ensure compliance. The most charitable explanation I can offer is that he's tossing this scenario out either as one more reason the west "has to" invade Iran and remove its leadership, or in the hope that over-the-top rhetoric about "crazy Israel" will somehow lead to a cowed and pliant Iran, and thus doesn't care that his argument is detached from reality.

Missing Money

It's not hard to find expressions of indignation about the "oil for food" scandal. And hey - there's good cause for indignation. But many of the harshest critics of the UN, lamenting the manner in which Iraq's corrupt leaders diverted Iraqi money, are completely silent about this.

The auditors have so far referred more than a hundred contracts, involving billions of dollars paid to American personnel and corporations, for investigation and possible criminal prosecution. They have also discovered that $8.8bn that passed through the new Iraqi government ministries in Baghdad while Bremer was in charge is unaccounted for, with little prospect of finding out where it has gone. A further $3.4bn appropriated by Congress for Iraqi development has since been siphoned off to finance "security".

It took Hussein about a decade to siphon about $9 billion from "oil for food". It took Bremer a fraction of that time to lose $6 billion from the same program, along with a few billion dollars of money contributed by U.S. taxpayers. So, while I'm all for holding accountable those who participated in and profited from "oil for food", I would like to see some heads roll over the billions lost to corruption and incompetence under Bremer's watch.

And we complain about a whitewash at the UN.

Saddam Hussein - Man, Myth, Both?

During the lead-up to the Iraq war, the war itself, Hussein's capture, and his recent public appearance, various public pictures have been painted of Hussein, often by the same people. He is an iron-fisted tyrant, actively building a WMD arsenal under the noses of the western world, and between whose purges and his cabal of close henchmen had tight control over the entire nation, obviating any chance of revolt by generals too cowed by his network of spies and secret police to ever dream of defying him. He is an out-of-touch dreamer, whose generals actively lied to him about the state of his nation and his paltry weapons arsenal, as he indulged in Viagra and penned romance novels, and has been unable to produce any useful intelligence information despite months of U.S. interrogation. He is a coward, begging for his life (in English) as he was captured by U.S. forces. He is a strong-willed man, in control of his faculties, denouncing his imprisonment as being the result of an illegal war.

I have long been of the impression that some of the pre-war information about "Saddam who cannot be toppled except by outside military intervention" was puffery meant to overstate the necessity of invasion. It is now well-known that the U.S. was in active negotiation with numerous Iraqi military leaders about the possibility of orchestrating a coup, or a prompt surrender in the event of invasion, and it appears that one such officer was Maj. Gen. Jassim Mohammed Saleh of the Republican Guard - the guy who we recently put in charge of Fallujah. At the same time, it would not be at all surprising if a leader such as Hussein took on some megalomaniacal features over time, and there is plenty of evidence of that in his statutes, paintings, Viagra stash, and romance fiction. The coward who tried to surrender while pleading in English? That reeks of manipulation - an (understandable) effort to diminish Hussein's standing in the eyes of the Arab world.

I heard that a recent opinion poll of Iraqis is split, to put it mildly, with about 40% of Iraqis wanting Hussein executed, and another 40% wanting him freed. If true, the trial (and presumably the subsequent execution) of Hussein could prove quite divisive inside Iraq, and could cement his status as a martyr against the west in parts of the Arab world. Whose myth will win?

I have heard it commented that the fact that Hussein will even stand for trial, as opposed to being summarily executed by the new regime, indicates how far Iraq has progressed. But there is a reason why the new regime is often quick to execute the leaders of the old - and it has nothing to do with its "crimes". A quick execution without trial prevents the old regime from using a public trial as a bully pulpit, and from denouncing those members of the "new" regime who are at least as culpable as those on trial from the "old" regime - but just happened to be on the right side of the successful coup.

One thing seems rather clear - the man who used to be Maj. Gen. Jassim Mohammed Saleh's boss, and who was photographed in an infamous handshake with Donald Rumsfeld, possesses a lot of information which could be embarrassing to a lot of Iraqis and western political leaders. Will this trial drag on, Milosevic-style, while all the world watches? Or will the new Iraq's justice be more focused on outcome than on due process? We shall see.

Hussein's Trial

Today's New York Times returns us to the question of whether Hussein should get a fair trial - before he's convicted

What Is This - A Divorce?

A short time ago, with the full backing of the Bush Administration, the United States Supreme Court declined to grant "standing" to Michael Newdow, who had sued to end the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance as redefined by Congress to include the phrase "... under God". Why? Because the girl's mother had full legal custody, and Newdow had only a limited form of legal custody.

Today, the New York Times announces, "Custody of Hussein Will Be Transferred to Iraq This Week". That is to say, "the new Iraqi government will take over legal custody of Saddam Hussein on Wednesday to start proceedings that will lead up to an open trial in the next few months." The Washington Post is more accurate in its headline, declaring "Iraq Takes Legal Custody of Hussein Wednesday".

This seems like a strange way of reporting that the Iraqis are being given nominal "custody" over Hussein, who will remain where he is - in a U.S. operated prison manned by U.S. guards. The rush to trial is a bit troubling to me, given that this new "sovereign" government was picked by us, and perhaps it would be best if we permitted Iraq's first elected government to decide the fate of its former tyrant. But then, an elected government might actually demand physical custody, and custody disputes are so messy....

Rumors & Megalomania

It is rumored that Saddam Hussein may have terminal cancer:

The ousted Iraqi dictator, who is currently under custody with the coalition forces, suffers from cancer of lymph glands, Kuwaiti Al-Anba daily reads, citing an Iraqi official. According to the daily, the disease is in an advanced stage, so doctors predict the former dictator would probably live a couple of years more.

This, of course, may be the best explanation yet for why he acted in such a peculiar, and apparently self-destructive manner in the lead-up to the war. With little to lose, even a miniscule possibility of defeating the coalition invaders and becoming in the eyes of many a modern Saladin would seem awfully tempting to a megalomaniac.

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Why Let A Few CW's Spoil A Friendship?

Harry's Place posted a link to a memorandum [PDF format] from then-Secretary of State George Shultz to Donald Rumsfeld, with instruction on how to handle his 1984 meeting with Hussein. Included in the advice (emphasis added):

Setting: Two events have worsened the atmosphere in Baghdad since your last stop there in December: ... (2) Bilateral relations were sharply set back by our March 5 condemnation of Iraq for CW use, despite our repeated warnings that this issue would emerge sooner or later. Given its wartime preoccupations and its distress at our CW statement, the Iraqi leadership probably will have little interest in discussing Lebanon, the Arab-Israeli conflict, or other matters except as they may impinge upon Iraq's increasingly desperate struggle for survival. If Saddam or Tariq Aziz receives you against this background, it will be a noteworthy gesture of the GOI's interest in keeping our relations on track -- and perhaps a measure of how much they think we may ultimately have to offer to their war effort.

"CW", of course, stands for "chemical weapons".

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Fair Trials?

In "Justice for Hussein", Debra Saunders writes:

I would trust the producers of "Survivor" to put together a fitting trial for Saddam Hussein before I would trust the United Nations.

To start, any solon who worries about giving Hussein a "fair" trial should not be allowed near the tribunal. For such people, Hussein's trial is an opportunity to establish how fair-minded they are as jurists, rather than a chance to redress the rivers of red blood spilled in this thug's name.

Ah yes - there's no room, after all, for due process for people we already know to be guilty. And nothing could possibly be gained by demonstrating to the Arab world that we are actually interested in advancing justice and fairness, even when handling the most odious of offenders.

After yammering on for a bit about the evils of those who oppose the death penalty or favor international organizations (and along the way, admittedly, making some decent points about the bizarre trial of Milosevic), she concludes,

I want Hussein to get a fair trial -- but it won't be fair to Iraq if Hussein is allowed to turn his trial into a circus.

I see.... So while she will condemn a "solon" - that is, a "wise lawgiver" - who calls for a fair trial, apparently she does not believe it to be hypocritical when she expresses the very desire she previously condemned.

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A Fair Trial - Before He's Convicted

There is a growing buzz over the trial of Saddam Hussein - particularly where it should be held, and how to ensure that it is fair. But let's be blunt - the record is patent, and no matter how fair the trial Hussein is not going to be acquitted.

If Hussein were from this country, I would want to try him here under this nation's laws - or, if necessary, under the laws that existed prior to his rule (and the associated imposition by his regime of self-serving laws). If no relevant body of law could be found, due to my nation's unfortunate history, I would suggest adopting the rules of a prior international war crimes court or tribumal and applying international humanitarian law. And if somebody from another country were to suggest that he couldn't get a fair trial here, I would likely see that as condescension.

Still, I would understand the calls for a public international trial, held in a neutral setting before an independent judge (or panel of judges), where Hussein would be able to present in full his theory of the case. But, human nature being what it is, the advocates of such a trial would be well-served to avoid suggesting that my nation would be unfair, or had prejudged the case, if they wanted to actually convince me to turn Hussein over to such a court. And I would want some degree of assurance that the "trial" wouldn't end up looking like a theater of the absurd following years of delay, like that of Milosevic.

As an outsider, for many reasons, the idea of holding Hussein's trial before a neutral international tribunal "makes sense". But if the reasons presented for such a trial condescend to the Iraqi people, I expect there to be fierce Iraqi opposition to turning Hussein over to an outside court.

Thus, to no small degree, international efforts should be focused on ensuring that Hussein's trial is fair, no matter where it is held and no matter who presides over it. It would be best if this were not a redux of the trial of Ceausescu.

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A Step Forward

Saddam Hussein is in U.S. custody, and that's a very good thing. I don't think the so-called "resistance" will fold, but I wouldn't complain at all if they were weakened and demoralized by this capture. And I hope that Hussein is quickly and publicly brought to task for his sins. (That is, no Milosovic-style multi-year delay before a year-long trial; and no secret confinements with or without a secret trial.)

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