Jonathan Chait: Bring back Saddam Hussein
Restoring the dictator to power may give Iraqis the jolt of authority they need. Have a better solution?
Jonathan Chait
LA Times
November 26, 2006
THE DEBATE about Iraq has moved past the question of whether it was a mistake (everybody knows it was) to the more depressing question of whether it is possible to avert total disaster. Every self-respecting foreign policy analyst has his own plan for Iraq. The trouble is that these tracts are inevitably unconvincing, except when they argue why all the other plans would fail. It's all terribly grim.
So allow me to propose the unthinkable: Maybe, just maybe, our best option is to restore Saddam Hussein to power.
Yes, I know. Hussein is a psychotic mass murderer. Under his rule, Iraqis were shot, tortured and lived in constant fear. Bringing the dictator back would sound cruel if it weren't for the fact that all those things are also happening now, probably on a wider scale.
At the outset of the war, I had no high hopes for Iraqi democracy, but I paid no attention to the possibility that the Iraqis would end up with a worse government than the one they had. It turns out, however, that there is something more awful than totalitarianism, and that is endless chaos and civil war.
Nobody seems to foresee the possibility of restoring order to Iraq. Here is the basic dilemma: The government is run by Shiites, and the security agencies have been overrun by militias and death squads. The government is strong enough to terrorize the Sunnis into rebellion but not strong enough to crush this rebellion.
Meanwhile, we have admirably directed our efforts into training a professional and nonsectarian Iraqi police force and encouraging reconciliation between Sunnis and Shiites. But we haven't succeeded. We may be strong enough to stop large-scale warfare or genocide, but we're not strong enough to stop pervasive chaos.
Hussein, however, has a proven record in that department. It may well be possible to reconstitute the Iraqi army and state bureaucracy we disbanded, and if so, that may be the only force capable of imposing order in Iraq.
(There is more.)
(TM comment: Could there be a more dramatic illustration of how badly the situation in Iraq has deteriorated? It's too late for even that desperate measure, however: the Shiites would no longer tolerate being oppressed by Sunnis, as they were under Saddam. Moreover, to put Saddam back in power would shred Bush's last figleaf of justification for the misguided invasion. Bush is hoping somehow to avoid the condemnation of history and will hang on as long as possible, maybe with the expectation of passing the entire mess on to his successor. It now looks like even that will not be possible. The collapse of the Maliki government is not far off.)
Jonathan Chait
LA Times
November 26, 2006
THE DEBATE about Iraq has moved past the question of whether it was a mistake (everybody knows it was) to the more depressing question of whether it is possible to avert total disaster. Every self-respecting foreign policy analyst has his own plan for Iraq. The trouble is that these tracts are inevitably unconvincing, except when they argue why all the other plans would fail. It's all terribly grim.
So allow me to propose the unthinkable: Maybe, just maybe, our best option is to restore Saddam Hussein to power.
Yes, I know. Hussein is a psychotic mass murderer. Under his rule, Iraqis were shot, tortured and lived in constant fear. Bringing the dictator back would sound cruel if it weren't for the fact that all those things are also happening now, probably on a wider scale.
At the outset of the war, I had no high hopes for Iraqi democracy, but I paid no attention to the possibility that the Iraqis would end up with a worse government than the one they had. It turns out, however, that there is something more awful than totalitarianism, and that is endless chaos and civil war.
Nobody seems to foresee the possibility of restoring order to Iraq. Here is the basic dilemma: The government is run by Shiites, and the security agencies have been overrun by militias and death squads. The government is strong enough to terrorize the Sunnis into rebellion but not strong enough to crush this rebellion.
Meanwhile, we have admirably directed our efforts into training a professional and nonsectarian Iraqi police force and encouraging reconciliation between Sunnis and Shiites. But we haven't succeeded. We may be strong enough to stop large-scale warfare or genocide, but we're not strong enough to stop pervasive chaos.
Hussein, however, has a proven record in that department. It may well be possible to reconstitute the Iraqi army and state bureaucracy we disbanded, and if so, that may be the only force capable of imposing order in Iraq.
(There is more.)
(TM comment: Could there be a more dramatic illustration of how badly the situation in Iraq has deteriorated? It's too late for even that desperate measure, however: the Shiites would no longer tolerate being oppressed by Sunnis, as they were under Saddam. Moreover, to put Saddam back in power would shred Bush's last figleaf of justification for the misguided invasion. Bush is hoping somehow to avoid the condemnation of history and will hang on as long as possible, maybe with the expectation of passing the entire mess on to his successor. It now looks like even that will not be possible. The collapse of the Maliki government is not far off.)
Powered by Blogger
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home