Top Ten Reasons

As I write this, the Bush Administration seems bent upon an invasion of Iraq that strikes many of us as an unnecessary and very dangerous break with prior American foreign policy. As an inveterate list-maker, I offer the following top ten reasons the United States should not invade Iraq:

10. This Administration’s “go it alone” approach had created hostility and damaged long-term alliances even when it was confined to unilateral abrogation of treaties negotiated and signed in good faith. By telling the U.N. “it’s our way or the highway,” ignoring our allies, and preparing for war without even pretending that world opinion matters, we have aroused anti-American feelings around the world. We have more enemies and fewer friends that we did two years ago, and that makes the world a more dangerous place—even for citizens of a superpower.

9. Invading a country because we believe it will pose a threat to us at some point in the future is the grand-daddy of dangerous precedents. If we can wage war against Iraq without any evidence of a current intent and capacity to harm us, what is to stop any country from invading a less powerful neighbor on that same pretext?

8. War against Iraq will divert resources—from North Korea, which by any measure poses a far greater threat to us than Iraq, and from domestic needs made greater by the poor economy. (Of course, war will also divert attention from that economy, the ballooning deficit, and the war on civil liberties being waged in the name of “homeland security.” Cynics might conclude that those diversions constitute much of its appeal.)

7. This war will be fought disproportionately by minorities and recruits from low-income families. In the absence of an inclusive draft, those making the decision to wage war can do so secure in the knowledge that their children and grandchildren aren’t at risk. Divorcing decisions from their consequences encourages recklessness.

6. Even if every single claim made by Bush and Rumsfeld were true, the United States is in no imminent danger from Iraq.

5. If we were in imminent danger, the appropriate response is containment and negotiation. The Administration is doing precisely that with North Korea—a far greater threat—and prior administrations similarly contained China and the Soviet Union.

4. War against Iraq necessarily gives a “pass” to nations like Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, both of whom are far more implicated in harboring terrorists than is Iraq, but whose co-operation (and in the case of the Saudis, oil) we will need in order to invade Iraq.

3. Any conflict in the Middle East is likely to trigger all-out war between the Arab states and Israel. During the last Gulf War, Iraq fired Scud missiles at Israel, hoping to draw a response. Israeli leadership was far more moderate then—does anyone believe that Ariel Sharon will not rise to the bait? The Middle East has long been one of the world’s least stable areas—the potential for a much wider conflict than just the U.S. against Iraq is very real.

2. War against Iraq will increase terrorism. It will further incite the passions of angry Islamic fundamentalists who already hate the West, at the same time it will make Arab cooperation with the War on Terrorism (remember that?) less likely.

1. Invading a country that has not attacked us, a country that has no present capacity to attack us, is immoral. The fact that their leader is brutish and vile does not change that. Bush and his supporters talk the talk of public morality and “moral clarity” but they walk the walk of global adventurers who propose to engage in an invasion because they can.  In many ways, the United States is still dealing with deep psychic wounds inflicted as a result of the Viet Nam War. Even if an invasion of Iraq could be quick and surgical, it is, like Viet Nam, an action inconsistent with our American self-image. However many billions of dollars such an invasion might cost, the real cost will be to the American soul.