If President Bush launches his pre-emptive war against Iraq, where will it leave America spiritually, economically, and politically?
According to the President, we will have a short and successful war that will kill or maim innocent Iraqi civilians and some innocent American soldiers–but not enough of them to stop the people of Baghdad from cheering the removal of Saddam and the promise of a democracy to replace him. At the same time, we will have made ourselves safer from terrorism at home. We will also be richer–stock markets will rise instantly, and, together with the help of billions of dollars of still more tax cuts for our investor taxpayers, that will stimulate a strong economic recovery.
The President’s people say his poll ratings will also soar. With a victory in Iraq bolstering his self-confidence, he will then presumably turn his steely gaze on the rest of the axis of evil–North Korea and Iran–and decide whether to continue his aggressive and pre-emptive attempts to make the United States the planet’s democratic but holy hegemon. The United Nations would be less of an impediment to this effort because our repudiation of it over Iraq will have caused it to wither into little more than a global grant agency and political debating society.
On the other hand, if the President’s calculations and designs are incorrect, America will launch a war that could kill many times more innocent people than 9/11 did, and will be left with the huge burden of building a new democracy out of the tangle of hostile groups ready to destroy one another as soon as the tyrant Saddam is removed. That’s precisely what the President earlier condemned as wasteful and dangerous “nation building”–a description that seems apt in view of our faltering efforts in Afghanistan.
The United States will also have lost the support of many of the allies we counted on in 1991, and have inflamed the hate of our enemies in the Muslim world, virtually assuring an increase in acts of terrorism against us.
After a quick euphoric surge in stock markets, the expenditures of hundreds of billions of dollars on the war, the attempted reconstruction of Iraq, and more tax cuts will worsen what are already the greatest national deficits and debts in American history. That will exacerbate the already crushing burdens on our state and local governments, debilitating further public health care, education, law enforcement, and environmental protection.
And what of his political future if President Bush’s war becomes his proudest boast in 2004? I think he will face the same fate Winston Churchill did in 1945 . . . and that of his father in 1992.
By November 2004, the music of the victory parades will have faded, and the nation will reflect upon the sober truth of the war. Americans will remember the death and destruction, the debilitated economy, the increased terrorism, the deteriorated world unity, and the ugly irony of a nation that says it is too poor to provide its people the health care, education, and old-age security they need, but rich enough to fight wars, reconstruct other nations, and give its wealthiest taxpayers huge tax cuts. Why, then, would America want to vote for more of the same?
This essay originally appeared, in a longer form, in the Italian newspaper La Republica.
This article appears in May 1-7, 2003.
