The Chinaberry Tree

Posting Hiatus

For the eight of you who have been stopping by lately, thanks!

I'm extremely busy at work, and most of my free time is currently spent writing an academic article on the Robinson-Patman Act. I hope to return to active posting within two weeks, and hope you'll stop by periodically to see if the spirit moved me. I'm still planning on writing on the topics I've teased below.

The Al Qaeda Calculus

Yesterday (January 5) on The Volokh Conspiracy (an excellent blog if you're into intellectually consistent law and economics from a right-libertarian perpective), economist Tyler Cowen speculates on one of the biggest (but usually unspoken) questions presented by the War on Terror -- Why hasn't Al Qaeda hit back in the United States? (If someone can tell me how to link directly to his post, please leave a comment -- I'm new to this and have no idea). Approaching the problem from an economist's "utility maximization" frame of reference, Professor Cowen offers two hypotheses:

One hypothesis is "terrorism as theater." In this view the terrorist group consumes the very sense of acting like terrorists. They enjoy the planning, the feeling of being in a working group, the secret code words, and so on. They don't admit it, but perhaps they enjoy the process more than they like killing people or achieving some political end. If this is the case, they will go ahead with their planning even if Uncle Sam is listening in, and they won't move to less centralized, more anonymous forms of communication. They get to do what they love, and that means sticking around as an organized terrorist group or cell. Furthermore since they don't actually end up having to attack and die, they will outlast those terrorists determined to be martyrs.

A second hypothesis is "terrorists as fundraisers." Perhaps the terrorists in the field are manipulating their donors. In this view they cynically realize that they don't want to attack at all. But they don't want to have to get a real job either. They want to receive funding support, false passports, travel, and the other "benefits" of the terrorist lifestyle. They don't want to be caught, but neither do they wish to succeed so much that they must attack and sacrifice their lives. They cannot do nothing, or they will have their funding cut off. So they continually half-plan a series of faux attacks, and then move on as they approach a high risk of detection.

I think Cowen's question is one worth asking, even though my mostly repressed superstitious side tells me we shouldn't be talking about this. It's worth talking about because figuring out the answer will ultimately help us prevent additional attacks.

Like Cowen, I am at least moderately surprised that Al Qaeda has not launched a successful attack on American soil since 9/11. No matter how good our counterintelligence, there is simply no way for the U.S. to prevent every single attack if Al Qaeda's goal is simply to do something. Even if Al Qaeda were completely compromised by its enemies' intelligence services (which I do not believe has happened, although we're probably making progress), something would get through. This suggests that the drought in attacks is probably the result of a combination of things, including better security, better intelligence, and a philosophical or strategic choice on the part of Al Qaeda not to attack just for the sake of attacking. I think there are several possible explanations for Al Qaeda's "think big" strategy.

First, a look at Cowen's hypotheses. Both are probably real factors in Al Qaeda's calculus, although not solely as Cowen envisions. First, "terrorism as theater." There is little question that Al Qaeda's primary leadership thrives on theater and spectacle, and that it has not "wasted" its resources on mundane targets, even if successful attacks on those targets would have dramatic consequences. There are several possible explanations for this theater/spectacle approach to target selection within the U.S., which I'll discuss shortly. But Cowen is also right to identify the "theater/troupe" angle. It seems obvious to me that would-be terrorists enjoy the cloak and dagger aspect of their chosen vocation a little more than they should if their primary goal is operational success. It's always nice to feel like an important part of something bigger than yourself, and it's easier to rationalize against expending extremely limited resources (like "sleeper" networks or suicide bombers which, outside the Middle East, may be harder to find than we think) when there is psychic return on investment from just skulking around plotting the destruction of America. I don't think Al Qaeda as a group (to the extent that's even a valid description) enjoys the theater of belonging to a terrorist enterprise more than it enjoys wreaking destruction to the accolades and hosannas of disaffected Islamists the world over, but I think the theater/troupe dynamic certainly is in play on the margins, and may well tip the balance against greenlighting a particular operation from time to time.

Cowen's second hypothesis -- terrorists as fundraisers -- is also interesting, although it's probably best considered in the context of Al Qaeda's leader/follower dynamic. Specifically, it seems clear that the highest levels of Al Qaeda leadership are among the more pragmatic ideologues of our time. It's pretty obvious that figures on the "leader" side of the organization don't seem to feel the same "calling" to martyrdom they inculcate in their low-level adherents. And it's fairly clear that they have rationalized their continued existence as necessary to the realization of their ultimate goal (the worldwide Umma, or alternatively, creation of a Pan-Arab Islamic superpower). Accordingly, the leaders' decision calculus is affected by the mundane -- they need to stay alive, remain uncaptured, and raise money so they can continue their jihad. Cowen's hypothesis seems applicable if you limit it to Al Qaeda's leaders -- they have no interest in personally attacking (and dying or risking death), and their utility-maximizing strategy seems to involve "operations" only as and when acceptable followers become available to execute attacks. It may well be that suitable volunteers are increasingly hard to find (and for reasons I'll discuss below, it would be exponentially harder to find volunteers "suitable" to carry out an attack on the U.S. mainland). To the extent that's the thrust of Cowen's second hypothesis, it seems to have some explanatory force.

But regardless of the explanatory force of Cowen's hypotheses, his approach is worth considering on its own merits. It may be human nature, but it's always been fashionable to ascribe monolithic fanaticism to our enemies. This is a bad idea. Perhaps demonization helps us rationalize violent response in ways that more nuanced analysis would not. Perhaps it's a function of deep-seated fear or latent xenophobia. Regardless, it is far better to start with the idea that our enemies are "utility maximizers," and then reason backward to identify their "utility drivers." If we correctly identify all of the variables, constants, and modifiers in terrorists' "utility equation," we have a much better chance of hitting them where it hurts and preventing future attacks.

With that, I have a few additional thoughts on Al Qaeda's failure to strike within the U.S. since 9/11/01. (Must. resist. urge. to. knock. on. wood.), leaving aside the very real impact I believe the U.S.'s overt and covert actions are having.

It all comes down to expected value and return on investment.

Unlike the Middle East (and unlike Israel in particular), the physical United States presents a unique challenge to the utility-maximizing terrorist. Specifically, it is very, very large, and the very large population is relatively evenly dispersed across the continent. Accordingly, although terrorist attacks modeled on the "D.C. sniper" approach could have localized effects (my brother, a D.C. lawyer, kept moving while he was filling his car during the shooting spree), sporadic attacks are not likely to have particularly wide-ranging impact. Although most of us across the country followed the D.C. sniper situation closely, it had little real impact on daily lives outside the Northern Virginia/Maryland corridor.

And somewhat ironically (but somewhat comfortingly), the longer we go after 9/11 without an additional attack, the less impact sporadic attacks would have. In the days following 9/11, most of us were willing to scream "terrorism" at the drop of a hat. We were convinced that hundreds or thousands of Al Qaeda sleeper cells were scattered across the country, and every bubba who stole blasting caps for the time-honored purpose of blowing fish out of stock ponds was a suspected terrorist. Today, it seems clear that even a spectacularly "successful" attack on the scale of the Oklahoma City bombing would be seen for what it was: an isolated incident unlikely to be repeated on a grand scale throughout the country.

Back to expected value and return on investment. At this point, it seems reasonably likely that Al Qaeda does not have extensive human capital in place within the United States, or capable of getting into the U.S. undetected with support network intact. This does not mean that there are no sleeper cells in the U.S., or that a particularly determined effort couldn't infiltrate operatives into the country. But it does mean that Al Qaeda has to pick and choose its U.S. targets very carefully.

The United States does not, as a general rule, internally produce "martyrdom volunteers," even among its more militant and insular Islamic populations. (I know, I know, there are always exceptions). In fact, the U.S. has proven fairly unreliable in homegrowing even Islamists willing to commit non-suicide attacks. I suspect it's largely cultural, but the reservoir of Islamist hatred toward the U.S. within the U.S. is simply not that deep. Regardless of the reason, Al Qaeda cannot generally rely upon native American Islamists to carry out attacks, nor even upon the vast marjority of the Islamic legal resident alien population. It has to get people in from the outside.

In "expected value" calculations, you measure potential success by multiplying the return associated with a particular outcome by the likelihood of that outcome. In determining return on investment, you measure the benefit obtained from a course of action against the investment in that action. Taken together, expected value analysis and return on investment analysis suggest that Al Qaeda will have extraordinary difficulty "pulling the trigger" on additional U.S. operations, and that it may be biding its time until the "perfect opportunity" again presents itself (two asides: (1) at some point, failure to strike will be perceived among their target audience as impotence. At this point, it may become necessary for them to strike regardless of the calculus; (2) Cowen's hypotheses probably operate on the margins to prevent or delay identification of the "perfect opportunity" as would-be terrorists continue to enjoy their lifestyle and rationalize against actions that would put it in jeopardy).

Unlike in the Middle East, an additional strike on the U.S. (other than a "nuke in New York Harbor" scenario) likely would require Al Qaeda to "burn" local infrastructure and resources -- whatever they have in place here is probably of the "one-time use" variety. In addition, the quality of the human resources expended in a U.S. attack would necessarily be higher than that of Middle East "martyrs," because they would have to be sufficiently intelligent to infiltrate the country and avoid detection in a far less homogenous population. 9/11 showed that it can be done, but I suspect the 9/11 participants were the exception rather than the rule in terms of the typical suicide volunteer. In light of the lower chances of success occasioned by increased U.S. security, and the anticipated U.S. response to additional acts of terrorism, it seems unlikely to me that Al Qaeda would be willing to engage in sporadic "pinprick" attacks within the U.S. Too much chance that the organization will be compromised, too little return on investment in terms of impact on the U.S. populace or U.S. foreign policy, and too many resources expended in executing the operation. Instead, it seems to be Al Qaeda's utility-maximizing play to bide its time, looking for something spectacular. Pinpricks won't have the desired effect in a country as large and as populous as the U.S. unless they can be repeated broadly and quickly, and unlike Hamas in the West Bank, Al Qaeda does not have unlimited resources to throw into the breach. I think Al Qaeda has not given up on attacking the U.S. directly, and I think that its utility calculus still favors such attacks. But the expected value of any attack must be sufficiently high that it makes sense for them to invest increasingly scarce resources in the attempt. This suggests that low-level harassing attacks simply are not utility-maximizing for our enemy.

The Rumsfeld Handshake

Okay, okay. I know I'm a little late to the party. After all, it's been well over a year since the antiwar Left began sounding the Hypocrisy Alarm, claiming that the United States Government's dealings with Iraq during the 1980s somehow rob the Bush Administration's more recent condemnations of Iraq's "weapons of mass destruction" programs of moral authority. It's hardly a new topic, and yet the dust kicked up by Saddam's impending trial has set off the conspiracy theorists' allergies again. Never mind that these same foks said we'd never let Saddam be taken alive -- now their convulsive rants imply that his "trial" (and that word is always in quotation marks) will be a farce because the U.S. Government can't risk the revelations Saddam might make about the U.S.'s cozy relationship with Saddam, way back when. For shorthand purposes, I'll call this line of argument The Rumsfeld Handshake, after the argument's most famous visual . . .

I want to spend some time discussing this issue, but I want to leave aside two very important threshhold arguments for the time being (maybe another post at another time). First, let's ignore the quality and the character of the relationship between the U.S. and Iraq in the 1980s, and the quantity of the assistance the U.S. provided to Hussein's regime. Although all of the evidence accumulated to date suggests that U.S. cooperation with Iraq was extremely limited, and that actual U.S. aid was de minimis, let's assume that the U.S. and Hussein were closer than kissing cousins back then. Second, let's forget about the logical relevance of the Rumsfeld Handshake to 2002/2003. I think I can make a persuasive philosophical argument that the U.S.'s prior course of conduct should matter very little in our consideration of more recent events, but let's assume instead that the argument is relevant, and that anyone who would defend the Bush Administration's run-up to war must address 1980s Iraq-U.S. interaction.

And now for the main event. From where I sit, I see at least five things we must consider in order to understand and place in context U.S. overtures to Iraq from 1980 to 1988. I'll address them in this order: The Cold War, Iran, the distinction between states and terrorist organizations, the implications of the 1990 invasion of Kuwait, and the reality of chemical weapons.

The Cold War

Anyone who analyzes U.S. foreign policy from 1945 to 1990 without considering the Cold War is either ignorant, stupid, intentionally disingenuous, or some combination of the three. Although it is tempting to downplay the threats of the Cold War in light of the relatively bloodless and largely internal collapse of the Soviet empire, it would be a colossal mistake. First, the reality is simple -- in terms both ideology and conventional and "strategic" (read: nuclear) forces, the Soviet Union and its client states posed an enormous threat to the United States, Western Europe, democracy and global stability throughout the Cold War. Even as the Soviet Union entered its death throes in the late 1980s, the sheer size of its conventional and strategic arsenal kept NATO soldiers up nights worrying about Soviet divisions rolling through the Fulda Gap.

And even if the Soviet bloc was a paper tiger for some period of time before its collapse, it would be revisionist and counterfactual to suggest that American leaders were aware of this in any programmatic sense. In other words, the Cold War was real, the Soviet Union posed a real threat throughout its existence, and American leaders believed that the threat was real.

Viewed against this backdrop, much of American foreign policy begins to look a bit better in the otherwise harsh light of hindsight. I'm not going to offer wholesale apologies for America's actions during the Cold War -- we did some dumb things, some morally questionable things, and probably even some unambiguously evil things. Some of these were done in the good-faith belief that they were necessary to fight communism. Others may have been motivated by greed or other base emotions. But even though there are chapters in American history of which we should not be unabashedly proud, we should always consider the context when we evaluate our actions.

So what exactly is that context? Well, throughout the 1980s, we lived in a largely bipolar world, with minor nation-states engaged in a largely transparent but deadly serious game of playing the U.S. off the U.S.S.R. and vice-versa. The stakes of this game were particularly high in the Middle East, because of its oil reserves. The Soviet Union was Iraq's primary quartermaster, and the U.S.S.R. had begun making inroads into Iran after the Islamic Revolution (and Iran's subsequent inability to get additional military hardware or even spare parts from its prior patron, the U.S.). The Soviets invaded oil-poor Afghanistan in late 1979, and throughout the 1980s were regarded as a threat to Iran from both the north and the east. In other words, Iraq was an extremely important piece on the Cold War game board, especially in the 1980s.

It's really pretty simple -- for the U.S., the Cold War was often just repeated iterations of "ends/means" analysis writ large. (For the ideologically pure among the Soviets, the Cold War had the same character, but it is unclear to me that any of the high-level Soviet leadership were ever particularly concerned with their socialist ideology. Most charitably, they seemed to be concerned with protecting Mother Russia (the smaller Soviet "republics" and the entirety of the Warsaw Pact are perhaps best thought of as nothing more than a "buffer zone" between Russia and her natural enemies). Less charitably, they were concerned primarily with power.) This meant that the U.S. did a number of deals with the devil. Although it sounds a bit too pat, it's generally true that the nations of petty dictators and tyrants formed the primary ideological battleground of the Cold War. (Western Europe was fortified against a war, but was far less important ideologically). So we held our noses and made nice with unsavory characters all over the world. Saddam was one of those characters. Given Iran's Islamic Revolution, Syria's continued Soviet patronage, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, it was strategically important to cultivate Iraq as a counterweight to Soviet influence in the region -- and as an additional buffer between the Soviets and Saudi oil. The Cold War does not make the U.S.'s overtures to Hussein any more palatable in an absolute sense, but weighed against the possibly catastrophic consequences of a Soviet-dominated Middle East, the U.S.'s limited involvement with Saddam is considerably more defensible.

Iran

In 1979, the Islamic Revolution in Iran deposed the Shah and returned the Ayatollah Khomeini to Iran. Although Khomeini was never the titular head of state, he dominated Iranian politics until his death, and under his watch, Iran became a self-described "Islamic Republic" in late 1979. This understandably coincided with an elimination of American influence in the country. The United States had armed Iran under the Shah, but by late 1979, relations had deteriorated to the point that the U.S. embassy in Tehran was overrun by radical Islamic students, who took numerous hostages and held them for over a year.

Again, viewed in context, it is somewhat understandable that the United States made overtures to Iraq, the primary counterweight to Iranian power in the region. It is undisputed that Iran and Iraq possessed the best militaries in the region, and that each nation's oil reserves made them strategically important in their own right. Given rising American fears of Islamic fundamentalism (well-founded, as it turns out) and Saddam's reputation as a secular pragmatist, it made sense for the U.S. to reach out to him, especially when you consider the cold fact that there was no country or leadership structure in the Middle East with clean hands (the fact that Saddam's hands were possibly dirtier than others is regrettable, but you play the hand you're dealt). Again, viewed through the deceptively clear lens of hindsight, it might seem ridiculous for American officials to have been worried about Iranian hegemony in the Middle East, but it was a very real possibility (leaving aside Persian/Arab and Shia/Sunni enmity for another time).

States vs. Terrorist Organizations

Although this is a somewhat minor point, the U.S.'s dealings with Iraq during the 1980s were predicated on the belief that Iraq was not a particularly big threat to sponsor anti-U.S. terrorism on a massive scale. While it is true that Iraq had previously been included on the list of state sponsors of terrorism, this was primarily because of its support for various Palestinian organizations. Although there's little question that some of these organizations were virulently anti-American, there was little or no evidence at the time that Saddam would be interested in or willing to share chemical weapons with those organizations. Instead, the U.S. regarded Saddam's chemical arsenal as reserved for Iraq's own internal use -- a horrible thing, to be sure, but one that posed limited risks to the U.S.'s national interests at the time. By 2003, the Bush Administration believed that Saddam's WMD or the future fruits of his WMD programs were likely to be shared, perhaps clandestinely and untraceably, with terrorist organizations for use against U.S. targets. It is a mistake to assume that the same conditions obtained in 1982, and that there is therefore an inconsistency of approach demonstrated by the U.S.'s relative lack of concern during the 1980s.

The Invasion of Kuwait

Although Saddam was certainly the aggressor in the Iran/Iraq war, that war was seen contemporaneously as nothing more than a continuation of the eternal Persian/Arab and Sunni/Shia conflicts that had dominated that region for eons. Saddam earned no brownie points for being the aggressor in that conflict, but it seemed to be as much a manifestation of an ancient enmity as an ambitious land-grab attempt. Evaluations of Hussein's territorial ambitions changed substantially with his invasion of Kuwait in 1990 and his feints toward Saudi Arabia. At that time, it became clear that Saddam had his heart set on realizing the Ba'athist dream of a pan-Arab state enjoying hegemony if not outright rule over the entire Middle East. Although the subject of whether the U.S. did enough to discourage Saddam from invading is another post for another time, there can be little doubt that the U.S. evaluation of Saddam's ambitions and scruples changed in August of 1990.

The Reality of Chemical Weapons

The U.S. was aware that Iraq was using chemical weapons by no later than 1984, and probably as early as 1981. There is little question that the U.S. failed to expend extensive capital to condemn or curtail this action. But viewed in the context set forth above, it makes a little more sense, especially when you consider the limitations upon chemical weapons. First, chemical weapons are not biological or nuclear weapons. They are orders of magnitude less scary than either -- they disperse quickly, are not communicable, and are generally effective only over a small area. Compared with biological and nuclear weapons, chemical weapons are more along the lines of a particularly nasty conventional weapon -- capable of causing mass casualties and indescribable suffering, to be sure, but nothing like a smallpox release or 1-megaton nuclear explosion. They're also extremely easy to make. Accordingly, I am less concerned that the U.S. more or less turned a blind eye to their use, because I believe the other factors discussed above mandated rapprochement with Iraq at the time.

Conclusion

We should continue to investigate the U.S.'s prior dealings with Iraq -- I am not suggesting otherwise by offering context as a defense. But in light of the factors discussed above, and in light of the post-Cold War realignment in which the United States became the world's only hyperpuissance, it seems to me that there is little hypocrisy in the U.S.'s current approach. It has the ability now to pursue its ideals and its natural interest in a largely unipolar world, and that frees it considerably.

Update:

I had the following email from a reader:

I honestly don't know how to conclude that after two wars and many American deaths that our policies weren't seriously flawed. I've even read a quote recently from Armitage who reportedly said in 1990 (LA Times, I believe.) that it would have been better had the United States protested more vigorously the use of CW's in Iraq. Some day the hubris of the Bush's with their never ever being able to admit to their mistakes will bring them down like a Greek tragedy.

Have you ever looked seriously into US-Iraqi policy in the period of
1988-89 right up to the invasion of Iraq AFTER the Cold War and after
the Iraq-Iran War? There is still plenty of dirt (IMO) there without
most of the justifications which you cite. The US, for God's sake,
wouldn't even support a UN condemnation of CW's.

Do a little research on this period and see if you still think our
policy hands are as clean as your blog would seem to indicate.

Here's my response (pleasantries omitted):

As for your points, I'll try to address them, albeit in my own
order. On the "two wars" point, you and I disagree, and likely will
continue to disagree. I don't think policy was flawed with respect
to either war (planning and execution are a different matter), and I
refuse to adopt an ideology that uses the numbers of American deaths
as the sole or even primary metric for the intelligence or wisdom of
the policy resulting in those deaths. I'm not being callous -- it's
hard (but not impossible, which is where you and I seem to part
ways) to counterbalance deaths of American soldiers with anything in
the "benefits" column of a war's cost/benefit analysis. It's just
that I continue to believe that the deaths of every American soldier
to date in both GW I and GW II have not been in vain, and are not
indicative of a failed or flawed policy.

As for the cleanliness of the United States' hands in general, I am
under no illusions, and I did not mean to suggest that things were
ever squeaky clean. It was beyond the scope of my blog post, but I
am certainly aware of the "yellow light" issue with respect to Iraq
and Kuwait, and I happen to think that particular issue is worthy of
further investigation. But even if the U.S. had given Iraq an
unqualified "green light" to invade, I believe that the
U.S./Coalition response to the invasion was appropriate. It
certainly would have given the Iraqis a "but you said we could"
talking point, it would have been horribly inconsistent, and to the
extent a "red light" from the U.S. would have prevented the
invasion, it could even have put some Kuwaiti and Iraqi blood on the
U.S.'s hands, but even that wouldn't have changed the fact that the
invasion should have been repelled. (Note: I do not believe, based
on what I've read of Glaspie's statements, that the U.S. gave Saddam
a "green light." Rather, I think we were perhaps a bit too vague (a
major but probably inevitable failing of our republican form of
government, because a President can rarely guarantee the full U.S.
response), a bit too noncommittal (big mistake), and then Saddam
heard what he wanted to hear. There also were probably
miscommunications attributable to the differences in American
diplomacy and the traditional Middle Eastern/European power "wink,
wink, nudge, nudge" interplay, but that's mostly speculation on my
part.

Unfortunately, I don't think that the removal of the Soviet Union
and the end of the Cold War altered the balance of considerations in
the Middle East all that quickly after 1989. First, with respect to
the power vaccuum created by the Soviet collapse, I think things
didn't really settle out until the late 90s, to be perfectly
honest. I think it's a mistake to rely overmuch on hindsight in
analyzing the immediate post-Cold War period in particular (and by
this, I also mean the first couple of years of Clinton's
Administration, to which I accord substantial deference as well).
It was a time of quite extraordinary flux.

As for Armitage's comments, that sort of thing has always smacked of
self-congratulatory revisionism to me. I haven't seen the comments
you mention, but it's not hard for me to imagine that Armitage took
the position in the early 80s that we should have been doing more to
protest Iraq's chemical program (a hard call, but certainly
reasonable and maybe even right), and that he subsequently concluded
that Saddam felt emboldened by our indifference. Okay, let's assume
that's right. My point is that the stakes of the overall game were
at the time (1981-84) higher than any threat an emoboldened dictator
from a third-rate oil power could present. That the world dynamic
changed so dramatically and so quickly a few years later was largely
unforeseeable, and I'm not going to blame Bush I for the
consequences of those changes vis-a-vis Iraq.

Finally, on hubris: I agree that there is a lot of hubris
going 'round, although I tend to think it's pretty evenly spread
among both Democrats and the current administration. In fact, I
think it's a central and perhaps inevitable feature of our electoral
system. For my money, the single biggest foreign policy failure of
the Clinton Administration (no, not the whole Al Qaeda thing -- I
don't have a lot of patience for Republicans' 20/20 hindsight
either) was the failure to act decisively in Rwanda. Despite the
fact that he was hampered by a reluctant Congress, he should have
and could have done something there. Know what? I haven't heard
him apologize yet, and certainly did not while in office. I know
that it's popular among the Left to cite Bush's hubris as one of the
three alternating primary criticisms of his Presidency (along with
stupidity and evil), but to me it's a characteristic of ALL
administrations, and will be as long as we have the current
electoral system (which I otherwise like). It simply makes no
political sense for any President to admit failure or mistake in any
situation right now, and as far as I can remember, it hasn't
happened once with any President since I came to political
consciousness (Carter through GWB). Carter, for example, continues
to defend his record as President, which even some of the more
rational liberals regard as an abject failure. I would actually
LIKE to be proved wrong on this, so if you have counterexamples
other than Clinton's half-assed apologies for his easy-access
zipper, let me know. It'd make me a more hopeful person.

But I do agree with your characterization -- there is definitely
straight-out-of-Aristophanes hubris in this and every
administration, and I am worried that excessive pride will have
catastrophic effects. But I just don't think the Bush
Administration is wrong this time, on this issue.

Much bloggy goodness forthcoming

I've been out of town, and have actually had some billable work to do recently, but the wife's headed to Atlanta for a conference this weekend, the kids go to bed at 8:00, and I've got blogging on my mind! Peace and Happy New Year to everyone!

Upcoming Posts

Busy at work and home right now, but I plan to post a couple of biggies over the weekend. Post 1: Some analysis of the Protestant concept of the "moral equivalence" of sin and the question of greater and lesser evil. Post 2: An attempt to formulate a Christian framework for the use of torture. Big topics with interesting analytical challenges.

Easterblogg and Saddam's Teeth

This morning, Gregg Easterbrook of Tuesday Morning Quarterback fame joins the chorus of Middle Eastern journalists and Arab culture "experts" condemning the United States government for displaying video of Saddam Hussein's post-capture dental exam. While I strongly suggest you read TMQ every Tuesday (even if Easterbrook's "stop me before I blitz again" argument is utterly illogical), I can't say the same about this particular Easterblogg post:

SADDAM'S TEETH: Yours truly joins those Arab-world commentators who think it was a mistake for the United States to release film of Saddam having his teeth and hair checked. Maybe the intent was to show the former despot as passive and helpless but, in the tape, it's almost as if a veterinarian is examining an animal at the zoo. This is bound to make many Arabs or Muslims think America enjoys humiliating Arabs or Muslims, and, as it is, half of the distrust between Western modernity and Arabian traditionalism is based on Arab feelings of inferiority. Saddam is a horrible guy, but the United States should be treating him with the respect due the captured leader of an enemy power. In all dealings with the Arab or Muslim world, it is essential that the West show respect.

But Easterbrook's post suffers from what must either be a flaw in his reasoning or an implicit assumption that should have been made explicit. Easterbrook either forgot to weigh the "benefits" portion of the cost/benefit analysis associated with airing the tape, or he weighed them and neglected to state his implicit conclusion that the costs were higher than those benefits. Regardless of the reason, Easterbrook is half-right, and "half-right" in this context is dangerous.

Some Arabs might find the dental exam video humiliating. Some might even extrapolate that humiliation into a general belief that "America enjoys humiliating Arabs or Muslims." But as an initial matter, it seems to me that the folks who might draw this conclusion have actually drawn that particular conclusion long ago, and that no quantity of counterexamples of American compassion and decency will change their minds (over the past decade or so, American troops have been called upon to fight and die to protect Muslim minorities in a variety of places. Our GIs don't get much good press for these activities in Damascus, Cairo or Riyadh.) In other words, I suspect the additional cumulative effect of this particular video will be minimal among the audience Easterbrook is worried about (How many folks in, say, Syria, said to themselves on Sunday, "Gosh, I was beginning to think those Americans were pretty good guys for a bunch of foreign infidels, but checking Saddam's bicuspids on international television is just beyond the pale. Guess I'll go clean my Kalashnikov and head for the Iraqi border?"). The real cost of showing the video: it's a fresh "proof" of the enmity the U.S. obviously bears toward Arabs. But it's not going to change any minds by itself, and I suspect there are damnably few folks "on the fence" for whom this video was a tipping point.

By contrast, the potential benefits of airing this video were substantial, and airing the dental exam portion might well have been both tactically intelligent and logistically necessary. As a matter of strategy/tactics, showing the dental exam may have had two separate sets of effects. I'll call these "desirable effects of humiliation" and "proof effects," respectively. As for the desirable effects of humiliation, there clearly exists in Iraqi society (and likely exists in "Arab society" as a whole, to the extent that's even a valid categorization) a subset of people whose seeing Saddam humiliated would redound to U.S. benefit. Loosely speaking, I'm thinking about the victims of Saddam's oppression and those whose stereotypical Arab mindset loathes weakness. (Easterbrook is himself guilty of stereotyping "Arab" sensibilities by elevating the concept of "respect" as a necessary precondition to any interaction with Arab society, so I think it justified to trot out another Arab stereotype in response). With respect to the victims of Saddam's oppression, seeing him humiliated was and will continue to be cathartic on a grand scale. As I posted yesterday, it is extremely hard for us to understand the scope and depth of Saddam's oppression and tyranny, and it is dangerous to expect or demand Western magnanimity when the abuses Iraqis suffered were well outside the collective Western experience.

It also pays to remember that the "Arabs abhor weakness" stereotype probably has more than a grain of truth to it. Seeing Saddam laid low is as likely to inspire revulsion at his weakness as it is anger at his "disrespectful" treatment by American forces. It makes clear in ways that other images could not that Saddam is utterly finished as a political leader, and even as a symbol. If it engenders anger, it will also engender respect.

Moreover, publicly humiliating Saddam is likely to have a sobering effect on the ideological and operational puppetmasters behind Islamofascist terrorism. Despite its ideological and religious components, islamofascism is decidedly political in its goals. Even among factions and movements espousing suicide operations, it's telling that the high-level folks never seem to be "called" to "martyrdom operations" -- that's reserved for foot soldiers whose ideological fervor and righteous anger overwhelm their intelligence. (As an aside, "spectacular" operations like 9/11 require a particularly rare breed of "martyr" -- their pent-up resentment must be enormous, because their operations require significant brainpower).

In any event, whoever is now running Al Qaeda, or Ansar Al Islam, or any of the other terrorist organizations we're worried about likely was dramatically affected by Saddam's public humiliation. Saddam laid low in this manner is utterly unromantic (a key component of cult leadership strategies), and utterly unmistakable (unlike Osama, who may or may not be dead, Saddamites cannot continue to issue statements in his name, or claim to have seen him alive and well in Tikrit just yesterday). Because those leaders would like to be around to accomplish their political goals, or at the very least see that their deaths advance the cause, a humiliation of this sort is enormously valuable to American security.

Although many would suggest that we are currently involved in a near-total war against terrorism (leaving aside the nuclear option), the reality is a little different. Instead, the relationship between terrorism and America's military and political response is a little like the uneasy relationship between American law enforcement and organized crime. In the organized crime context, law enforcers are generally doing their jobs, and criminals are generally doing theirs. Although this means that they are in constant conflict, there are unspoken rules for organized criminals -- for example, they tend to steer clear of killing law enforcement. Why? Because they know the gloves would come off, and that the Bill of Rights would be temporarily discarded in favor of an "accidental" shooting during a high-level arrest if they cross that line. They're willing to exchange slightly lower profits for a measure of security. [Note: I am not condoning law enforcement's willingness to discard Constitutional protections. But I think it's a fact that they will and do in certain circumstances].

So too with terrorists. Although it is certainl that terrorists right now are plotting another massive strike on American soil, their calculus changed significantly when we invaded Afghanistan, it changed again when we "went it alone" in Iraq, and it changed yet again when we captured Saddam. Ayman Al-Zawahiri has no desire to see himself captured, killed, or humiliated this way, so his operations over the past two years have been incremental rather than spectacular. All are broadly consistent with Al Qaeda's strategic goals (even if they are spectacularly stupid attempts to achieve their strategic aims), but none has significantly increased the pressure exerted by the U.S. in the way that, say, a nuclear strike in NYC would. Saddam was neutered by his capture, and this had to have an effect on the U.S.'s other enemies.

Now on to "proof effects." I would go somewhat farther, and would suggest that video was actually necessary, or at least infinitely preferable to still photos, in large part because the video they aired does something still photos simply could not — it somehow conveys beyond any reasonable doubt that the captured man is in fact Saddam Hussein. I'm not sure how it manages to convey this truth so clearly, but I find the relative absence of conspiracy theorist ranting that the captured man is a "double," etc. particularly telling.

As for the specific video they showed, it was probably on the "submissive humiliation" end of the spectrum of video they could have aired, but given their time constraints and the very real security and operational risks associated with other potential shots, I'm not sure they could have done much better. A few alternatives: Show him being ushered away from his spider hole? Puts operational security at risk, also potentially identifies members of the task force that helped capture him. What about filming him against a plain background? No guarantee of cooperation, and the very real possibility that he starts spewing anti-American rhetoric or otherwise grandstanding during the shot. Even without sound, this is not the impression we want to create, and we're under no obligation to prop up Saddam's image. What about an interrogation shot? Given the rhetoric Saddam is supposedly spewing in response to interrogators' questions, I don't think it advisable to put him on camera looking defiant or unbowed. I suppose they could have drugged him and then filmed him, but that's also a dicey proposition with its own physical and perception risks. But showing a dentist or corpsman (who is unliklely to be in harm's way as frequently as, say, a special operations soldier) performing a dental exam may be the best possible shot they had during the short time between capture and announcement. Although humiliating, it also demonstrates American compassion (for every Arab that felt some sort of illlogical collective humiliation at seeing Hussein thus "degraded," how many thought to themselves that their governments would have wasted no similar mercy on an enemy?), it allowed a relatively lengthy shot of Hussein without significant risk of a diatribe or other antics, and it did not put soldiers at undue risk.

It is certainly possible that the "dental exam" video would upset the oft-cited "Arab street," and it is a certainty that the international media will be able to dredge up members of that fictional monolith and various and sundry academics to make that case. But in the final analysis, the benefits of showing Saddam humbled may well exceed the costs. In any event, Easterbrook should have offered both sides of the analysis instead of a glib, knee-jerk reaction.

Underestimating The Power of Oppression

Democratic uberblogger Josh Marshall, one of the few among the partisan left I read regularly and respect, today plays a cautionary tune regarding the capture of Saddam Hussein and its impact on the guerilla war ongoing in Iraq. Like most of the more rational Democratic pundits, Marshall begins with the obligatory statements of relief -- Saddam was a Bad Guy, and capturing him was a Good Thing. But Marshall quickly moves on to what he calls the "fundamental question," namely, "was Saddam Hussein central to the guerilla war or resistance fighting in Iraq?"

This is a fair (if not a "central") question, and it is one that we should be asking. It is likely, if not virtually certain, that Saddam Hussein lacked the mobility, ready access to communications, and other infrastructure necessary to serve in a significant operational role among the Baathist/Islamist guerillas involved in ongoing attacks against coalition troops and other targets. In fact, it is fairly obvious that the vast majority of Hussein's financial, familial, and political resources were dedicated to the decidedly unglamorous job of keeping him alive and "thriving" in the posh comfort of a comb- and razor-free world. Although we should not underestimate the uncaptured Hussein's symbolic value to some of his more deluded or dedicated adherents, he was hardly in a position to move about freely and almost certainly would have been peripheral at best to the nuts and bolts of guerilla operations. His charming "I am a bird's nest. Pay no attention to me" disguise afforded him little freedom of movement and association, even if it offered him new opportunities to commune with nature as an inviting habitat for woodland creatures.

But Marshall is really worried that Americans in general and our political and military leadership in particular have ascribed excessive value to Hussein's capture. Marshall states:

From the beginning, I think, we've explained to ourselves that the reason the occupation and reconstruction of Iraq hasn't gone according to plan is that the resistance is being run by Saddam or his people or that the Iraqis won't get down to work on rebuilding their country until they're sure Saddam isn't coming back, until the veil of fear is lifted, etc.

In other words, they're not acting like they're liberated because, in a sense, their liberation is not complete.

This after all was the reason for making such a show of the deaths of Saddam's sons -- as a symbol that any sort of dynastic hand-off would be impossible.

But Marshall quickly suggests that this may be nothing more than wishful thinking:

That, again, was the idea. But I don't think we've seen any real evidence that it's true.

There's no question most Iraqis hate Saddam. But since the invasion I think Saddam has been mainly a thing of the past. The problems we face on the ground in Iraq are ones of the present.

In fairness to Marshall, (1) he was under the weather when he typed this entry (get well soon!); and (2) he finishes the post well, quoting Fareed Zakaria's argument
in Newsweek that

Saddam's capture may be part of a more widespread cooperation on the part of Iraqis with US troops, which is garnering more and better intelligence for US forces. That seems plausible. And if better intelligence can be matched up with -- and this remains the heart of the matter -- a better political strategy on the ground in Iraq and internationally, then there may be hope of a good outcome.

Still, Marshall suggests that American conventional wisdom about why reconstruction hasn't gone "according to plan" (leaving aside for another time the whole "failed plan" construct) may be wrong, because there is no "real evidence" that it is true. Of course, Marshall apparently discounts near-daily statements from both civilian and military authorities in Iraq indicating that cooperation is increasing among the general population of Iraq as coalition personnel demonstrate their commitment to rebuilding the country. But that's not the biggest problem with his argument. Marshall may well be right -- It's hard to say exactly what will unfold as a result of Saddam's capture. But Marshall's pessimism is at least partially a function of a common Western affliction -- the utter inability to understand the power of oppression.

Just as the dedicated isolationists/pacifists among the American left are guilty of ascribing Western/American values to Islamofascist terrorists ("if we leave them alone, they'll leave us alone" ), the glib tone of Marshall's post downplays, even trivializes the cumulative effect of Saddam Hussein's thirty years in power ("until the veil of fear is lifted, etc."). Thankfully, most of us are simply incapable of even imagining the horrors of life in Hussein's Iraq. There simply aren't words to describe the power of Saddam's presence among his countrymen -- the sense of constant danger in a world where you could always be next, and where "being next" would make Orwell's truncheons and bullets trhough the brain look like mercy incarnate. The soul-numbing conformity imposed through years of forced worship and involuntary genuflection. Fear of your own thoughts, and relentless self-training not to think -- because undisciplined thoughts could be fatal. Saddam's near-superhuman ability to survive smart-bombs, assassination attempts, sanctions, and all manner of other threats, sheathing him in an aura of omnipotent inevitability -- He'll be back. He always comes back. You just can't get rid of that bastard. The hopelessness of his everlasting omnipresence.

As I look back at my last paragraph, I realize that I, too, have failed to capture the essence of this oppression. I struggle for words, and I marvel at the fact that any Iraqi has been bold enough to speak out, to be heard, to stand for freedom under only the imperfect protection of American troops. No matter what ultimately happens in Iraq, and no matter how, it is an extraordinary mistake to underestimate the power Saddam exerted even in exile, and the opportunity created by his capture and humiliation.

Victims of oppression live in the most cynical, hardened societies imaginable. Every word and every action is a hedge -- people play percentages, look for the angle, and give new meaning to the phrase "flying below the radar." Oppression engenders a society of informers, snitches, and nobodies. For every Iraqi who cooperated with American forces at substantial personal risk, there likely were ten more whose preternaturally evolved gambler's sense ("evolution" is the right concept-- Saddam had a knack for "naturally selecting" against those who didn't have it) told them, "Keep quiet. Play both sides. Wait until you know more about the winning horse. Check the prevailing winds. Be hard." The specter of Saddam returned fueled that skepticism, and that specter disappeared only 36 hours ago.

Who among us has ever experienced that sort of existence? There are some -- the world has more than its fair share of repressive regimes -- but the rank and file of American society has come nowhere close. This should at the very least give us pause before we allow the subtle whisperings of our society, our ideals, and our experience to influence our evaluation of the collective psychology of the Iraqi people. It is tempting to ascribe their reticence to date to hostility. But even the most strident critics of the Patriot Act know in the depths of their souls that the United States is nowhere close to a police state, so we have trouble understanding the survival strategies of a people for whom the word "government" is synonymous with a lifetime of empty rhetoric, broken promises, and unspeakable tyranny.

If Marshall is correct that there is no "real evidence" that American conventional wisdom is correct, then neither is there any "real evidence" that the more cynical view is correct -- that Saddam's capture is of marginal value to American efforts in Iraq because he was likely connected only loosely to the guerilla opposition. To date, the evidence suggests that Baathist thugs and Islamist jihadis are primarily to blame for the attacks on American soldiers. Left-leaning (or in some cases, left-lurching) pundits have suggested that these Baathists and jihadists mirror "real" Iraqi sentiment, but any echoes of support among the general population to date are as easily explained by the inbred pathological caution required to survive in a true police state as by any seething hatred of Americans. Time will tell.

Ordinary Iraqis know who these guerillas are and where they're living (especially in a society shaped so dramatically by tribal associations). Without the ultimate fear that these thugs will be restored to positions of power over life and gruesome death under a triumphantly returned Saddam Hussein, there exist incentives now to cooperate with Americans that weren't part of the cost-benefit analysis last Friday. And as a counterpoint to those who have cynically suggested that Saddam's capture may actually embolden opposition by removing the Saddam-stigma associated with guerilla activity, here's a cynical response: Those Iraqis who retain their dictatorship-honed card-sharp mentality just lost a big reason to hedge on the return of the Baathists -- time to start sucking up to the CPA!

To the extent Marshall is suggesting simply that Saddam's capture is unlikely to lead to the immediate termination of hostilities against reform efforts in Iraq, fair enough. But it will have enormous consequences down the road as a tipping point allowing U.S. forces to get inside the guerillas' decision cycles through deeper and broader cooperation and better information.

Getting Started

Welcome to The Chinaberry Tree, official slogan: "Because there aren't enought blogs about law, politics, or religion out there already." Now that I have my own blog, thousands of other bloggers will be thanking God that I'm no longer filling up their bandwidth with 4000-word comments.

We're going to try to stay on topic here, with posts focusing primarily upon law, religion, politics and society. But I reserve the right to mention Britney Spears, quote "Fletch," or pay homage to "This is Spinal Tap" if I feel like it. This blog doesn't go to eleven yet, but good Lord willin' and the creek don't rise, it will someday! Thanks for stopping by.