Global Policy Forum

By Benjamin I. Page

The Turkish Delight, sweet as it is, should not be over-interpreted. It seems quite possible that the Turks will fold next week, under a fierce onslaught of U.S. bribes and coercion. And Plan B, using the 101st Airborne for a curtailed northern front, might be feasible. Still, the delay of three or four weeks has made war before the April 1 new moon darkness improbable and has given antiwar forces additional time to work. Plus, it has highlighted the hypocrisy and ugliness of the US effort, probably encouraging doubters elsewhere. (EG:, my guess is that Pakistan might now abstain rather than vote pro the US resolution in the Security Council.)

My basic calculations, first made several months ago, remain pretty much intact. I see war (by the end of April, say) as a bit less likely than not. Call it p = .45, a bit less than 50-50.

The reasoning remains the same:

1) It would be extremely costly for Bush to abandon the UN route prematurely. Rove is undoubtedly telling him that with respect to the U.S. public. Blair/ Aznar/ Berlusconi and indeed the world are telling him the same thing about the UN being necessary for assembling a coalition. Blair especially, hanging on by a thread. Without an international coalition figleaf that includes at least Blair, even the obtuse in the White House can see big trouble ahead. Unilateral war means unilateral cost bearing, including for the grim, long cleanup. As they say in china shops, you broke it, you bought it. And it probably means no 2004 reelection.

2) Within a continued UN strategy, the US/ GB resolution is nearly dead. A total of nine votes among the coerced, the bought, the sullenly acquiescent, and the inscrutable might possibly be assembled. (As to the latter, the Chinese may be the only people on earth truly enjoying this spectacle. They probably don t much care how it comes out, so long as they get some oil, and they can probably guarantee that with a last minute conversion if necessary.) But maybe such a vote cannot be obtained, even with the desperate pressures now being applied. If the vote is squeezed together, the legitimacy it carries will be severely tarnished by its narrow margin and by the way it was coerced.

3) Once it is clear to everyone in the administration that the US/GB resolution is dead or useless, we will face a point of considerable danger. This seems to be occurring right now (3/4). Bush may just decide to go it alone, possibly even without Britain. My bet is that instead, Blair and Rove and company will again push for staying with the UN and accepting the obvious compromise: a serious ultimatum with clearly specified steps Iraq must take, or else force is authorized by a date certain. Probably by the middle or end of April, so that the US can preserve the possibility of actually doing the longed for invasion. Carefully watch Canada and Mexico as possible brokers, along with Russia. The key will be getting the Brits and the French together and then jointly pressuring the U.S. Getting the Brits and French to talk seriously to each other may take a little time and may not work at all.

4) IF such an ultimatum occurs, I expect the Iraqis to capitulate to it with some speed, even if it includes unreasonable elements. Like the destroying the 20-mile-too-far missiles, a devilishly clever US demand basically unrelated to WMDs and very hard for Iraqis to swallow right before a possible invasion. But they have apparently swallowed it (at least the first spoons full), presumably as a result of rational calculations aided by friend Primakov.

5) IF Iraq capitulates, I believe that Bush will simply have to declare a victory and gradually withdraw. Our pressure accomplished its purpose, Iraqi disarmament. True, that will be very painful for W, especially after going public with some of his true objectives: not only regime change in Iraq but reshaping the whole Middle East. Very painful. But I think the odds are, by a slight margin, that he will have to swallow it. The withdrawal can be slow, accompanied by threats and bullying in Iraq and elsewhere. And some military genius may find a new target in the region so the forces can be used anyhow.

QED: probability of war is a bit below .5. This is not exactly reassuring, but it offers at least some grounds for hope that we will be spared what could turn out to be the mother of all foreign policy disasters, dwarfing in its scope and duration (I refer not to the initial fighting but to the occupation, the fall of governments from Jordan to Pakistan, terrorist retaliation etc) even the Vietnam war.

THE US BACKERS OF WAR

I see the pro war coalition within the US as consisting of three main groups: * the Blunt Imperialists (e.g. Cheney, Rumsfeld). They want to control Iraqi oil in order to break OPEC (including warding off the danger of the Euro becoming the oil currency) and to ensure a cheap oil supply, independent of the Saudis. They also like the idea of a big military encampment in Iraq and striking terror into the heart of possible new targets like Iran and Syria. They presumably don t mind the specter of extensive instability and government change in the Middle East.

* the Neoconservatives (Wolfowitz, Perle, Feith, Libby, and commentariate members like Krauthammer.) These are the Big Think people who, at least since their seminal 1992 and 1996 papers, have pushed the vision of a modernizing wave of Liberalization (ie capitalism and open arkets) and, among the less cautious, Democracy, in the Middle East. The core Neocons are strong Zionists who may ultimately care more about Israel than about the US. To some degree their appealing rhetoric is probably cover for simply wanting to smash all enemies of Israel, not caring too much what replaces them. (Even a democratic Palestinian government in Jordan, long seen by the Likkud as the Palestinian state, and the main target of what I suspect will be Sharon s push them East strategy if war comes.) Needless to say, I think these people are wrong about what would benefit Israel as well as what would benefit the U.S. Other Neocons are probably sincere about the liberalism & democracy vision, which is indeed appealing, given the backwardness of many Arab regimes. Some relatively liberal Zionists like Tom Friedman have been carried along by the vision, and so have even a few just plain liberals who want to make the world a better place and are impatient with the slow reforms occurring in places like Qatar and Bahrain, let alone the reformist and pro-Western tides in Iran. It is interesting to see the more idealistic members of this faction, like Friedman, begin to have intimations of the horrors that Bush s implementation could bring.

* The third group in the pro-war coalition, little heard of in our Yankee and Eastern bastions but quite important, is the Christian Crusaders, the Christian radical right. The hard core of this faction, which I have observed in Rocky Mountain states (eg Idaho) and who inhabit some of the South as well, believe in the Rapture. They are eager to see chaos in the Middle East that will herald the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. I find that few of my Chicago-area students or colleagues believe in the existence of these people, but they definitely exist, and they are serious. I am afraid that our President shares more than a bit of their world view. Note how the Rapture enthusiasts dovetail nicely with the hard core Neocons, who also would (in many cases) welcome chaos in the Middle East. The less extreme Crusaders include Pat Robertson followers etc who simply want to overcome the forces of that devil religion, Islam.

Two things about this war coalition are especially troubling. First, that groups 2) and 3) are only marginally open to reasoning and factual discussion. If what you want is Armageddon, no discussion of costs and benefits is likely to have much sway. Only on the edges of these groups can persuasive efforts be fruitful. Second, our esteemed President apparently has strong personal beliefs and instincts that link him with all three groups. I doubt he actually cares much about Israel (I suspect he will betray the Israelis any time he finds it handy to do so), but Israel does stand as an outpost of the Holy Bible among the infidels, as well as an outpost of liberalism and (partial) democracy. And Sharon is just Bush s kind of guy: tough, uncompromising, brutal. Bush may believe the Neocon liberalism and democracy talk. Clearly he likes force and seeks empire a la Cheney & Rumsfeld. And he resonates with the Christian Crusaders. A CRACK IN THE COALITION? Oddly enough, and counter to what we often read in the media, the most flexible part of the US pro-war coalition is probably the Blunt Imperialists, to whom this is a power move rather than an ideological crusade. As the temperature rises but only a few Neocons and Crusaders peel off around the edges, I won t be surprised if some key, supposed war crazies in the Blunt Imperialist faction, like Cheney and Rumsfeld, actually have second thoughts. Rumsfeld, for all his bluster, is probably already tired of hearing his Army (as vs Air Force) generals telling him that this could be an extremely expensive disaster. (My admittedly limited military contacts still speak of nearly universal high-level Army aversion to the Iraq operation.) Here too the Turks help. If they actually persevere in saying no to being the invasion beachhead, the war becomes far more problematic. Even if they fold, the costs are rising sharply and the date of D-Day is moving toward warm weather. As Rumsfeld and Cheney contemplate the costs of unilateral action, of countless bribes, of expensive and time consuming occupation of Iraq, etc, their enthusiasm may begin to dim. Expect Condi Rice, though inhibited by certain odd Neocon impulses, to quietly make some of the first doubting murmurs. Bush I and his entourage (James Baker, Scowcroft) are also worth watching. George H.W. s Tuft s speech was remarkably anti-W in its logic.

In the end, I expect to see these semi-realist Imperialists (true, they spurn true realists like Mearsheimer and Walt) begin to wonder whether the initially beguiling idea of a cheap gas station in the Middle East, busting OPEC, getting a big base in the Arab heartland, etc, may not turn out to be just too expensive to justify the cost. If so, they may well begin to be a moderating influence on Bush, who himself is bound to be nervous now about reelection. Even fanatics who slip into elected office tend to want to keep office. So the administration may back off and march on to easier conquests elsewhere. (Small Islamic nations beware.)

Meanwhile, watch Tony Blair and Karl Rove, the point men, the two most crucial links between Bush and reality. And watch whether #3 link Powell s obedient general posture gives way to one last push to stick with the UN.

None of this implies certainty of no war. In fact it leads to a war probability not far from .5. But this is much lower than what is implied by the war is inevitable language that pervades herd-mentality Washington.

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