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October 6, 2006
cause célèbre
(En route to Chicago for an American Bar Association meeting.) Last week, a leaked National Intelligence Estimate made headlines by asserting that the Iraq war was a “cause célèbre” for jihadists. That topic has since been knocked out of the newspapers by a congressional sex scandal, tragedy in Amish country, and other riveting stories. However, I’ll weigh in belatedly and say that I don’t believe the “cause célèbre” argument was ever a good one to make against the war. First of all, it’s a fancy French phrase. Besides, we sometimes should and must do things that rile up the other side. If (contrary to fact), the invasion of Iraq had been wise, legal, and in the best interests of that nation, it would still have given terrorists a “cause célèbre.”
For me, a sufficient argument against the war is that it violates one of the few substantial elements of international law. Members of the United Nations simply may not invade one another without the explicit authorization of the Security Council. However, this argument is not politically very potent, because it seems legalistic and likely to uphold UN interests against those of the US.
Thus I would emphasize a different argument, which (as Henry Kissinger once said on another topic) has the “additional merit of being true.” The invasion of Iraq was part of the war on terror, but it was a colossal strategic error in that war. It helped the jihadists by knocking off a hated secular dictatorship, under such conditions that fundamentalist movements would likely replace it. It put hundreds of thousands of mostly young Americans right into the Middle East where they were vulnerable to being attacked; more have died there than on 9/11. It created a profound dilemma: Winning the counter-insurgency would require deep and daily engagement with Iraqis, which would be extremely dangerous; whereas protecting US troops in Iraq would require separating them from the population, which would make it impossible for them to succeed. Above all, the invasion made the United State responsible for handling a violent struggle among Sunnis and Shiites, Arabs and Kurds, Arabs and Persians that we are poorly equipped to understand, let alone resolve. And if we fail, the consequences range from a massive loss of credibility, to terrible suffering, to the creation of a jihadist state at the head of the Persian Gulf.
In fact, one could say that there were only two ways for jihadists to achieve a strategic victory against the United States after 9/11: by obtaining and using weapons of mass destruction on US soil, or by luring us into the middle of a civil war in the Mideast. We gave them the latter victory and must devoutly hope to avoid the former. That we also gave terrorist recruiters a “cause célèbre” is almost beside the point.
Posted by peterlevine at 10:49 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack