Let me explain my position to you. Like all choices about wars, it was between evils:
1. The evil of war itself, and the slaughter to which it led.
2. The evil, for the people of Irag and for the populations surrounding Iraq - including the Iranians, the Palestinians and the Israelis, among others - of leaving the Saddam Hussein regime triumphant and with its aggressive power intact after the occupation of Kuwait.
I thought the second evil was the greater one. The argument against using force against the Iragi occupation could rest on one or all of several points:
1. That no great harm to the region or the world would have resulted from leaving Saddam in possession. Objection: the regional balance would have been upset so violently that further war would have been inevitable sooner rather than later. Such further war would probably have extended to other Arab countries the treatment Saddam awarded to the Kuwaitis and his own people. It would have ended in another conflict with Iran or Israel (a nuclear power devoid of scruples about using such weapons).
2. That war is always and absolutely wrong. I respect this view but would make exceptions to it. The Cubans, for example, did a necessary job for Angola.
3. That sanctions would have worked, given time. It would be comforting to believe that. However, Iraq has been under an arms embarUS military: face of a new world order? No. 1 May 1, 1991 go since 1985. I have always backed sanctions against South Africa, but they have not been effective because Western corporations and govemments have dodged them. The same has been blatantly true about Iraq.
4. That to support the war meant supporting American imperialism. Yes, it did. Supporting the Red Army's struggle in 1941-5 meant supporting Stalinist imperialism, but the effect of Soviet victory was judged worth its price by many non- and anti-communists (though fewer now, I agree). This is the choice between evils, again. In this case, my own hunch is that Bush's New World Order is mostly flannel; the period when the Americans dominated the world is coming to an end with the end of the Cold War.
5. That disproportionate force was used. This is not an argument against the use of force itself, but it is true. The fighting should have stopped when Saddam accepted the Soviet compromise and agreed to withdraw. If the truth about the killing is ever told, we will find out that most - perhaps 80 per cent - of the casualties happened during the 'hundred hours' of the ground war.
6. That because the Americans did nothing about Timor, Pinochet's Chile (which they large ly created), Tibet, etc, they must be opposed on the rare occasion when they do take action against an aggressive dictatorship. I do not understand this argument, except that it underlines that the Americans have a perceived national in terest in fighting Saddam, and none in fighting Indonesia over Timor etc. Did anyone think otherwise?
7. This is 'an American war for oil. As everyone has said, if Kuwait had exported oran ges, America would have left it to stew. Yet it is not just about oil -even in American perceptions. The war was also meant in Washington to restore the kind of stability to the region which American leaders want for many reasons.
I can't guarantee that the outcome of the war will be more peace and justice (though I have a strong feeling that the feudal oil sheikdoms have been dealt a mortal blow by it). But you have to demonstrate to me that the world would have acquired more peace and justice if Saddam had not been threatened by a military response. Can you?
Yours sincerely Neal Ascherson March 4, 1991 Dear Mr. Ascherson, I am not a pacifist, so my objections to your position are not about being always and absolutely against war. My objection precisely on the point with which you challenge me: the balance of good and evil, of peace and justice - in the Middle East and worldwide - of this war and its aftermath.
Let me start by saying that the one point you really concede - that the force used by the United States was disproportionate to the objective of 'liberating' Kuwait-seems to me a bigger point than you admit. Yes, the level of violence used against Iraqi conscripts fleeing the battle (and surely to Iraqi civilians as well?) was disproportionate to your objectives and the formal objectives of the US: But was it really disproportionate to the real objectives of the United States - to utterly destroy Iraq as a regional power, to crush Saddam's army as a regional threat?
Israel
On this point I think there is a non se quitur in your argument. All the dangers which you cite of leaving Saddam in power, for example a possible future war with Israel, would have existed if he had not invaded Kuwait. So was it right to go to war against Iraq even if the Kuwaiti invasion had not taken place? Because if you follow the logicof those like Fred Halliday (I don't mean to imply you agree with all his arguments) that if it comes to a choice be tween fascism and imperialism, I choose imperialism' - then of course the invasion of Kuwait has nothing to do with it. It is enough that the US has, in your words, 'taken action against an aggressive dictatorship' to decide which side you are on.
The violence and destruction visited on the people and army of Iraq was exactly in line with the kind of 'Pax Americana Bush wanted to impose on the Gulf, and the worldwide demonstration of US power he wanted to give. This is the nub of the matter. I never thought this was just a war about oil (although strong Iraqi leverage over the Gulf sheikdoms and Saudi Arabia could have caused the US problems on that front).
Rather the war was a straight continuation of the US policy initiated by Reagan and Weinberger, to use US military might and the political clout it gives to bolster its declining world dominance - especially against its major economic rivals, Japan and a German-led Europe. I think the policies of the '80s, especially Star Wars and the siting of Pershing and Cruise missiles in Europe were intimately connected with this objective. Military and political leadership of the West through NATO has been the vital cornerstone of US post-war power.
US victory
In this militarist project the Gulf war was a big, if temporary, victory for the US. The West was bounced into support for a US-led war, with a positive spin-off for US power and influence in the short term. And what will the consequences of that be? You must concede that, at the very least, it will encourage the United States to continue its use of militarism, especially against the 'third world'. The consequences of that will be profoundly reactionary.
I am not an apologist for the Castro regime in Cuba, but lam sure that what the US would put in its place would be very reactionary. Yet the Gulf war has made this more likely. Castro is now certainly in the US gunsights. I suspect also that the ARENA government in El Salvador sleep moresoundly as a result of the US war, knowing that it was now easier for the US to intervene directly
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