The following short piece has created quite a stir in the Weblog community. It is a clear statement of what the writer thinks a war with Iraq should accomplish. Its presence reminds us that President Bush has not made an equally clear statement of his purpose for a war with Iraq. Such a statement seems of enormous importance in these dangerous times.

Why Make War on Iraq

Nick Denton

Christophe Kotowski, writing in, argues an invasion of Iraq isn’t enough.

“Partially crushing Arab/Muslim already happened in ’48 ’56 ’67 ’73 ’90/91 ’01/02. Did the lesson sink in? No. ’02/03 in the way you argue won’t be different; there will be room for denial and escapism. The true Islamist cores are Saudi Arabia and Iran, Iraq is too secular to impress. In fact it represents the old fashioned and already bankrupt Arab modernism of Nasser. What’s the point of confirming its death? If you really want to humiliate, then you’d have to do it in a grand, total, undeniable and very bloody scale: Iraq + Syria + Iran + Saudi Arabia + Gulf States + others? It’s not just about winning; it’s about inflicting a boundless defeat that all people can relate to – death and destruction must reach every corner of society. I doubt anybody in the US is mentally prepared to inflict that much suffering and killing, not to mention the necessary commitment in equipment and blood.”

The debate over war with Iraq needs to be recast. So far, justification for the war has fallen into three categories: retribution, pre-emption, and geo-strategy. All miss the point.

Start with retribution for the destruction of the Twin Towers. The ties between Iraqi agents and Mohammed Atta, leader of the September 11th bombers, are in the news again, no doubt to persuade us that an invasion of Iraq is connected to Al-Qaeda’s attack on the US. But no convincing evidence of Iraqi involvement has been made public. Better to leave that rationale on the cutting-room floor.

Pre-emption, the Bush doctrine, has more weight to it. Saddam Hussein has attacked two of his neighbors, and has professed enmity towards the United States. I can just about buy the argument that he’s too unpredictable to be allowed nuclear weapons. But let’s not forget that Pakistan already has nukes, ultra-Islamic political groups, and an intelligence service with connections to Al-Qaeda. Pre-emption ought to imply the destruction of Pakistan’s nuclear capability, as well as the Saudi network that funds Islamic fundamentalism. So, pre-emption: an entirely defensible policy, but highly vulnerable to the charge of inconsistency.

Geo-strategy. Some armchair generals hope the imposition of a pro-American government in Baghdad will undermine violent Palestinian nationalism, and make the Saudis nervous, which would indeed be salutary. The Pentagon civilians argue a democratic system in Iraq would also provide a beacon to other Arab countries. Messing around with the map of the Middle East can’t do much harm; even chaos would be preferable to the deathly status quo. But the establishment of a government in Baghdad that is both democratic and pro-Western: that’s just wishful thinking.

But there’s a much more basic reason to crush Saddam Hussein’s regime. The Islamic world — mainly the Arab Islamic world — needs to realize that it has failed. Medieval Islam cannot compete with liberal capitalism either economically or culturally. Unfortunately, that message has taken several hundred years to filter through. There is nothing like cataclysmic military defeat to teach the lesson more rapidly.

One could point at the examples of Japan and Germany after the Second World War. But the Muslim world provides its own case study. Ottoman Turkey only began to pay attention to Western science and organization after its first serious military defeats at the hands of Austria and Russia in the 17th and 18th centuries.

The US needs to destroy Saddam Hussein’s regime because he’s a bad man, sure, because he may conceivably be connected with Al-Qaeda, because he’s developing weapons of mass destruction, because a friendly Iraq would alter the balance of power in the Middle East, sure, because of all of that. But the US needs to destroy Saddam Hussein’s regime mainly because the West needs to humiliate the Arab world, and dispel the Islamic millennial fantasy.

Inhabitants of Iraq, Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries must realize that medieval Islam and strongman dictatorships are bankrupt. Arab political systems have held back progress, and even the Islamic traditionalists who deny those Western notions of progress will have to accept the objective measure of military accomplishment. Let the US send 40,000 soldiers against an Iraqi army ten times the size; let the defeat be total; and let Arab people realize that liberal democracy isn’t just a soft western indulgence, but the most effective form of social organization on this planet, and it is their future, if they want a future.