Chilcot's Philosophical Conundrum

Regarding the Chilcot report, the following philosophical point looms large in my mind. If there were actually weapons of mass destruction (WMD) but they were either a) in Iraq but undiscovered, b) moved out of Iraq, or c) destroyed (either deliberately or in conflict), there would be enough people unapprised of their existence to engender a mounting campaign of being deceived by Tony Blair.

So, do you think Tony Blair deliberately misled the British public with information he knew to be false?

I don't, actually - I think he believed it at the time, or at the very least played fast and loose with the element of doubt and the necessary caution that ought to have been employed.

Sometimes caution costs lives too though?

Indeed it can.

I wonder what those who are always banging on about the 'legality' of the Iraq war would have made of our heroic activities in both World Wars?

Yes it's a relevant question. Under the legal luminaries' pretext those wars would have been illegal too. I think it is evident from our observations of neighbouring Middle Eastern states in 2003 and before that Tony Blair and George Bush made a Dulce et Decorum est-type of decision that the intervention was their equivalent of Churchill intervening while Hitler was making plans for the Rhineland (albeit on a smaller scale).

But the two situations are hardly comparable are they?

No, and it is much easier to assert that with the benefit of hindsight. But every historical failure in preventing genocide contributes to the decision-making process. The failure in averting World War Two is one of the gravest mistakes in Western History, and it was clear that Blair and Bush were never going to make that mistake in the Middle East, especially not after observing the intentions (and in some cases, actions) of the neighbouring Middle Eastern countries. One only need think of Chamberlain's reaction to Hitler sending troops into the demilitarised Rhineland - it seems a fair point to suggest that if allied democracies had acted sooner they probably would have prevented the Holocaust.

What about Blair's claim that "The world is a safer place now"?

Yes, well, the statement is true in about the same way that the statement "Jeremy Cobyn is a UKIP politician" is true if you replace the words 'Jeremy Cobyn' with the words 'Tom Cruise' and the words 'UKIP politician' with the words 'short Scientologist'.

And what about Blair as a war criminal?

No, not a bit of it. Those who foolishly argue that Blair should be sent off to the Hague ought to consider the correlative effects if such action were taken. No future Prime Minster would dare sanction any intervention in the foreseeable future for fear of the same reprisals, and that would somewhat tie our own hands behind our back and make our enemies sit up and take note.

Fair point.

Thanks. In actual fact, we probably already have a comparable situation. One of the other main lasting legacies of the Iraq war is that no British government is ever likely to attempt an intervention process in that way and on that scale ever again.

But what about those elusive WMDs - do you think they were there or not?

Possibly. The real question you have to ask is, if they were there at some point and yet not found, how would we know about it? One cannot simply claim absence of evidence as evidence of absence. If they were there, then the almost unanimous belief in their non-existence must go down as one of the occasions in human history when the greatest number of people were mistaken.

I don't know if there were WMDs, but as regular readers of this Blog will be aware, I am not the sort of person who automatically trusts the consensual view either. I'm open to the idea that there were, because I have heard a positive claim for their existence, whereas on the other side we've only heard that a lack of satisfactory evidence for their existence is enough to rule out their existence (people do this a lot when the subject is God's existence too).

Really? Who made a positive claim fro the existence of WMD?

The positive claim for WMD was from a man who served under Saddam and openly testifies that he had WMD. That man is Georges Hormiz Sada: a retired general officer of the Iraqi air force and a born-again Christian. He has had a book published (called Saddam’s Secrets) in which he talks about Saddam’s plans to destroy Israel, his attempts to control the Arab world and how he aspired to command and occupy much more of it.

Mr Sada also talks about his own role in supervising the removal of WMD to Damascus in Syria because Saddam was worried that the Western troops would find them. There have been many other sources which expose Saddam’s complex concealment plans, and the media have nothing credible to say on this.

Hmm, but one man's word against a mountain of investigative analysis is quite meagre though.

It is, but that just takes us back to the philosophical conundrum at the beginning. I mean, it is more generally known, I think, that Saddam had a nuclear centrifuge - or at least it was in its incipient stages, which was found by US troops thanks to compliant scientists.

Moreover, there had also been emergent information about a plutonium-producing reactor in Syria which had been hit following an Israeli air-strike; it was a reactor being built by the Syrians with the help from expert North Korean engineers.

So this rather incriminates North Korea and makes them culpable for their actions in securing nuclear knowledge to rogue leaders.

It is quite worrying that America seems so impotent in the face of North Korea’s nuclear proliferation, and that they have faced no penalties for their criminal activities. That is perhaps the most trenchant argument against reticence when it comes to nuclear weapons in the international community.

The much derided doctrine of pre-emption still stands over counter-arguments – and it is supported by the realisation that once a country with a fanatical leader acquires nuclear capacity it is that much harder to do very much about it. Any exaggeration regarding Saddam’s capability does not detract from the fact that inaction was seen by Blair to have been too risky, and any misjudgement on the subject of WMD might have brought about a Middle Eastern catastrophe that was perfectly plausible with the knowledge they had at the time.

Don't get me wrong; I didn't believe it myself, even though the Middle East was (and still is) the most unstable region of its size in the world - because despite it being a horrible dictatorship, Saddam's rule did to some extent keep the genie in the bottle, particularly when contrasted with what is going on now.

On Interventionist Foreign Policy

Interventionist Foreign Policy does throw up some interesting situations, where ‘interesting’ sadly often means ‘bloody awful’. The West has contempt for Assad's government in Syria, where initially any insurgency against him was thought by many politicians to be the lesser of two evils. Similarly in 2003 Blair and Bush thought they were making Iraq a better place by removing Saddam, but over a decade later the country is now overrun with Islamic fanatics who make Saddam’s Ba’athist regime seem like the lesser of two evils.

Islamic State was, of course, one of the insurgency groups against Assad’s regime in Syria. Now they’ve seized lots of Iraqi territory, and regularly slaughter innocent people in front of cameras. And if you want to go further back you may also recall that our enemies in Afghanistan were once our allies against the Soviet Union.

The wisdom of all this is that our foreign policy has to be based not just on the present but on our past legacies and on future forecasts too. It’s not too difficult these days to consider military intervention against a government or group that was once our ally against some other government or group we disliked. Equally it’s not too difficult these days to consider military intervention against a government or group that will one day be our allies, just as we regularly consider that current allies may well be enemies in the future.

Consequently, in order for our foreign policy to be prudent, politicians must correctly ascertain which governments or groups are going to be our enemies and which are going to be our allies henceforward, otherwise they may get into wars trying to defend Iraq (Japan) from Iran (China), and soon find out that Iran (China) are very useful allies against ISIS (the Soviet Union).

 

Iraq Ten Years On; Success or Failure?

It is ten years since the Iraq war began - and as you’d expect, we’ve heard lots this week from political and social commentators arguing for and against the success of the war.  Add to that the fact that we’re still stuck in a quagmire in Afghanistan, and facing lots more unrest in the Middle East, and in parts of Africa, and in North Korea too, and you’ll see the question of success or failure regarding our military mobilisation looms large.

The issue largely boils down to two questions; were the Government members’ intentions wise in the first place, and was what they did a success?  I’ve seen just about everyone asking those questions, but I’ve seen no one come up with what I think are the right answers.

In the case of Iraq, the answer to the question of success is, we just don’t know yet.  Lots of people argue for and against, but the reality is, it’s just far too early to tell.  The reason being; the variables are so diverse and complex that it’s going to take a notable pendulum shift for the outcome to be revealed, and we haven’t had that yet.  There have been big changes in Iraq – but those changes have made things better for many of its citizens and worse for many others.  That’s why when you hear from people who actually live in Iraq (people who have lived there throughout the entire passage of time), you’ll find they are divided in opinion, with a great many more feeling unsure. 

I personally think that with the benefit of longer term considerations and the luxury of lengthier retrospective analysis we will begin to see that the removal of the sadistic dictator Saddam Hussein was one of the catalysts for improvement for the Iraqi citizens– but only more time will give a real indication of this.  It might be the case that the people who most benefit from the invasion haven’t even been born yet –but that is how history must be viewed.  Viewing it any other way is usually (although not always) hasty and frivolous, because when it comes to the planting of fruit trees, at the national level most epoch-changing events take a long time for the fruit to be visible.

Now, regarding the question of whether the Government members’ intentions were wise in the first place – from what I can gather from the continuous rhetoric of Bush and Blair, and more recently, David Cameron, I’d say no, they were misjudged.  The reason for their misjudgement appears to me to rest on not understanding how to achieve their aims – which have always been civil liberty for the citizens under the priority of democracy.  What they should have focused on is economic freedom – that is a much more reliable tool for emancipation. 

Now liberty and democracy are nice things to have – but compared to economic freedom they fall short when it comes to helping people out of quagmires.  India is the world’s largest democracy, and there are plenty of civil liberties there, but it is stricken with some of the worst poverty in the world.  Honk Kong’s institutions are much less democratic than those of India, but it is one of the world’s wealthiest and most prosperous countries.  Singapore is politically repressive when compared to some of the freer democracies, but it is more economically prosperous than many of them.  So a nation’s civil liberty and democracy aren’t always good indicators.

When the likes of Bush, Blair and Cameron talk about ‘nation building’ they only seem to mean things like “Giving the citizens of Iraq and Afghanistan the ability to vote”.  I’d like to think differently of them, but whenever I see them talking of the success of Iraq, they usually measure it by the fact that its citizens are now voting in free elections.  This success won’t last long if that is the only true measure, because free elections in quagmires are only likely to disenchant once the novelty wears off.  However, free elections in countries with economic freedom are elections worth having. 

While it is true that political freedom and per capita income are closely linked, we’ve seen above that it is not true in all cases – and even in the high end cases, the economic freedom is much more of a prominent factor than political freedom. When you live in a country with free trade, healthy imports/exports, high employment, sensible and equitable Government spending, the repeal of artificial price controls, more moderate marginal tax rates, and monetary policy stability, you find you usually have a nation with a good legal system, cultural plurality, reasonably proficient welfare systems (these things are usually only reasonably proficient), lower tariffs, human rights, property rights, family rights, freer citizens, and a greater sense of care and regard for your global community. 

The fact is that very little the West has done in Iraq and Afghanistan has made this scenario conducive.  At best they have helped nudge in more democratic systems which may or may not last, but which hopefully will in the future lead to the things I mentioned.  Sadly, they’ve taken a slow route by getting their priorities wrong.  Their ‘nation-building’ ideology was misjudged; they should have worked out how to nudge in economy-building rather than nation-building (where nation-building = democracy building), because the only way to build a nation properly is to have its citizens economically free and prosperous.  In almost all cases, citizens with an economically free and prosperous country to uphold won’t need military intervention from the outside, because they will care enough about, and have enough invested in, that country to work very hard to see to it that individual rights, equal opportunities, jurisprudence, civil law and order, cultural and religious plurality, and democratic feeling will prevail.