Six Arguments for Everybody Against the Invasion of Iraq

by Stephen Zunes

We're not the only ones to be disturbed. The rush toward war with Iraq raises more than the obvious moral issues that the Fellowship of Reconciliation and others in the faith community have brought forward for many years. Throughout the United States - and even more so internationally - people are asking serious questions regarding the war's legality, its justification, and its political implications.

This proposed invasion would constitute an important precedent. It would be the first test of the new doctrine articulated by President George W. Bush of "preemption," which declares that the United States has the right to invade sovereign countries and overthrow their governments if they are seen as hostile to US interests. All previous large-scale interventions by American forces abroad have been rationalized - albeit not always convincingly - on the principle of collective self-defense, as established through regional organizations like the South East Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) or the Organization of American States (OAS). To invade Iraq would constitute an unprecedented repudiation of the international legal conventions that such American presidents as Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt helped create in order to build a safer world.

Below are six major arguments against going to war with Iraq that even non-pacifists could accept.

1. A war against Iraq would be illegal.

There is no legal justification for US military action against Iraq.

Iraq is currently in violation of parts of one section of UN Security Council Resolution 687 (and a series of subsequent resolutions reiterating that segment). The conflict regarding the full implementation of that resolution is legally one between the Iraqi government and the United Nations, not between Iraq and the United States. Although UN Security Council Resolution 687 was the most detailed in the world body's history, no military enforcement mechanisms were specified. Nor did the Security Council specify any military enforcement mechanisms in subsequent resolutions. As is normally the case when it is determined that governments violate all or part of UN resolutions, any decision about the enforcement of its resolutions is a matter for the UN Security Council as a whole - not for any one member of the council.

According to articles 41 and 42 of the United Nations Charter, no member state has the right to enforce any resolution militarily unless the UN Security Council determines that there has been a material breach of its resolution, decides that all nonmilitary means of enforcement have been exhausted, and then specifically authorizes the use of military force. This is what the Security Council did in November 1990 with Resolution 678 in response to Iraq's ongoing occupation of Kuwait, which was in violation of a series of resolutions passed that August. The UN has not done so for any subsequent violations involving Iraq or any other government.

If the United States can unilaterally claim the right to invade Iraq due to that country's violation of UN Security Council resolutions, other Security Council members could logically also claim the right to invade other member states that are in violation of UN Security Council resolutions. For example, Russia could claim the right to invade Israel, France could claim the right to invade Turkey, and Great Britain could claim the right to invade Morocco, simply because those targeted governments are also violating UN Security Council resolutions. The US insistence on the right to attack unilaterally could seriously undermine the principle of collective security and the authority of the United Nations. In so doing, it would open the door to international anarchy.

International law is quite clear about when military force is allowed. In addition to the aforementioned case of UN Security Council authorization, the only other time that any member state is allowed to use armed force is described in Article 51, which states that it is permissible for "individual or collective self-defense" against "armed attack ... until the Security Council has taken the measures necessary to maintain international peace and security." Unless the United States gets such authorization, any such attack on Iraq would be illegal and would be viewed by most members of the international community as an act of aggression. In contrast to the Gulf war of 1990-91, it is likely that the world community would view the United States - not Iraq - as the international outlaw.

2. Regional allies widely oppose a U.S. attack

Unlike in 1991, when most of the region supported - and even contributed to - the US-led war effort (or was at least neutral), Arab opposition is strong today. Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah has warned that the US "should not strike Iraq, because such an attack would only raise animosity in the region against the United States." When Vice President Dick Cheney visited the Middle East in March, every Arab leader made clear his opposition. At the Beirut summit of the Arab League at the end of March, the Arab nations unanimously endorsed a resolution opposing an attack against Iraq. In August, twenty Arab foreign ministers meeting in Cairo warned that such a war would "open the gates of hell."

US officials claim that, public statements to the contrary, there may be some regional allies willing to support a US war effort. Given President Bush's ultimatum that "you are either with us or the terrorists," it is quite possible that some governments might be successfully pressured to go along. However, almost any Middle Eastern government willing to provide such support and cooperation would be doing so over the opposition of the vast majority of its citizens. Given the real political risks for such a ruler in supporting the US war effort, such acquiescence would take place only reluctantly as a result of American pressure or inducements, not from a sincere belief in the validity of the US military operation.

In the event of a US invasion of Iraq, there would likely be an outbreak of widespread anti-American protests, perhaps even attacks against American interests. Some pro-Western regimes could become vulnerable to internal radical forces as part of such a reaction. Passions are particularly high in light of strong US support for the policies of Israel's rightist government and its ongoing occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The anger over US double standards regarding Israeli and Iraqi violations of UN Security Council resolutions could reach a boiling point.

3. There is no evidence of Iraqi links to Al Qaeda or other anti-American terrorists

In the months following the September 11 terrorist attacks, there were leaks to the media about alleged evidence of a meeting in Prague between an Iraqi intelligence officer and one of the hijackers of the doomed airplanes that crashed into the World Trade Center. Subsequent thorough investigations by the FBI, CIA, and Czech intelligence have found no evidence that any such meeting took place. None of the hijackers were Iraqi, no major figure in Al Qaeda is Iraqi, and no funds to Al Qaeda have been traced to Iraq. It is unlikely that the decidedly secular Baathist regime - which has savagely suppressed Islamists within Iraq - would be able to maintain close links with Osama bin Laden and his followers. In fact, Saudi Prince Turki bin Faisal, his country's former intelligence chief, noted that bin Laden views Saddam Hussein "as an apostate, an infidel, or someone who is not worthy of being a fellow Muslim" and that bin Laden had offered in 1990 to raise an army of thousands of mujahedin fighters to liberate Kuwait from Iraqi occupation.

"What is at stake is not just the lives of thousands of Iraqi and American soldiers and thousands more Iraqi civilians, but also the international legal framework established in the aftermath of World War II."

Iraq's past terrorist links have primarily been limited to such secular groups as Abu Nidal, a now largely defunct Palestinian faction opposed to Yasir Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization. At the height of Iraq's support of Abu Nidal in the early 1980s, Washington dropped Iraq from its list of countries that sponsored terrorism so the US could bolster Iraq's war effort against Iran. Baghdad was reinstated to the list only after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990, even though US officials were unable to cite any increased Iraqi ties to terrorist groups. Abu Nidal himself was apparently murdered by the Iraqis in his Baghdad apartment in August, perhaps as an effort to deny the Bush administration an excuse to attack. A recent CIA report indicates that the Iraqis have actually been consciously avoiding any actions against the United States or its facilities abroad, presumably to deny Washington any excuse to engage in further military strikes against their country. The last clear example that American officials can cite of such Iraqi-backed terrorism was an alleged plot by Iraqi agents to assassinate former President George Bush when he visited Kuwait in 1993. In response, President Bill Clinton ordered the bombing of Baghdad, hitting an Iraqi intelligence headquarters as well as a nearby civilian neighborhood.

The Bush Administration has been unable to present any evidence that Iraq currently backs anti-American terrorism. In fact, the State Department's own annual study did not list any serious act of international terrorism by the government of Iraq.

Besides, an American invasion of Iraq would probably weaken the battle against terrorism. It would not only distract from the more immediate threat posed by Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda network, but it would also likely result in an anti-American backlash that would lessen the level of cooperation from Islamic countries in tracking down and neutralizing the remaining Al Qaeda cells.

4. There is no firm proof that Iraq is developing weapons of mass destruction

In the aftermath of the 1991 Gulf war and the subsequent inspections regimen, virtually all Iraq's stockpile of weapons of mass destruction, delivery systems, and capabilities for producing such weapons were destroyed. In its most recent report, the International Atomic Energy Agency categorically declared that Iraq no longer has a nuclear program. In late 1997, UNSCOM Director Richard Butler reported that UNSCOM had made "significant progress" in tracking Iraq's chemical weapons program and that 817 of the 819 Soviet-supplied long-range missiles had been accounted for. A couple of dozen Iraqi-made ballistic missiles remained unaccounted for, but these were of questionable caliber.

Despite speculation (particularly by those who seek an excuse to invade Iraq) of possible ongoing Iraqi efforts to procure weapons of mass destruction, no one has been able to put forward evidence that the Iraqis are actually doing so currently. The resumption of United Nations inspections should clarify whether the Iraqi regime is in fact doing so - if the United States gives them a chance.

Saddam Hussein has demonstrated that he cares first and foremost about his own survival. He presumably recognizes that any effort to use weapons of mass destruction against the United States or its allies would inevitably lead to his own destruction. This is why he did not use them during the Gulf war. By contrast, he was quite willing to use them against soldiers from Iran, which did not have any allies, and Kurdish civilians who couldn't fight back. In the event of a US invasion, seeing his overthrow as imminent and with nothing to lose, this logic of self-preservation would no longer be operative. Instead, such an invasion would dramatically increase the likelihood of his ordering the use of any weapons of mass destruction he may have developed.

The Iraqi dictator's leadership style has always been that of direct control: his distrust of subordinates (bordering on paranoia) is one of the things that has helped him survive. It is extremely unlikely that he would go to the risk and expense of developing weapons of mass destruction only to pass them on to some group of terrorists. If he does have such weapons at his disposal, they would be for him and nobody else. In the chaos of a US invasion and its aftermath, however, the chances of such weapons being smuggled out of the country into the hands of terrorists would increase. Currently these weapons, if they do exist, are under the control of a highly centralized government obsessed with holding on to power.

Finally, given that UN Security Council Resolution 687 also calls for disarmament initiatives throughout the region, the United States could help curb Iraq's appetite for weapons procurement by reversing its opposition to arms control initiatives for the entire Persian Gulf region.

5. Iraq is no longer a significant military threat to its neighbors

It is also hard to imagine that an Iraqi aircraft carrying biological weapons, presumably some kind of drone, could somehow penetrate the air space of neighboring countries, much less far-off Israel, without being shot down. Most of Iraq's neighbors have sophisticated anti-aircraft capability, and Israel has the best regional missile defense system in the world. Similarly, as mentioned above, there is no evidence that Iraq's Scud missiles and launchers even survived the Gulf war in operable condition. Indeed, UNSCOM reported in 1992 that Iraq had neither launchers for its missiles nor engines to power them.

Israeli military analyst Meir Stieglitz, writing in the Israeli newspaper , noted that "there is no such thing as a long-range Iraqi missile with an effective biological warhead. No one has found an Iraqi biological warhead. The chances of Iraq having succeeded in developing operative warheads without tests are zero."

The recent American obsession with Iraq's potential military threat is discredited by the fact that Iraq's military, including its real and potential weapons of mass destruction, was significantly stronger in the late 1980s than it is today. Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was once a real threat to Iraq's neighbors when he had his full complement of medium-range missiles, a functioning air force, and a massive stockpile of chemical and biological weaponry and material. During this period, however, the United States actually supported Iraq.

Iraq's current armed forces are barely one-third their pre-war strength. Even though Iraq has not been required to reduce its conventional forces, the destruction of its weapons and the country's economic difficulties have led to a substantial reduction in men under arms. Iraq's navy is virtually nonexistent and its air force is just a fraction of what it was before the war. Military spending by Iraq has been estimated at barely one-tenth of its levels in the 1980s. The Bush administration has been unable to explain why today, when Saddam has only a tiny percentage of his once-formidable military capability, Iraq is considered such a threat that it is necessary to invade the country and replace its leader - the same leader Washington quietly supported during the peak of Iraq's military capability.

6. Defeating Iraq would be militarily difficult

Most likely, the United States would eventually be victorious in a war against Iraq, but victory would come at an enormous cost. It would be a mistake, for example, to think that defeating Iraq would result in as few American casualties as occurred in driving the Taliban militia from Kabul. Though Iraq's offensive capabilities have been severely weakened by the bombings, sanctions, and UNSCOM-sponsored decommissioning, its defensive military capabilities are still strong.

Nor would a military victory today be as easy as during the Gulf war. Prior to the launching of Operation Desert Storm, when the Iraqis figured out the extent of the forces being deployed against them, they decided not to put up a fight for Kuwait and relied mostly on young conscripts from minority communities. Only two of the eight divisions of the elite Republican Guard were ever in Kuwait, and they pulled back before the war began in mid-January. The vast majority of Iraq's strongest forces were withdrawn to areas around Baghdad to fight for the survival of the regime itself, and they remain there to this day. In the event of war, defections from these units are not likely.

There are close to one million members of the Iraqi elite who have a vested interest in the regime's survival. These include the Baath Party leadership and its supporters, security and intelligence personnel, and core elements of the armed forces and their extended families. Furthermore, Iraq - a largely urban society - has a far more sophisticated infrastructure than does the largely rural and tribal Afghanistan. That infrastructure could be mobilized in the event of a foreign invasion.

Nor is there an Iraqi equivalent to Afghanistan's Northern Alliance, which did the bulk of the ground fighting against the Taliban. The Kurds, after being abandoned twice in recent history by the United States, are unlikely to fight beyond securing autonomy for Kurdish areas. The armed Shiite opposition has largely been eliminated, and it too would be unlikely to fight beyond liberating the majority Shiite sections of southern Iraq. The US would be reluctant to support either, given that their successes could potentially fragment the country and would encourage both rebellious Kurds in southeastern Turkey and restive Shiites in northeastern Saudi Arabia. US forces would have to march on Baghdad, a city of over five million people, virtually alone.

Unlike the Gulf war, which involved conventional and open combat where US forces could excel and take full advantage of their firepower and technological superiority, an attempt on Baghdad would oblige US soldiers to fight their way through heavily populated agricultural and urban lands. Invading forces could be faced with bitter, house-to-house fighting in a country larger than South Vietnam. Iraqis, who may have had little stomach to fight to maintain their country's conquest of Kuwait, would be far more willing to sacrifice themselves to resist a foreign, Western invader. To minimize American casualties in the face of such stiff resistance, which would largely come from within crowded urban areas, the United States would likely engage in heavy bombing of Iraqi residential neighborhoods, resulting in very high civilian casualties.

Finally, there is the question of what happens if the United States is successful in overthrowing Saddam Hussein's regime. As is becoming apparent in Afghanistan, throwing a government out is easier than putting a new one together. Although most Iraqis presumably fear and despise Saddam Hussein's rule and would likely be relieved in the event of his ouster, this does not mean that a regime installed by an invading Western army would be welcomed. For example, most of the leading candidates that US officials are apparently considering installing to govern Iraq are former Iraqi military officers who have been linked to war crimes.

In addition to possible ongoing guerrilla action by Saddam Hussein's supporters, US occupation forces would likely be faced with competing armed factions among the Sunni Arab population, not to mention Kurd and Shiite rebel groups seeking to break away from any ruler in Baghdad. This could lead the United States into a bloody counterinsurgency war. Without the support of other countries or the United Nations, a US invasion could leave American forces effectively alone enforcing a peace amidst the chaos of a post-Saddam Iraq.

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The serious moral, legal, political, and strategic problems with a possible US invasion of Iraq require that the American public become engaged in the debate over the wisdom of such a dramatic course of action. What is at stake is not just the lives of thousands of Iraqi and American soldiers and thousands more Iraqi civilians, but also the international legal framework established in the aftermath of World War II. Despite its failings, this multilateral framework of collective security has resulted in far greater international stability and far less intergovernmental conflict than would otherwise have been the case.

During the 2000 election campaign, George W. Bush scored well among voters by calling for greater "humility" in US foreign policy, decrying the overextension of US military force, and criticizing the idea that the US armed forces should be engaged in such practices as "nation-building" in unstable areas. As president, Bush has made a remarkable reversal of this popular position and appears eager to embark on perhaps the most reckless foreign military campaign in US history. Taking advantage of the fear, anger, and sense of nationalism felt by so many Americans in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks, the Bush administration and its allies in Congress and the media are now seeking to justify an unrelated military campaign that would have otherwise been unimaginable.

The most effective antidote to such arrogance of power is democracy. Unfortunately, in times of international crisis, many Americans are wary of exercising their democratic rights and are reluctant to oppose a president's foreign policy. Yet, seldom in US history has it been so important for Americans to raise their concerns publicly and challenge their elected representatives to honor their legal and moral obligations.

 

Stephen Zunes is a member of FOR's Middle East Task Force and is Middle East editor for the Foreign Policy in Focus Project (www.fpif.org), where major segments of this article were originally published. He is an associate professor of Politics and chair of the Peace and Justice Studies Program at the University of San Francisco, and is the author of Tinderbox: U.S. Middle East Policy and the Roots of Terrorism.