Why some people are pundits and don't actually have any responsibility
Jonathan Chait, who first came to many people's attention by writing about all the ways he hated George W. Bush, now comes out in the Los Angeles Times with the argument that Iraq is such a mess right now that we should just bring back Saddam Hussein and have him impose order. Sure, he's a murderous dictator and all, but he'd know how to stop all the killing in Iraq.
Hussein, however, has a proven record in that department. It may well be possible to reconstitute the Iraqi army and state bureaucracy we disbanded, and if so, that may be the only force capable of imposing order in Iraq.
Chaos and order each have a powerful self-sustaining logic. When people perceive a lack of order, they act in ways that further the disorder. If a Sunni believes that he is in danger of being killed by Shiites, he will throw his support to Sunni insurgents who he sees as the only force that can protect him. The Sunni insurgents, in turn, will scare Shiites into supporting their own anti-Sunni militias.
And it's not just Iraqis who act this way. You could find a smaller-scale version of this dynamic in an urban riot here in the United States. But when there's an expectation of social order, people will act in a civilized fashion.
Restoring the expectation of order in Iraq will take some kind of large-scale psychological shock. The Iraqi elections were expected to offer that shock, but they didn't. The return of Saddam Hussein — a man every Iraqi knows, and whom many of them fear — would do the trick.
The disadvantages of reinstalling Hussein are obvious, but consider some of the upside. He would not allow the country to be dominated by Iran, which is the United States' major regional enemy, a sponsor of terrorism and an instigator of warfare between Lebanon and Israel. Hussein was extremely difficult to deal with before the war, in large part because he apparently believed that he could defeat any U.S. invasion if it came to that. Now he knows he can't. And he'd probably be amenable because his alternative is death by hanging.
I know why restoring a brutal tyrant to power is a bad idea. Somebody explain to me why it's worse than all the others.
Okay, Mr. Chait, here's a go at it. Even leaving aside the whole morality of imposing a man with such a murderous history. The Saddam Hussein of today is not the same as the one of yesteryear. Since he's be defeated and humiliated, he won't have the same ability to scare others into following his orders. Other power sources have grown up and they're not going to fold up and go home just because Saddam starts issuing orders. His power apparatus has disappeared. Who says that Hussein will be able to resist Iran? Now, that they've gotten a foothold in Iraq, are they going to be afraid of a Saddam who was defeated in a few weeks by the Americans? Especially now when they're on the verge of getting nuclear weapons? We used to have to keep many forces on the borders of Iraq to enforce the no fly zone. Now we'd have to be doing that actually to protect Saddam Hussein.
And can you imagine all the retribution that Saddam would take against all those who helped the Americans and coalition forces? If what Chait likes about Saddam is his ability to intimidate and murder his opponents, then Saddam will have to oblige the columnist by murdering a lot of people indiscriminately just to get his props back. If Mr. Chait thinks that the Americans are hated now for our efforts to help democracy grow in the Middle East, imagine the feelings if we go back on everything we've done there and reimpose Hussein.
If what Chait wants is a brutal, lawless, and immoral crackdown on all the militias, wouldn't it be a lot simpler to just assist the majority Shi'ites already helping us to massacre all who are causing the violence? If we were totally to abandon all of our principles to impose order, why bring back Saddam to do it. We could select a new guy and then help him wipe out a whole bunch of people. Follow the example of Haffez al-Hassad of Syria and the massacre at Hama. If we were going to be totally unprincipled, a touch of genocide would do wonders in imposing order. Perhaps, that will be Chait's next column.
I realize that it's a tough thing to write a regular column and sometimes you just have to say something controversial to get noticed. That's why you're a columnist and not actually in a position of any responsibility. Rather like a blogger with a bigger audience. But with ideas like these, Chait doesn't belong in a major newspaper. Even bloggers know better. posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 6:39 AM
