Re: casus belli

In response to comments by Chris and Steve -

I'm in substantial agreement with your clarifications.  As I said, oil and
Israel are not to be discounted as motives for the war with Iraq.  They
are simply not to be viewed as the key, or "underlying" factors.  For the
issue is not just why go to war with IRAQ, but why go to WAR with Iraq.
If the primary purpose was not to assert US leadership in a highly
dramatic manner, other means might suffice to bring Iraq to heel, means
that would not jeopardize the US relationship with Europe and risk such grave
consequences for regional (and probably, global) stability.


On Wed, 29 Jan 2003, Chris wrote:

> >The upshot is that the war is undertaken primarily out of ideological
> >considerations - it is about the defense of the leading US position
> >globally.  Both the means of this policy (projection of military power)
> >and its ultimate aim bespeak the fundamental weakness of the US position.
> >
> >This is not to say that economic (i.e. oil) and geostrategic (i.e. Israel)
> >concerns are irrelevant to the adoption of the current course - the
> >background of the major players in this administration's security and
> >foreign policy teams make it impossible to argue otherwise.
>
> I think this would be a classic case of "overdetermination". The
> necessary task is the assertion of US global dominance, OK. However,
> there are a lot of places that could serve that purpose. Afghanistan
> did quite well. Libya would work. Cuba. Iran. North Korea. Syria.
> Colombia (FARC). Somalia. However, Iraq has the distinct advantages
> of (1) massive oil reserves (2) proximity to Israel (3) no close
> allies, or neighbours that would strongly object to its invasion (4)
> an already decimated economy and military (5) a history of hostility
> to the US, including a culturally "pre-demonized" face and
> (importantly) an image of being a credible military threat (6) being
> previously defeated, but with "unfinished business" - amongst other
> factors. It will be noted that I think that "path dependency" plays a
> definite role here. In any case, the point is that there are multiple
> reasons that all lead to the same target - a greater density of
> reasons than any current alternative.
>
> On a strict "king of the castle" logic, beating a country like Iran
> or North Korea - which could offer much more credible resistance -
> would actually be *more* effective. But they are not so
> overdetermined. Indeed, the fact that they could *actually* offer
> credible resistance, rather than just the image of it, is most likely
> a drawback. Which just goes to support the conclusion that current
> bluster, however deadly, is more a sign of weakness than of strength.
>
> Chris
>
>

-- 
Boris Stremlin
bstremli@binghamton.edu