Centerfield

Volokh Challenge

Orin Kerr at the Volokh Conspiracy is inviting the blogosphere to give their take on Iraq pursuant to three questions they pose. I'm game:

First, assuming that you were in favor of the invasion of Iraq at the time of the invasion, do you believe today that the invasion of Iraq was a good idea? Why/why not?

Second, what reaction do you have to the not-very-upbeat news coming of Iraq these days, such as the stories I link to above?

Third, what specific criteria do you recommend that we should use over the coming months and years to measure whether the Iraq invasion has been a success?

Everyone is welcome to have a crack. if you want to do so, email Kerr. Or do your own post. That way we can avoid re-fighting once again all these ideas in one blog post. My answers are in the extended entry part so as not to hog the floor. I'd like to reserve the comments for responses immediately pursuant to what I say here, insofar as that is possible. I know many of you think it's not. Still.

First, assuming that you were in favor of the invasion of Iraq at the time of the invasion, do you believe today that the invasion of Iraq was a good idea? Why/why not?

First, to answer: My take is that Bush's decision was a big gamble, and that gambles are percentage plays, based on subjective judgements in this case. A gamble is a good one if you win. I support the gamble now because I REALLY don't want to lose. The outcome now is much more important than the decision, because all options were gambles.

I wasn't in favor of pursuing this course agressively both because I suspected Iraq was less of a top threat than they were being characterized as, and because I felt the prospects for success were pretty low even with a united international effort. ANY nation-building effort in the middle east was always going to be a long uncertain uphill climb, especially an effort to build a democratic nation from fractious muslims unused to and unconvinced of the merits of modern democratic ideals. The President was in a position where he had to decide whether there was greater risk to trying to do it anyway, or greater risk if we instead chose to stay out and try to effect change through negotiation. His decision was to try nation-building despite his doubts, and to go about it by signalling to the world how very serious we were by moving quickly and agressively.

I think it's fair to say that the measured, proportionate response that careful moderate people can be relied upon to advocate was judged in this instance by Bush to be inadequate for the circumstances. In my view, this is an arguable but very defensible way to have gone.

And I think it's important when discussing it to realize that the decisionmaker did not have the benefit of the hindsight that critics often rely on to make their case that the decision was obviously wrong. When I take that into account, I am inclined to give the President substantial benefit of the doubt. Especially if I don't go on to assume facts not in evidence, like the charge that we were all misled deliberately.

Second, what reaction do you have to the not-very-upbeat news coming of Iraq these days, such as the stories I link to above?

My take continues to be that it's extremely hard to get a handle on the situation in its entirety. Violence seems to be up, but we don't know for sure if it's a trend, whether it can be sustained, or whether instead if it's a stepped up effort reflecting a strategy to destabilize Iraq before it's too late. Recognizing this, I think we still need to keep a united front committed to giving democracy in Iraq its best chance, unless we are absolutely certain the game is up.

Third, what specific criteria do you recommend that we should use over the coming months and years to measure whether the Iraq invasion has been a success?

I continue to assume that our true goal is to establish an independent democratic Iraq and not terrorist flypaper. My sense is that the possibility of success in Iraq rests in very large part of continued pragmatic tolerance of our presence by a majority of Iraqis. So we need to keep a close eye on that. To sustain pragmatic tolerance, we need to provide security, basic needs, predictability and opportunity. If we fail, the Iraqis will tell us. And we need to see how elections go, how infrastructure is rebuilt, how commerce grows, and so on. Notice that the things I am talking about are the same things that politicians here argue and worry about: public opinion, violence, the economy, jobs, consumer confidence, gov't responsiveness to the peoples needs and feelings.

Posted by Brian Keegan at September 28, 2004 01:01 PM