Iraq - was it Worth It?

With all the difficulties that have surfaced, can the war be justified – was it worth it? Absolutely. Removing Saddam was a moral obligation; the way he abused his subjects is difficult to match in the history of dictators; he breached almost every paragraph in the peace treaty from the first Gulf War; giving in to him or continuing the disastrous embargo would have made the catastrophe permanent. For the coalition, there was also the issue of global security. It is easy to cry failure when a bomb blow in London, but don’t forget the attacks that have been hindered; the terrorists that never made it to our countries because their networks were smashed and the fanatic warriors imprisoned. At least for the U.S. that hasn’t seen an attack on its ground, moving the theatre of war to Mesopotamia was a good idea. Unfortunately for the Iraqi’s, that’s where the Jihadists are gathering these days. The advantage for the anti-terrorist fighters is that the Jihadists are forced into a war and it isn’t as easy for them to meet fully equipped troops as to sneak explosives into a shopping mall with unsuspecting civilians. And no, the issue of WMD was never a crucial issue. It become an important argument in the effort to convince the U.N., but it was enough that the possibility of WMD’s in Iraq existed, the threat of it and Iraq’s resistance to account for what it had done with the recorded stacks of for example biological agents were enough to motivate intervention; Saddam’s cooperation would have made the difference. For the aftermath, the failure to secure the country is as obvious as the good things coming out from Iraq. Had the U.N. chosen to enforce its own declarations and demand that the first Gulf War peace treaty was honored, they would have given legitimacy to the conflict that would have erased any contra-clams of legitimacy that the insurgents are using today – and too many people in the Arab world are heralding. It was obvious where we were heading; everybody knew the invasion would not be stopped by the U.N.’s withdrawal; the options were to let the coalition led by ‘the Great Satan’ go alone, or make it a united effort of the world. Lives would have been saved if the U.N. had opted to take its responsibility.

Let us not forget that the only people who have the right to say if it was worth it or not is the Iraqi people. The rest of us are simply standing on the side and our discussion is academic at best. It is certainly not up to the Egyptian people to produce a verdict; if suspicions of tainted interests are to be raised, this nation and its leaders should stand first in the queue of the examination board. This is why no one really bothered to listen to Egypt before the war and can only pretend to be interested now. Despite rhetoric allusions to Arab solidarity there were no solidarity with the Iraqi people under Saddam. Most people in this country had not even heard of his mass-killings, systematic torture and use of chemical weapons. Most thought he wasn’t too bad. And if they could live with Mubarak, why couldn’t the Iraqi’s put up with Saddam? Most intellectuals who had heard about the evils and should know better, chose not to believe it; blamed it on the conspiracy or simply ignored it. After the ousting of Saddam, the willingness to help – for example by securing one area of one city – is non-existent as well. The sad fact is that most people are waiting for an even larger disaster, simply for the opportunity to glee and say ‘we told you so.’ As for what the Iraqi people think, the answer was given in the last elections and will be stated again next time they’re off to the polling stations.