Robin Hood Imperialism
(written by Lancelot Finn, October 2002)
I don’t stay awake nights worrying about when Saddam will nuke New York. Sure, dictators can be irrational, etc., but if a 40-year battles of nerves with the Soviets didn’t end in nuclear holocaust, I’m pretty confident that the much more unequal standoff with Saddam wouldn’t. Even if he does get a nuke, it won’t worry me a whole lot. You have to keep it in perspective. A nuke in New York would destroy far less human life than AIDS in Africa, which most people don’t seem to lose sleep over.
And the “pre-emption doctrine” seems to me completely unfeasible. It’s bad enough when supposedly peaceful countries create large militaries for defense against their supposedly peaceful neighbors—and end up in World War I, with millions dead and no one knowing for sure who started it. Pre-emption is worse—in principle, it seems to imply speedy progress towards war of all against all. Think in terms of Kant’s categorical imperative, which says that a moral person lives by rules he wants others to live by. If we “pre-empt” another country because (we suspect) it has (or may acquire) the wherewithal to attack us, we obviously have the wherewithal to attack them. Does Iraq have the right to “pre-empt” our attack? How about China?
On the other hand, the idea of regime change in Iraq is like a Christmas present. Imagine—22 million people free from the tyranny of Saddam, free, better yet, from the strangulation of the UN sanctions. Imagine—US occupation and reconstruction of the largest Arab country after Egypt, the Iraqi opposition-in-exile returning to try their luck in new elections, oil flowing again, and oil revenues flowing back to buy food, medicines, to build schools. Imagine—Iraq could follow the path of Germany and Japan, from totalitarian to democratic under American tutelage; and set an example to the only region of the world where (except for Israel) democracy is not even on the roll call.
I think about it as an application of the Golden Rule. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. If I were an Iraqi, trapped under Saddam, fearing to speak my mind, maybe seeing one of my kids starve because of the sanctions, I would sure want America to come and change my regime—even if I got killed, that would be a small price to pay to know my friends, relatives, children would get their freedom. If America is someday ruled by a tyrant like Saddam, and Iraq has the equipment to take him out, I hope they bomb us. It’s as simple as that.
Well, not quite as simple, perhaps. Yes, you want to ask what comes after Saddam—though there’s not much place to go but up after his tyranny. Yes, there will be collateral damage—though the UN sanctions have resulted in tens or hundreds of thousands of deaths while leaving the country in bondage, you can’t do much worse than that.
But what about international law? Even some who are entertaining the idea of war in Iraq, such as French President Jacques Chirac, argue that “there are rules,” that the US can’t be allowed to just run amok and take out anybody it wants. The appeal to international law is usually made in reverent tones, an appeal to a higher moral authority. It’s like Gulliver and the Lilliputians. The US is so much bigger than anyone else that in practical terms there’s not much they can do to stop us, but they try to use the threads and needles of treaties and resolutions and inspections to neutralize our military strength and tie us safely to the ground.
The term “international law” implies some sort of world constitution. Is there such a constitution? Nobody in Texas has heard of it, certainly. But we can say by now that there is a world constitution, based on treaties, conventions, laws, comprised in organizations like the WTO and the World Bank, but above all in the UN. The due processes of this world constitution were on display, for example, when “peacekeeping” forces were sent to free East Timor from Indonesia.
So there is a world constitution of sorts, and what’s more, it’s a pretty lousy one. Take the General Assembly: it is admirably “democratic,” one-country-one-vote, whether that country has a billion or a million. Petty dictators have as many votes as the Western democracies. But then, maybe this is all right since the General Assembly is pretty powerless. More important is the Security Council, which has the opposite problem: in a concession to the realpolitik of long ago, the US, France, Russia, Britain and China sit permanently on the Council and wield mighty vetoes over all its actions. It is in these vetoes that Saddam Hussein hopes for salvation. The UN has very strict rules against inter-state aggression but none about how states may treat their own people. So while the world constitution has a “democratic,” or at least consultative, skin, its core is Hobbesian. Whoever takes power may keep it, even if he is a genocidal (though, admittedly, only on occasion) tyrant like Saddam Hussein. If no one manages to, you can no longer import order from your neighbors by being conquered: instead, enter the failed state, where life is nasty, brutish and short. Don’t forget human rights conventions, either—they allow free countries to preen themselves on their virtue, while obligating dictators (who, in Julius Caesar’s day, used to be fairly honest) to engage in more hypocrisy. Enforcement seems not to be the point: many human rights groups opposed even the war in world-champion human-rights-abuser Afghanistan, and hardly any signatories of human rights conventions back a war against Iraq, the best hope of Iraqis gaining the rights to free speech and the vote.
Coming from the plains of Texas, as a man uncorrupted by intellectual subtlety, you can understand why Bush has troubled grasping why exactly this “international community” is seen as a source of higher moral authority.
The US, even now, a privileged role in this order, being its founder and the natural “leader of the free world.” The world is a bit like sixteenth-century England, with America as the king (e.g. Henry VIII) and the rest of the world as parliament: while a friendly parliament (or UN) is useful to the king (America), the king has most of the initiative.
At the same time, the US has moved into a sort of loyal opposition, and now that opposition is turning to revolt. The issue of Iraq is about more than WMDs, it is about the “international community,” which in principle sees all states as in a sense equal. Bush certainly does not intend to let his “pre-emption doctrine” be generalized. Perhaps occasional local applications of the doctrine by Russia, for example, might be tolerated, but the US is claiming the right to apply this globally for itself alone. Such privilege is by no means incommensurate with the US’s military power. But what of “international law?” It is hard to know how it would be perceived, but in principle unilateral action in Iraq would make the US an outlaw on the world stage. On the other hand, millions might get freedom and a brighter future.
So should the US play Robin Hood, freeing millions of people from a tyrant at the expense of being an outlaw against the (rotten) world order, dreaming of a better world, but risking a worse one? An older, wiser man might doubt. But in the ardor, the idealism of youth, I confess that I can’t resist hoping for an adventure in Robin Hood imperialism.