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Mission Accomplished: Why Bush Already Has Won the War in Iraq

There’s only one question that seems to resonate among voters in regard to Bush and his opinion of foreign affairs. Why did we ever invade Iraq if our assertions about the need to preemptively attack were false? The answer to this question is that the Iraq War lies at the intersection of George W. Bush’s beliefs about domestic and international policy. No matter how history would have turned out, “Dubya” only had one goal in mind. In short, everything revolves around reducing the size of government. Governments exist by taking money from their citizens; the more one perceives the government taking away and not giving back, the more sympathetic a person will be to this reasoning.
However, taxes in general do not come into existence because of a regime’s desire to have social programs or protections. No, the income tax always is tied to the development and need for a standing army (as opposed to a militia system). The implication seems to be, if so, then a war would cause taxes to rise and not to fall. But consider the situation George W. Bush faced in 2000, taxes were not particularly high, but revenues had been buoyed by an artificial stock market bubble. Bush suggested that tax cuts were a viable option, since given the surplus created the US government could afford it.
This is not the most effective way to shrink the size of government. The most effective way to reduce the size of government is to run a deficit. The reason for this is that, when the deficit overshadows yearly shortfalls and becomes too large, politicians find it hard to suggest taxes be raised only to combat the problem…most are stuck reducing the size of government in part, and increasing the tax burden in other places. Still, even this compromise strategy means that eventually the government becomes far smaller than it was before.
As a result, the next concern Bush had was how to raise spending but still be able to argue for the need to have government shrink overall. While a war is not the only way to achieve it, it is effective, and therefore it was obvious that when Condoleezza Rice (now Bush’s National Security Advisor) wrote in 2000 about the need to “confront evil in the world” that there was some planned confrontation. So why was Iraq chosen as the location for this war?
Three answers. 1) Saddam Hussein’s regime was already on thin ice with the United Nations. Military warplanes bombed Saddam Hussein for violating the UN non fly-zone splitting up his own nation. He had already rejected the overtures of UN weapon inspectors, so it seemed that popular opinion outside and inside the US would tilt toward a quick and speedy removal. 2) America’s largest allies, the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, and Israel all sought the destruction of the Hussein dictatorship. Britain due to oil concerns in Kuwait and the Gulf, Israel because of Hussein’s generous support to groups like Hamas. Saudi Arabia had a multitude of concerns: Hussein’s willingness to attack them, their reliance on American troops to protect their shaky regime, and the unrest that the American military presence brought. 3) After Pakistan confirmed its ability to detonate a nuclear weapon in 1999, General Pervez Musharraf staged a military coup. Suddenly, there was great uncertainty if Russian nuclear material had been the source of the Pakistan’s arms, and if so, where else had it wound up.
Nevertheless, the existence of this uncertainty could mean that any country ruled by a less-than-revealing group of people could be due for an invasion. Politicians prefer the known quantity however, and that meant of the places likely to qualify for an invasion, Iraq would be the only politically safe choice.
Most people then are curious to know where the “War on Terrorism” fits into this strategy. It never did, because terrorism was largely an unknown concept in the United States. The President utilized terrorism to create the illusion of a cold war of sorts. Everything on the international stage is drawn on this canvas of combating terrorism. The danger with this is that Bush had to make a credible argument why his opponent in Saddam Hussein is related to terrorism. He chose two false assumptions, that Iraq would give nuclear weapons to groups like Al Qaeda, and that Iraq aided Al Qaeda in previous terror attacks. Nevertheless, his original goal of creating deficits has been a success. No matter what happens military, this why Bush believes it is “Mission Accomplished”.

posted by Thomas at 10:20 PM 0 comments