Remember when Pat Buchanan tried to warn us about going to Iraq?
In 2002 I asked Buchanan and professional neocon Frank Gaffney what would happen when we went to war in Iraq. The great paleo-conservative predicted it'd blow up the Middle East and he was right.
Aug. 3, 2002
Sizing up Saddam's threat
Pat Buchanan will go down in history for a lot of good and bad things he did and said. But there’s no doubt he was absolutely right in 2002 about the foolishness of the neocons in Washington pushing to go to war with Iraq. Like the wise French, who also tried to warn that we were about to do something really stupid, Buchanan foresaw the geopolitical trouble invading Iraq would cause for the USA and the Middle East.
Q: What's the real reason the United States is going after Saddam? People say it's his links to al-Qaida. It's oil. It's to finish the job from the Gulf War. He's a threat to his neighbors …
Buchanan: I think what's behind it all is that there is a new imperialism that informs the mind-set of many neoconservatives in Washington, and some in the administration, that the United States is now the new Rome, and that it is within our rights to launch pre-emptive strikes to overrun and destroy any regime that threatens America's will anywhere in the world.
I think this mind-set, this hubris, is going to lead the United States into deep, deep trouble.
Q&A: Sizing up Saddam’s Threat
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
August 3, 2002
Based on the noise from Washington and talk-show land this week, it's no longer a question of whether the United States will use military force to remove Saddam Hussein from his evil dictator's perch in Iraq. It's merely a matter of when and how best to do it.
No one is feeling sorry for Saddam or wishing him a long reign. But there are still a few dissenters — even among Republicans — who don't agree with President Bush and national security experts like Frank Gaffney Jr. that it's a good idea to go to war again in the Gulf.
One highly visible dissenter is Pat Buchanan, a Trib columnist and co-host of “Buchanan and Press" (daily on MSNBC at 2 p.m.). He and Gaffney, a Pittsburgh native and president of the Center for Security Policy, agree on little except that Saddam is a thug and that the shooting will start in early 2003.
I asked both of them the same questions.
Q: Is war with Iraq inevitable?
A: Gaffney: Yes.
Buchanan: I think the president of the United States has painted himself into a corner by saying that there will be regime change in Baghdad. I think the president would have difficulty surviving politically if he pulls back from his pledge to overthrow the regime in Iraq. So war may very well be inevitable.
Q: Should war be inevitable?
A: Gaffney: No, it shouldn't be inevitable. If the Iraqi people could get rid of Saddam Hussein by themselves, it could be avoided and certainly it's desirable to have it be avoided. Unfortunately, they can't, which makes it inevitable, because he will attack us, I am confident, if we don't dispose of him first.
Buchanan: No, it should not. It never should. The United States has successfully contained and deterred Saddam Hussein. He has never attacked this country. He has never used a weapon of mass destruction on this country or its forces, because he is terrified of the consequences, which he knows would be the end of him, his family, his dynasty, his army, and his country and his palaces and everything else connected with him.
The man is a dictator and a thug and a political criminal of the first order. But he does not have the kidney of a suicide bomber. This guy wants to leave a legacy. And he knows if you commit an act of war against this country, it's all over for him.
I don't think war should be inevitable. I believe he can be contained and I don't believe the case has been made why we have to send a quarter of a million guys up to Baghdad to occupy that Islamic and Arab capital for the next five years.
Q: What's the best argument you can make for going to war against Iraq?
A: Gaffney: The best argument I can make is the one the president of the United States has found compelling, which is that this is a ruthless, megalomaniacal despot, bent on revenge, equipped with weapons of mass destruction, and willing to make common cause with terrorists and terrorist-sponsoring nations around the world with a view to expanding his own influence and damaging us. And the combination of those things makes the damage that he could inflict intolerably high.
Q: … for not going to war against Iraq?
A: Buchanan: The best argument is that with what's going on in Afghanistan and Pakistan and the West Bank, an invasion by the United States of Iraq could ignite the war of civilizations that it is in the vital interest of the United States to avoid.
We have, in my judgment, almost nothing to gain and an immense amount to lose, including our position all across the Arab and Islamic world. There is the real possibility that when we take down Saddam Hussein, other dominoes will fall and they will be the pro-American Arab regimes in the region.
Q: Is there anything that would make you change your mind?
A: Gaffney: Well, if Saddam were removed and the ruling clique that has supported him were replaced with people who will allow the Iraqi citizenry to live in peace and do the same for us. But that's a change in circumstances, not something that entails a change in philosophy on my part. As long as those conditions haven't been satisfied, war is inevitable because I think he will go to war with us.
He wants revenge on the United States and what he has been working toward is the ability to exact that revenge in a truly devastating fashion. My fear is that that day is approaching and he will do it if he is given the opportunity to. And the only way to prevent him from getting the opportunity to, sooner of later — if we're lucky, it's later — is to have him removed from power.
It's not just a case of having him removed in favor of some no-less ruthless thug who has supported him. This really is a regime change, in the sense of changing the character of the regime as well as its personalities.
Buchanan: If I found out that Saddam Hussein had a crash program to build atomic weapons and was fairly close to achieving that capability, I would support American airstrikes, too, and even ground assaults to destroy that capability.
Q: What's the real reason the United States is going after Saddam? People say it's his links to al-Qaida. It's oil. It's to finish the job from the Gulf War. He's a threat to his neighbors …
A: Gaffney: Well, it's the same one I gave you a moment ago. I think Saddam is a guy who is bent on revenge against the United States, is acquiring the means to exact it in a devastating fashion, and it behooves us to put him out of business before he's able to effect that revenge on us.
You could describe that as unfinished business. It certainly is the result of him being left in power, which I think was a catastrophic mistake, certainly for the Iraqi people and us as well.
Buchanan: I think what's behind it all is that there is a new imperialism that informs the mind-set of many neoconservatives in Washington, and some in the administration, that the United States is now the new Rome, and that it is within our rights to launch pre-emptive strikes to overrun and destroy any regime that threatens America's will anywhere in the world.
I think this mind-set, this hubris, is going to lead the United States into deep, deep trouble.
Q: Let's say we attack Iraq, kill or capture Saddam, what will likely happen in the short run over there?
A: Gaffney: I think it will have a very salutary effect on not only Iraq but the region. It will help catalyze the revolution in Iran that will dispatch the Islamist theocrats. It will add considerably to the pressure on Saudi Arabia to reform, as the monopoly that the Saudis have had lo these many years on the position of being the West's best friend in the Persian Gulf, and certainly the richest friend in the Persian Gulf, will go by the boards.
That will allow us greater latitude in dealing with a very serious problem in Saudi Arabia — namely, the Wahhabists. It also will potentially give rise to opportunities for democracy there that might make the region a considerably safer place for us, our interests and our allies' economic equities.
Now, it could go wrong. I don't want to sound Pollyannaish about this. There are possibilities that we won't do what we need to do. That Iraqi enemies of freedom will keep Iraq in turmoil, and will fight every effort to bring the place into the 20th century, and so on. Or the country could split apart and turn into a huge destabilizing mess for the rest of the region.
That's a possibility. It can't be precluded. Nobody should go into a war thinking it can only work out really well. Wars, like most things, have unintended circumstances. But I think in this circumstance, we have the ability to determine how it comes out.
Buchanan: There's all manner of things that could happen. Those who advocate the invasion say Iraq will embrace democracy and it will be infectious and in Iran the people will overthrow the mullahs and the United States will do with Iraq and Iran what we did with Germany and Japan — democratize them and make them allies and friends in the region. Now that's one possibility. That's the cakewalk theory — that we're going to walk right in.
There's another possibility that the United States is going to find itself with a gigantic West Bank, with a need to enter nation-building at enormous cost. And that Americans will find themselves shot in the back, just like Israeli soldiers and settlers on the West Bank. And that one or another of the regimes in the region that are friendly to the United States and not terribly stable — Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt — could fall.
We could find ourselves in the midst of really an all-out, anti-American, anti-Israeli conflict across that region. What I don't want is to have the United States wind up with one friend in the entire region from Morocco to Indonesia, and that's Ariel Sharon.
Q: What's the worst thing that could happen if we do attack Iraq?
A: Gaffney: I don't care to speculate on which of the outrages Saddam could be capable of perpetrating will be perpetrated. Suffice to say, it could make — if he uses weapons of mass destruction in ways it is entirely possible he could — 9-11 look like a day at the beach by comparison.
Buchanan: The worst thing that could happen is his use of poison gas weapons and we wind up with a guerrilla terrorist war being fought against American occupation troops in the heart of the Arab world.