{"id":2666,"date":"2002-08-06T18:36:00","date_gmt":"2002-08-06T18:36:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/staging.armedliberal.com\/?p=211"},"modified":"2002-08-06T18:36:00","modified_gmt":"2002-08-06T18:36:00","slug":"iraq-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/?p=2666","title":{"rendered":"IRAQ"},"content":{"rendered":"

Unqualified Offerings<\/a> sets out arguments for waiting on Iraq:<\/p>\n

Deterrence requires two components:
\n1) A sure penalty for noncompliance.
\n2) A clear benefit to compliance.
\nUS policy toward Iraq has lacked factor 2 for a decade. Current, stated policy is
\n1) If Saddam uses, acquires or conceals weapons of mass destruction, he dies.
\n2) If Saddam foreswears use, acquisition and concealment of weapons of mass destruction, he dies.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Um, guys, while that\u0092s a nice trope, this isn\u0092t how 4th Generation warfare works. Saddam gets the maximum benefit from lying about his activities. It\u0092s more like this:
\n\u0093Wow!! Bummer about Tel Aviv!! Who would be crazy enough to smuggle a nuke in there? Wasn\u0092t us, promise!! No, really!!\u0094<\/i>
\nWhile the tame game theory model suggests that he and others can be managed successfully through boundary and consequence-setting, the only thing that might work would be something Godfather-like:
\nIf anything bad happens to me; if I catch a cold and go to the hospital; if I get hit by a car while rollerblading drunk; you will die. You are now the guarantor of my wellbeing.<\/i>
\nAnd of course, if something bad did happen, there would be many people who would say: “With no apparent thought given to the thousands of casualties on both sides, de-stabilization of the entire Middle East, loss of just about every ally we have except maybe Britain – well, the whole thing is quite mad. Adventurism at it’s worst, cynically done, at least in part, as a desperate ploy to aid Bush & Co. in the midterm elections.”<\/a> (from Bob Morris)
\nPersonally, I lean toward doing something, and doing it now. It will destabilize the Middle East, but the reality is that the Middle East is going to get destabilized soon by demographics, resources, poverty, and most of all by a virulent and murderous culture that is growing there unchecked.
\nI have three reasons for wanting to get it over with; they are eighteen, fifteen, and five years old. I want to buy some time for them, and some space to try and come to any humanly sustainable resolution, and we simply can\u0092t do it in the face of an increasingly belligerent (the proof is just inland from Battery Park) culture that will only be richer, better trained, and better armed tomorrow.
\nI\u0092m still looking for an alternative path. But I don\u0092t see one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Unqualified Offerings sets out arguments for waiting on Iraq: Deterrence requires two components: 1) A sure penalty for noncompliance. 2) A clear benefit to compliance. US policy toward Iraq has lacked factor 2 for a decade. Current, stated policy is 1) If Saddam uses, acquires or conceals weapons of mass destruction, he dies. 2) If […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2666"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2666"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2666\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}