A Tale of Two Wars

Title War of Necessity, War of Choice: A Memoir of Two Iraq Wars

Author Richard N. Haass

Publisher Simon & Schuster

Year 2009

Pages 336 pp.

Price $27.00

Letter to the Editor

The Necessary and the Chosen

Richard N. Haass

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This admirably frank admission is pertinent to the key distinction that Haass emphasizes and that he uses as the title of his book. As he puts it, a war of necessity (the first Iraq war) is one in which the United States reacts to external actions of other states and goes to war when it is judged that those actions threaten vital U.S. interests. A war of choice, in contrast, is one in which the United States seeks to alter the character of other states and justifies going to war with ambitious ideological and moral goals.

CHOICE AND NECESSITY

Herein lies the problem: any decision to go to war, unless it is in response to an attack on one's state, is the consequence of a judgment regarding the definition of "necessity" made in reaction to some ominous foreign event. Haass strongly supported the first war (because of the "necessity" resulting from Saddam's invasion of Kuwait) and did not oppose the second one (because of the threat allegedly posed by the weapons of mass destruction, which Haass initially believed Saddam actually had). Hence, in Haass' terminology, at that point in his thinking, both wars were driven less by choice than by perceived necessity.

Until the outcome of a war becomes known, the difference between necessity and choice is rather ambiguous. Short of a war imposed on the United States by a direct attack, policymakers always have to make a contingent judgment (a choice) whether to initiate military action. How they go about making that decision is therefore absolutely critical, and their intellectual and personal biases, as well as their ideological predispositions, influence their judgment.

Obviously, the less emotion there is in the process and the more reasoning applied to it, the better the outcome. A systematic weighing of options, deliberative analysis, and a careful examination of intelligence (including a sensitivity to what is not known or is uncertain) -- not to mention a rigorous appraisal of the likely costs and international consequences of a decision to go to war -- are all needed. Last but not least, a decision to go to war has to involve clarity in the definition of that war's aims: the ideologically ambitious aims of the second Iraq war, in contrast with the limited geopolitical ones of the first, proved to have catastrophic consequences.

Once a war's outcome is known, the difference between necessity and choice is brutally simple. The ex post facto verdict of history is inevitably derived from a simple maxim: nothing fails like failure, and nothing succeeds like success. Had the second Iraq war not only involved a quick military triumph but also been followed by the prompt emergence of a stable Iraqi democracy -- with the "liberated" Iraqis gratefully embracing the American soldiers and eschewing the anti-American insurgency -- the war in all likelihood would have been retroactively viewed as a justified necessity even if not a single weapon of mass destruction had been found. Conversely, if the first Iraq war had produced a prolonged insurgency in Iraq, preventing U.S. disengagement, drawing the United States into a five-year-long campaign of pacification, and provoking regional unrest, the liberation of Kuwait would certainly have been viewed retroactively as a misguided strategic choice. (Of course, the fact that neither of the above counterfactual outcomes actually did occur reinforces the presumption that the critical difference between the two wars was the degree to which the respective decision-making processes were based on deliberative rationality and critically tested realism.)

It is now evident that in the case of the second war, the national shock induced by 9/11 -- abetted (for whatever reason) by a campaign to stimulate public fear, fueled by demagogic and undiscriminating language about "Islamofascists," "jihadists," and "Muslim terrorism," not to mention apocalyptic references to "mushroom clouds" and "World War III" -- created a toxic atmosphere. A democratic society was stampeded into endorsing (note the large number of Democratic senators who de facto voted for war) what initially only a few top decision-makers ardently desired. The president himself, as the national cheerleader, at one point even discussed with British Prime Minister Tony Blair the possibility of generating a casus belli for a war that he fervently believed was necessary.

THE ROAD FROM BAGHDAD

Haass' reflections give rise also to broader questions regarding the performance of the United States during the last several decades in shaping the geopolitics of the Middle East, especially with regard to the tragic Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The outcome of the first Iraq war could have been the point of departure for a more decisive and constructive U.S. policy regarding this troubled region. Coinciding with the fall of the Soviet Union, it stamped the United States as the winner in the prolonged but peacefully concluded global geopolitical and ideological conflict. The United States stood tall, basking in global admiration.

As Haass notes, there were signs at the time that the first President Bush was ready to assert U.S. leadership in order to end the historically bitter and regionally radicalizing Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The 1991 Madrid peace conference was the first tangible fruit of his evident determination. The United States pressured the Palestine Liberation Organization to moderate its stand regarding Israel's existence, and at the same time, Bush voiced strong objections to Israel's continued construction of settlements on Palestinian lands. His secretary of state, Baker, in a major statement to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (known as AIPAC), had earlier urged Israel "to lay aside, once and for all, the unrealistic vision of a greater Israel." (The speech was drafted by Haass, along with Dennis Ross and Daniel Kurtzer.)