Well, here it is, my much "hyped" essay. I got an "A" on it in my international relations class. I will toot my horn: I ROCK! Or is it, I-RACK? Anyway, without further ado, the essay...
Iraq: Through The “Realist” Lens
By David Stupplebeen
Written on 29 September, 2004
In 2003, the United States made the decision to invade Iraq and overthrow its leader, Saddam Hussein. The question that we should be asking is, “By which method were these decisions made?” Analyzing the Iraq war through a “realist” lens gives us an opportunity to determine whether conflict will result with the desired effect. The “realist” lens, as defined by our text, adheres to four main tenets. First, securing our own country’s interest. Second, neither waste power on peripheral goals nor pursue goals that you do not have the power to achieve. Third, countries should practice power of balance politics; and fourth, the best way to maintain peace is to be powerful (Rourke, 2003). Sadly, the Iraq War does not meet these four criteria of “realism,” even though the Bush Administration would have the American public believe this were otherwise.
The first tenet of realism cites that we must secure our country’s best interests (Rourke, 2003). However, have we really secured our country’s best interests by invading Iraq? Two of these interests may very well be spreading democracy or securing stable energy supplies (Zizek, 2004). Although the Bush administration claims the first goal as the main objective, the second is equally plausible. The question, however, is at what cost?
According to a report from the Army War College, we “have stressed the U.S. Army to the breaking point” (Fallows, 2004). Wouldn’t dealing with Iran’s possible nuclear capability and North Korea’s definite nuclear capability be in the better interest of the United States? Secondly, although we are now in quasi-control of the second largest oil reserves of the world, we have yet to totally gain control of these oil fields. Even as recently as 16 September, saboteurs had attacked Iraq’s oil pipelines. This most recent attack had shut down pipelines in Kirkuk, and shut down electricity to much of the country (BBC, 14 Sept 2004).
These examples are not yet the worst of problems when looking at Iraq from a realist perspective. The second tenet, neither waste power on peripheral goals nor pursue goals that you do not have the power to achieve (Rourke, 2003), is only too apparent. The main goal that the Bush Administration now cites as its reason to invade Iraq is to “spread democracy.” While this goal seems nice, and will presumably provide the United States with another “friendly” partner in the Middle East, it couldn’t be further from reality.
Eric Hobsbawm describes the idea of spreading democracy as “not merely quixotic—it is dangerous.” According to Hobsbawm, “the campaign to spread democracy will not succeed.” He further qualifies this statement by using the examples of Northern Ireland, Czechoslovakia and Sri Lanka. “Without consensus,” he states, “there is no single sovereign people and therefore no legitimacy for arithmetical majorities.” In Northern Ireland, this lack of consensus was religious, with Czechoslovakia it was ethnic, and with Sri Lanka, it was both (2004). We can further this train of thought and apply it to Iraq, where we have both religious and ethnic differences. The racial aspect could be characterized as a Kurdish separatist state in the north (Osman, 2003), or a nation divided along the two predominant sects of Islam, Sunni and Shiite (Plett, 2004).
The third tenet of realism requires that countries practice balance of power politics. Unfortunately, this is not the case with Iraq. Previously, the balance of power in the Middle East was skewed with Israel’s acquisition of nuclear weaponry. Now, this polarization is even more deeply skewed with the United States being in the region, and in the middle geographically, between Israel and Iran.
Iran has now further refused inspections of uranium enrichment facilities by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The United States and Israel both accuse Iran of using this enrichment for the production of nuclear weapons. The United States has now reportedly shipped 500 “bunker busting” bombs to Israel for the purpose of destroying facilities, presumably nuclear facilities, in Iran. To further this conflict, Iran has now approved a “strategic missile” (BBC, 21, 23, 25 Sept 2004). It is possible to link the possibility that Iran is “defending” its interests by building a nuclear weapon to the United States’ presence in the Middle East. With the advent of Iran’s nuclear capability, we could have a multi-polar system, and one that could be heavily skewed. While continuing problems in Iraq could compromise U.S. military capability, Israel could easily launch an attack against Iran through Iraq (and presumably “friendly” airspace). The military pole would heavily weigh in the U.S.-Israeli favor. But, this could lead to further fractionalization on the ground in Iraq, not to mention religious unrest in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan—all three nations with vested U.S. interest—when those countries examine the U.S.-Israel relationship.
The fourth and final tenet of realism, to maintain peace is to be powerful, is a misnomer in this particular war. In the beginning of the Iraq War, Americans, and for that matter, the rest of the world, watched the U.S. troops roll into Baghdad and crush the Saddam Regime. From there, our president claimed “mission accomplished,” while landing on the deck of an aircraft carrier. Unfortunately, this show of power has not garnered us peace.
Even as recently as this past week, conservative columnist Robert Novak claimed that a quick exit strategy was likely. According to a Novak column, “This determination [to leave Iraq] is not predicated on success in implanting Iraqi democracy and internal stability.” He continues, “Rather, the officials are saying: Ready or not, here we go” (2004). This only begs the question as to what power this war demonstrated, and if we go into sovereign nations at will, remove their leaders at will, wouldn’t other countries such as Iran be justified in building nuclear weapons?
Unfortunately, the quagmire that is Iraq is a swamp from which a “normal” U.S. foreign policy may never emerge. The problems that we have caused, not just to ourselves as a nation, or to the people of a region on the other side of the world, or to the world itself, may now be beyond repair. Even this week, the dire specter of civil war in Iraq came to a head in a CIA report (Hendawi, 2004). Further, it has been shown this week that intelligence given our president two months prior to the invasion outlined the troubles the U.S. is having there currently in an almost clairvoyant fashion (Jehl & Sanger, 2004).
Although hindsight is always perfect, if the powers that be had looked at the options before them through a realist lens, they could have seen, perhaps, a little into the future, and perhaps had avoided the Iraq War to begin with. Now with the danger of Iraq slipping into civil war, and the possibility of regional warfare, the Bush administration must act quickly to improve the situation in Iraq. However, this opportunity may have already slipped away.
_____________
BIBLIOGRAPHY
BBC News. (2004 Sept 25). Iran approves ‘strategic missile’. Retrieved September 26, 2004, from http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/middle_east/3689680.stm
BBC News. (2004 Sept 21). Iran converting nuclear material. Retrieved September 26, 2004, from http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/middle_east/3676008.stm
BBC News. (2004 Sept 23). Iran warns Israel against strike. Retrieved September 26, 2004, from http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/middle_east/3683074.stm
BBC News. (2004 Sept 14). Saboteurs hit Iraqi electric grid. Retrieved September 26, 2004, from http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/middle_east/3656456.stm
Fallow, James. (2004, March). The Hollow Army. The Atlantic, 29-31.
Hendawi, Hamza. (2004, Sept 21). Possibility of Iraq Civil War Looms Large. Washington Post. Retrieved September 21, 2004 from http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A38593-2004Sept21
Hobsbawm, Eric J. (2004, Sept/Oct). Spreading Democracy. Foreign Policy, 40-41.
Jehl, Douglas & Sanger, David E. (2004, Sept 28). Prewar Assessment on Iraq Saw Chance of Strong Divisions. New York Times Online. Retrieved on September 28, 2004 from http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/28/politics/28intel.html
Novak, Robert. (2004, Sept 20). Quick exit from Iraq is likely. Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved on September 20, 2004 from http://www.suntimes.com/output/novak/cst-edt-novak20.html
Osman, Hiwa. (2003, May 24). Ethnic tension divides Kirkuk. BBC News Online. Retrieved September 26, 2004 from http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/middle_east/2935362.stm
Plett, Barbara. (2004, March 16). Fighting for hearts of Iraq Sunnis. BBC News Online. Retrieved September 26, 2004 from http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/middle_east/3510614.stm
Rourke, John T. (2003). International Politics on the World Stage. USA: McGraw-Hill.
Zizek, Slavoj. (2004 Jan/Feb). Iraq’s False Promises. Foreign Policy, 43-49.
25.10.04
Severe Mistakes
There are four newsworthy items today out on the net, which I just have to write about.
Three are the combination of what could culminate into the "perfect storm" for the Bush Administration to sink on rough seas. The fourth (although written in as "Topic 3") is more about what could become of our nation should we see "Bush, The Second, Part the Second."
The first item is an article from Bloomberg about whether or not you're better off than four years ago. In terms of the administration's constant talk of how tax cuts have helped the American economy, consider the following:
Let's pose this as a personal economic question. Do you get most of your income from wages? If so, then it's likely that a bevy of increases in the cost of living from local taxes to health care negated the positive stimulus of the tax cuts passed during the last four years.
As the article continuously points out, unless you derive most of your income from dividends or stocks, you have kept abreast of inflation (which is currently at an annual rate of 3.6%) since your overall tax cut was 15%.
However, if you are like me, and most of your income is derived from wages, you have seen your paycheck actually diminish at an astonishing rate. First off, consider the question of when you received your last raise. My last raise in wages was in 2000. Where it was nice then, it's paltry now. I've seen my taxes barely go down. Yet, the cost of living in San Francisco continues to climb at a rate where wages are diminished, and to top that off, my medical insurance rates and copay continue to climb at a staggering rate. Cap off this with the fact that natural gas prices have shot up 16%, and you can see why most Americans are not better off.
Now comes the issue of trust, which is the most ridiculous line of argument I have heard from the Bush administration.
I'm to trust you? You who have run our economy into the ground by giving tax cuts to the wealthiest of Americans? You who thinks he has been hand picked by (a) god? I'm sorry, but there is no "trust" here. We are supposed to put our "trust" in a man who ignored the memo handed to him about al-Qaeda plotting to fly planes into various buildings in the United States, whilst wittling wood on his ranch? I don't think so.
Item two: Missing explosives.
Again, rather than covering our butts in Iraq, we covered the oil industry, sending our troops to guard the Oil Ministry. So what does this mean? Irate Iraqis were going to throw filing cabinets at us?
No, the real threat was an insurgency that could have developed, but was entirely ignored by the administration during the planning for the war.
This ignorance was thoroughly outlined in several articles last week by the New York Times. When we should have been thinking about people who hate us, we were imagining people bringing us flowers circa D-Day in 1945.
So now we must worry about 300+ tonnes of explosives, now gone missing in Iraq. And rather than allow the U.N. to come and monitor the situation, we sent in our own team, who paid no mind to the possibility that insurgents could and would take these explosives to attack us and their countrymen.
This evidence shows that the current administration pays no mind to any possibility outside of the realm of what G.W. "knows in his gut." Perplexing, isn't it?
Topic 3: Supreme Cancer
Just to spotlight the issue of the possibility of our Supreme Court becoming a body for pushing the conservative agenda, Chief Justice William Rehnquist entered into hospital for cancer.
Although he is one of the conservatives on the court already, it highlights the fact that whoever is the next president will have a chance to either keep the court tidily split, where you have one swing vote in either direction (for instance, in Texas sodomy law) or one that could go completely conservative and overturn Roe v. Wade.
BONUS TOPIC! Didn't Osama say the same thing?
On Sunday, Rev. Jerry Falwell was on CNN's Late Edition where he was spouting off more non sequiters and slippery slope logic regarding President Bush and terror.
In his argument will Rev. Jesse Jackson, Falwell said (in reference to Rev. Pat Robertson's comments on "zero casualities" in Iraq):
Well, I don't know who to believe, but I know this, that it was certainly, I think, inappropriate for him here with two weeks to go in the election. He's my good friend, just like Jesse is, but he was wrong on that. He shouldn't have said that. And I want to take the president's word on this one. He says he didn't say it. I think there could have been a misunderstanding. I'm not calling anybody a liar. I'm simply saying that this president, talking about the terrorists and the -- how many we've lost, 1,100 soldiers, that's a terrible price.
But when you consider the barbaric act we just uncovered in the last 24 hours, the Iraqi soldiers murdered, they weren't insurgents. They were barbarians who did that. You don't shoot people in the back of the head and kill people, men, women and children.And the president's doing the right thing.
He's looking for them, he's searching them out. He's killing them when he finds them. And that's the only cure for barbarians.
He continues on in his Osama-esque diatribe:
I'm for the president to chase them all over the world. If it takes 10 years, blow them all away in the name of the Lord.
What the hell is this?? It only proves that the religious right is a bad, if not WORSE than the jihadists that are declaring war on Americans since we are "infidels."
Once again, we are in the midst of a religious crusade, where each group points to their religion and appropriate book of faith to justify their atrocities.
Three are the combination of what could culminate into the "perfect storm" for the Bush Administration to sink on rough seas. The fourth (although written in as "Topic 3") is more about what could become of our nation should we see "Bush, The Second, Part the Second."
The first item is an article from Bloomberg about whether or not you're better off than four years ago. In terms of the administration's constant talk of how tax cuts have helped the American economy, consider the following:
Let's pose this as a personal economic question. Do you get most of your income from wages? If so, then it's likely that a bevy of increases in the cost of living from local taxes to health care negated the positive stimulus of the tax cuts passed during the last four years.
As the article continuously points out, unless you derive most of your income from dividends or stocks, you have kept abreast of inflation (which is currently at an annual rate of 3.6%) since your overall tax cut was 15%.
However, if you are like me, and most of your income is derived from wages, you have seen your paycheck actually diminish at an astonishing rate. First off, consider the question of when you received your last raise. My last raise in wages was in 2000. Where it was nice then, it's paltry now. I've seen my taxes barely go down. Yet, the cost of living in San Francisco continues to climb at a rate where wages are diminished, and to top that off, my medical insurance rates and copay continue to climb at a staggering rate. Cap off this with the fact that natural gas prices have shot up 16%, and you can see why most Americans are not better off.
Now comes the issue of trust, which is the most ridiculous line of argument I have heard from the Bush administration.
I'm to trust you? You who have run our economy into the ground by giving tax cuts to the wealthiest of Americans? You who thinks he has been hand picked by (a) god? I'm sorry, but there is no "trust" here. We are supposed to put our "trust" in a man who ignored the memo handed to him about al-Qaeda plotting to fly planes into various buildings in the United States, whilst wittling wood on his ranch? I don't think so.
Item two: Missing explosives.
Again, rather than covering our butts in Iraq, we covered the oil industry, sending our troops to guard the Oil Ministry. So what does this mean? Irate Iraqis were going to throw filing cabinets at us?
No, the real threat was an insurgency that could have developed, but was entirely ignored by the administration during the planning for the war.
This ignorance was thoroughly outlined in several articles last week by the New York Times. When we should have been thinking about people who hate us, we were imagining people bringing us flowers circa D-Day in 1945.
So now we must worry about 300+ tonnes of explosives, now gone missing in Iraq. And rather than allow the U.N. to come and monitor the situation, we sent in our own team, who paid no mind to the possibility that insurgents could and would take these explosives to attack us and their countrymen.
This evidence shows that the current administration pays no mind to any possibility outside of the realm of what G.W. "knows in his gut." Perplexing, isn't it?
Topic 3: Supreme Cancer
Just to spotlight the issue of the possibility of our Supreme Court becoming a body for pushing the conservative agenda, Chief Justice William Rehnquist entered into hospital for cancer.
Although he is one of the conservatives on the court already, it highlights the fact that whoever is the next president will have a chance to either keep the court tidily split, where you have one swing vote in either direction (for instance, in Texas sodomy law) or one that could go completely conservative and overturn Roe v. Wade.
BONUS TOPIC! Didn't Osama say the same thing?
On Sunday, Rev. Jerry Falwell was on CNN's Late Edition where he was spouting off more non sequiters and slippery slope logic regarding President Bush and terror.
In his argument will Rev. Jesse Jackson, Falwell said (in reference to Rev. Pat Robertson's comments on "zero casualities" in Iraq):
Well, I don't know who to believe, but I know this, that it was certainly, I think, inappropriate for him here with two weeks to go in the election. He's my good friend, just like Jesse is, but he was wrong on that. He shouldn't have said that. And I want to take the president's word on this one. He says he didn't say it. I think there could have been a misunderstanding. I'm not calling anybody a liar. I'm simply saying that this president, talking about the terrorists and the -- how many we've lost, 1,100 soldiers, that's a terrible price.
But when you consider the barbaric act we just uncovered in the last 24 hours, the Iraqi soldiers murdered, they weren't insurgents. They were barbarians who did that. You don't shoot people in the back of the head and kill people, men, women and children.And the president's doing the right thing.
He's looking for them, he's searching them out. He's killing them when he finds them. And that's the only cure for barbarians.
He continues on in his Osama-esque diatribe:
I'm for the president to chase them all over the world. If it takes 10 years, blow them all away in the name of the Lord.
What the hell is this?? It only proves that the religious right is a bad, if not WORSE than the jihadists that are declaring war on Americans since we are "infidels."
Once again, we are in the midst of a religious crusade, where each group points to their religion and appropriate book of faith to justify their atrocities.
15.10.04
Got My Goat!
So now it looks as if my blog has taken on a political slant.
Anyway, just finished reading a New York Times article.
In it, it outlines the dirty tricks that the Republicans are employing in an attempt to disenfranchise Democratic registrants. Haven't we had enough?
I think it is encumbent on EVERYONE to make sure that their vote counts in this country. I strongly advocate the Colorado change to Amendment 36 of their constitution. In this change, electoral college votes from Colorado will be proportionately allocated to candidates. Of course, many Republicans would rather not see this change pass. They know better than the people, right?
Just like President Bush knows what's best for a woman's body. It's disturbing to me that this president insists that he is "spreading democracy" when in fact, all acts of this administration and Republican Party STRIP our rights away. Mark Morford of SFGate recently wrote an article about this and how even Oprah has come out against this.
Also, this continuing saga over whether or not Mary Cheney was "born a lesbian" or "became a lesbian" is getting on my nerves. You know, who cares. I think that Kerry was making a point, the same point I made yesterday here, that it's not a "choice" as many evangelical Republicans might have you believe.
In my personal struggle to "figure it out," I dated girls. It cause me a lot of confusion. Even in the liberal aura of San Francisco, just a scant hop skip and a jump away, homophobia is apparent. People still come into San Francisco to beat up gay people. It's not pretty.
I may be sliding down a slippery slope on this one, but I firmly believe that Elizabeth Edwards comments yesterday on ABC Radio were dead on: The Cheney's are ashamed of their daughter.
Here are Senator Kerry's exact words on the matter:
We're all God's children, Bob. And I think if you were to talk to Dick Cheney's daughter, who is a lesbian, she would tell you that she's being who she was, she's being who she was born as.
I think if you talk to anybody, it's not choice. I've met people who struggled with this for years, people who were in a marriage because they were living a sort of convention, and they struggled with it.
Now here's what Lynne Cheney said in reaction:
Now, you know, I did have a chance to assess John Kerry once more and now the only thing I could conclude: This is not a good man.
Now just what the hell does that mean? The Cheney's as of yet have not said anything as to WHY they are so angry about this. It's ridiculous! What was so wrong with Kerry's statement?
Probably that the statement is correct, and probably that Lynne & Dick are in denial about their daughter being a lesbian, and are actually ashamed at their parenting skills, not to mention that how could a Republican "bear" a lesbian child?
This would justify this argument from the Cheney's. And this would further their point that this lifestyle is a "choice."
Republican skew on sex in general is also potentially damaging to all of their respectful campaigns. For instance, Jack Ryan, who was facing the popular Obama in Illinois, had to leave the race due his divorce papers from actress Jeri Ryan, who claimed that her husband forced her to go to sex clubs.
Who did the Republicans put up to replace Ryan? None other than eccentric Alan Keyes, who has been quoted saying that Mary Cheney is a "selfish hedonist."
To further complicate matters for the Cheney's, Jerry Falwell has also claimed that Mary is "errant."
In all of this as well, we also have Lynne's own comment four years ago of regarding Mary Cheney:
Lynne Cheney has been even more publicly conflicted about her daughter. Four years ago, when ABC reporter Cokie Roberts asked Lynne Cheney about her daughter being openly gay, Lynne Cheney said, "My daughter has never declared such a thing.''
The Republican Party is obviously at loggerheads regarding the gay issue, and now it is in the crosshairs.
The Republican Party is active in discriminatory practices within their own party, and tries marginalize both ethnic and sexual minorities.
If these are the values that Republicans claim they are protecting, then they are protecting their version of American: A country divided by hatred.
Anyway, just finished reading a New York Times article.
In it, it outlines the dirty tricks that the Republicans are employing in an attempt to disenfranchise Democratic registrants. Haven't we had enough?
I think it is encumbent on EVERYONE to make sure that their vote counts in this country. I strongly advocate the Colorado change to Amendment 36 of their constitution. In this change, electoral college votes from Colorado will be proportionately allocated to candidates. Of course, many Republicans would rather not see this change pass. They know better than the people, right?
Just like President Bush knows what's best for a woman's body. It's disturbing to me that this president insists that he is "spreading democracy" when in fact, all acts of this administration and Republican Party STRIP our rights away. Mark Morford of SFGate recently wrote an article about this and how even Oprah has come out against this.
Also, this continuing saga over whether or not Mary Cheney was "born a lesbian" or "became a lesbian" is getting on my nerves. You know, who cares. I think that Kerry was making a point, the same point I made yesterday here, that it's not a "choice" as many evangelical Republicans might have you believe.
In my personal struggle to "figure it out," I dated girls. It cause me a lot of confusion. Even in the liberal aura of San Francisco, just a scant hop skip and a jump away, homophobia is apparent. People still come into San Francisco to beat up gay people. It's not pretty.
I may be sliding down a slippery slope on this one, but I firmly believe that Elizabeth Edwards comments yesterday on ABC Radio were dead on: The Cheney's are ashamed of their daughter.
Here are Senator Kerry's exact words on the matter:
We're all God's children, Bob. And I think if you were to talk to Dick Cheney's daughter, who is a lesbian, she would tell you that she's being who she was, she's being who she was born as.
I think if you talk to anybody, it's not choice. I've met people who struggled with this for years, people who were in a marriage because they were living a sort of convention, and they struggled with it.
Now here's what Lynne Cheney said in reaction:
Now, you know, I did have a chance to assess John Kerry once more and now the only thing I could conclude: This is not a good man.
Now just what the hell does that mean? The Cheney's as of yet have not said anything as to WHY they are so angry about this. It's ridiculous! What was so wrong with Kerry's statement?
Probably that the statement is correct, and probably that Lynne & Dick are in denial about their daughter being a lesbian, and are actually ashamed at their parenting skills, not to mention that how could a Republican "bear" a lesbian child?
This would justify this argument from the Cheney's. And this would further their point that this lifestyle is a "choice."
Republican skew on sex in general is also potentially damaging to all of their respectful campaigns. For instance, Jack Ryan, who was facing the popular Obama in Illinois, had to leave the race due his divorce papers from actress Jeri Ryan, who claimed that her husband forced her to go to sex clubs.
Who did the Republicans put up to replace Ryan? None other than eccentric Alan Keyes, who has been quoted saying that Mary Cheney is a "selfish hedonist."
To further complicate matters for the Cheney's, Jerry Falwell has also claimed that Mary is "errant."
In all of this as well, we also have Lynne's own comment four years ago of regarding Mary Cheney:
Lynne Cheney has been even more publicly conflicted about her daughter. Four years ago, when ABC reporter Cokie Roberts asked Lynne Cheney about her daughter being openly gay, Lynne Cheney said, "My daughter has never declared such a thing.''
The Republican Party is obviously at loggerheads regarding the gay issue, and now it is in the crosshairs.
The Republican Party is active in discriminatory practices within their own party, and tries marginalize both ethnic and sexual minorities.
If these are the values that Republicans claim they are protecting, then they are protecting their version of American: A country divided by hatred.
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