Saddam Hussein, Libya, WMDs, and how Howard Dean has wrongfooted everyone again

Howard Dean, at this moment of the campaign, is untouchable. He’s got momentum going in to the Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary, his 8 (!) other opponents are squabbling amongst each other to try to emerge as the anti-Dean, and he still hasn’t faced a popular vote yet. Now that he’s the front-runner, in this phony war of the pre-primary Democratic election season, this is the time to lay the groundwork for his general election campaign next year.

It goes something like this.

Step 1: Howard Dean says, as part of an otherwise competent and solid speech on foreign policy, that although he hopes the capture of Saddam Hussein will make US troops safer, it has “not made America safer”.

On the face of it, and in context, this is obvious. It’s a no-brainer. (Newsweek’s summing up appears to agree.) Unless you think that Saddam Hussein had, after the US had occupied his country for months, means at his disposal to deliver WMDs to the soil of the USA - in which case I want some of what you’re smoking - it should be fairly obvious that Saddam Hussein did not pose a threat to the US, if he ever did, because we had invaded his goddamn country with the world’s most fearsome military ever known. The San Francisco Chronicle has more.

Consider the counterfactual: “Every day that Saddam Hussein is at large, the US is in danger.” I don’t particularly remember the Bush Administration saying that. For anyone to say “Hooray! Saddam Hussein has been captured! The world is now a safer place” they must first explain why he was a danger beforehand, and tell us why they warned about him remaining in freedom, and why they didn’t do more to capture him.

Step 2: Joe Lieberman and others jump on him. How can he say things like this? He cannot be serious! (Republicans would have said: “Why does Howard Dean hate America?” That is how you tell the two parties apart.)

Oh, and then Hillary Clinton wades in, “subtly” - Salon has an interesting roundup (view an ad to read the whole thing).

Step 3: Howard Dean puganiciously (and, I think, internally, gleefully) defends his position. Here’s where it gets interesting.

Hark back to when the US and the UK were considering going to war with Iraq. Howard Dean made a name for himself by opposing the war at that early stage, and reminding people ever after that he had done so. His line in the primary campaign since then has been to say, when people reproach him his lack of foreign policy experience: what, you want the foreign policy experience of Kerry and Gephardt? They said we should go to war because Saddam Hussein had WMDs and was an imminent threat, but he didn’t and wasn’t, and I could see that at the time and called Bush on it, and they didn’t. Why exactly are these guys better than me?

I think he’s doing it again. He’s in a position where the other candidates are so disorganised that no matter what they try and do against him, it’s not going to work - at this stage. Once the field narrows a bit, it will be more difficult to dodge the blows, but for the moment Dean is doing fine. It is therefore in his interest to pick a fight now. Especially if he thinks that he’ll suffer short-term loss (detrimental media coverage and his rivals bashing him left, right and centre) for long-term gain (being proven right once again on foreign policy, where he is supposed to be weak). Given that, as the front-runner, he can eat short-term loss, at least for a while.

As it is, he’s being proven right far earlier than I think he even hoped for. Capturing Saddam Hussein didn’t stop the mortar bombs, suicide bombs and other terrorist attacks by the Iraqi resistance, whoever they may be.

Incidentally, let’s talk about this Saddam and the resistance issue for a moment. The US claim they got 600 names out of Saddam Hussein (I don’t think they claim they got an entire laundry list; they did some intelligence work to get some more names). They arrested them, and they’re pretty happy with themselves. Yet the mortar attacks, RPG attacks and suicide bombings still go on. There can be, I think, two alternatives:

1. Saddam Hussein was behind the resistance, and they’ve got a few names out of him, but he’s now being stubborn. Therefore, every time they fail to get information out of him, and an American (or Coalition member) soldier dies, it’s their fault.
2. He’s nothing (much) to do with them, so it’s a waste of time interrogating him. Every day they spend interrogating Saddam Hussein is a day they could have spent having their Arabic-speakers go through intercepted conversations between suspected al-Qaeda members, or similar.

Unless Saddam Hussein is personally responsible for the resistance failing, in Iraq or elsewhere, I think he’s a great liability to the current administration.

Incidentally, whose idea was it to use the term “Coalition”? Anyone who has ever lived in a country with Proportional Representation knows what an ugly term “coalition” is. It’s shorthand for a temporary alliance of necessity or of political expedience, and has nothing to do with morals or high principle.

Step 4: Howard Dean appears reasonable far sooner than he thought possible:

• Despite Saddam Hussein’s capture, the US expects a major terrorist attack that could compare to September 11 (jwz describes this as Go forth and shop in fear!).
• Far from capturing Saddam Hussein being a victory for the US intelligence, it appears he was captured by the Kurds (and subsequently drugged - hence his meek and subdued behaviour) because his dead son had raped one of the Kurds’ daughters. So much for the prowess of the US intelligence.
• Libya comes in from the cold, but it appears to have little to do with US foreign policy.

I’d like to say a bit more about Libya and Iran at this point.

First of all, it appears that Libya have been basically negotiating with Europe, and particularly the UK and France, for a way to come back to the international community, and for some time. There were a number of issues that needed to be resolved: the Lockerbie bombing, the French UTA flight bombing, Libyan support to IRA and so forth. These issues have gradually been resolved, in great secrecy, over the years, and it is a great credit to Tony Blair’s government that we have brought Libya back into the community of nations. I have trouble giving Bush some credit: he may have needed to give assent, but I can’t see Libya as being a particular priority for US foreign policy.

Secondly, Iran: It has been apparent for quite a few years that, since the death of the Ayatollah Khomeini, Iran has been divided between the religious conservatives and the reformers, led respectively by the Ayatollah Khamenei and President Khatami. This was a delicate balance, as any change of balance of power always is, and I was incensed by the US’s hobnailed-booted-approach to dub all of Iran “evil”, as if that would help.

Perhaps what I mean to say is this: while we need the US to get peace between Israel and Palestine, because we need a third party with enough clout to be respected (see Senator George Mitchell in Northern Ireland), I’m uncertain about having the US strut about in the rest of the Middle East and North Africa when it has less than a full complement of a clue.

And what I really want to say is this: can Bush win the election if we call him on all these mendacities, deceptions, lies?