The Argument for Deterrence

By Russell Shaw
Herald Columnist
(From the issue of 9/26/02)

The Bush administration is now engaged in an all-out effort to sell the idea of an American assault on Iraq to American and world public opinion. Although President Bush's address at the United Nations added some welcome nuancing, the central question probably remains not whether the U.S. will attack but how much support it will have when it does.

However the selling job turns out, the assault itself will be a novelty for Americans. The national myth says the U.S. doesn't strike first blows—but an attack on Iraq will be a preemptive strike rather a response to direct aggression. As such, it requires more than ordinary explaining.

Yes, Saddam Hussein by all accounts is a beastly tyrant. There are lots of beastly tyrants in the world. Why pick on Iraq?

The answer is that, even though Iraq has not struck us (Iraqi backing for al Qaeda and Sept. 11 remains to be proven), preemption in this case is a necessary measure of self-defense.

Saddam Hussein, we are told, has spent much time and effort amassing biological and chemical weapons of mass destruction, is working hard to get nuclear arms, and possesses at least limited delivery systems. Wait long enough, allow him the first strike, and the result will be many thousands of dead Americans—and perhaps Israelis, Kurds, and other as well. The message is: Get him before he gets us.

Does this argument make sense? Knowing that a dreadful fate awaited him if he struck first, why should Saddam Hussein strike at all? Might not his weapons of mass destruction be only a deterrent? And if we attack, won't the deterrent be used?

During the Cold War, America acquired weapons of mass destruction for deterrence. Are we and our friends the only countries now permitted to deter? Is Saddam Hussein such a beast that he can never be admitted to the exclusive deterrence club? If the answer is yes, then the followup question is whether that is a strategic judgment or just an aesthetic one.

I am not arguing that American military action against Iraq would be wrong but only trying to illustrate a crucial fact: there are large, serious questions here that, up to now, the public debate has hardly touched, much less answered.

Recently I was re-reading Pacem in Terris, Pope John XXIII's much-acclaimed peace encyclical, whose 40^th anniversary will be celebrated next year. Coming just a few months after the Cuban missile crisis of November, 1962, the encyclical struck many people as a ray of hope on a threatening world scene, and Pope John was rightly lauded.

In many ways the document remains surprisingly clear, crisp, and relevant, at once realistic about the human condition and the conflicts to which it gives rise and idealistic about the possibility of a better, safer world. We are tragically far from realizing its vision today.

Following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the United States got low-key but clear Vatican support for hitting back in self-defense against al Qaeda and its Taliban protectors. It could be a different story this time.

In an interview with the Italian Catholic daily Avvenire, the Vatican's foreign secretary, Archbishop Jean-Louis Tauran, said any U.S. military action against Iraq should be within the framework of international law and with the approval of the United Nations. "We can't impose the law of the jungle," he said.

Nor can we do nothing at all, in the hope that Saddam will behave. We need to listen closely as the administration goes about making its case.

Shaw is a freelance writer from Washington, D.C.

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