An addendum to my previous Iraq argument, intended as a response to the argument Colin Powell presented at the United Nations Security Council on 05 February 2003.

First, let me say that I am still against war in Iraq. It is not because I don’t believe what Colin Powell said was true. It is because what he said, I believe, is valid and truthful. This argument here is more practical than the one I offered previously. It's more to the point, and doesn't include a critique of American car culture.

Second, Powell is correct in thinking that we need to get rid of Saddam Hussein. He is a mad man, and he does not need to be in charge of a country the size of California (or Rhode Island for that matter.) What Powell said at the meeting today is more than likely all true. It has to be true, and here is why. The United States, the most powerful nation in the world in 2003, has a certain responsibility to the nations of the world. We have a responsibility to uphold truth and morals (though, some of those become lax when we talk about, let us say, the death penalty.) Because of this responsibility, we cannot go to the organisation that we helped create, and fund, to lay false evidence against a country that has been in ruins for 10-20 years. Colin Powell is a very respectable human being, which is everything an American should aspire to be. He would not risk his character by giving false statements to the United Nations. This is what, in my mind, validates all the tapes and pictures presented at the United Nations this morning.

If we attack and defeat Iraq, then, suddenly, Iraq is not our enemy anyone. We have to shift mentalities to make Iraq and ally, and I also don’t think that people in either country are willing to do that. We are a nation that has a perceived hatred towards Islam (we don’t; the Kosovo operations were primarily to save Muslims, also, the United States demanded that European countries relinquish their colonies in the Islamic world, so, it’s really Europe that should be perceived as the Muslim hating region.) The Islamic world will be fed images of our troops committing “atrocities,” and not of the Iraqi citizens we will be freeing from an authoritarian government (by the way, this is where most people chime in that we aren’t the policemen of the world; well, we don’t really want to be, it’s just that other countries ask us to, and if we say ‘no’ then we are labelled as isolationist, which is just as bad as being the world policeman, people, make up your mind!). We cannot afford to have the Muslim world hating us again. Most of us were not alive in the 1970’s during the oil embargo, but we have seen images of it. If we get the Muslim world hating us again, that same scenario could very well happen again. If it happens again, the economy will be in the absolute crapper. We cannot endure that. Not that I agree with brown-nosing the Saudi’s or Iranians, but the fact of the matter is that our country is oil dependant and that is not going to change in the near future (or at all for that matter.) It’s not like the Saudi’s are happy with Iraq for launching Scud’s at Riyadh, but they’d rather have an ally with their neighbour who shares similar beliefs, than a western nation with an entirely different social structure. This nation cannot afford, until we have another source of oil (notice I said oil, and not energy, it’s not a typo), to have the largest suppliers of it in the world angry at us. This is the reality in which we live. Until Russia discovers oil in Siberia, or oil magically appears in Illinois, we are reliant upon the Middle East to keep our economy going. We have to ally with those people in some way in order for our society to function. It really is as simple as that. No oil, No economy.

Third, if the world community has established, whether or not if it’s through the United Nations, that a new government should be placed in Iraq, what kind of government are we going to put there? Who is going to be in charge of it? Is it going to be a United Nations protectorate for 10 years? Is it going to be a parliamentary democracy or a republic? We do not have these answers. We are not ready to invade Iraq. I don’t think that Bush and Company realise that a war in Iraq, fought the right way (which I’m sure they would do) will crush Iraq is probably a week, if not less. Iraq is much weaker than in 1991, which means that they’ll fall even faster. Even if this can be accomplished, what are we going to do after that is all said and done? This isn’t a moral argument; it’s an argument of practicality. We say we’ll put a democracy in there, ok that’s fine. Do we even realise that there is not one country in the Middle East, save Israel (even then that is somewhat questionable), that is a democracy. Democracy is Western idea that is barely 200 years old. Europeans did not even realise this idea until they were well into the 19^th century. People in the Middle East have not a clue how to function in a democracy. I’m not saying they can’t learn, because any human is capable of learning; I’m saying that it is going to take a lot of time and a lot of man power to do it. The United States, much less the United Nations, is not willing to devote that kind of energy and resources to Iraq. Sure, business would start to thrive when democracy is there, but the government needs to be established before already established companies come into the country to start business. But, as a nation, or group of nations (the UK, Spain, Italy, etc.) we do not want to invest our time in Iraq afterwards. It’s not that we don’t care; it’s that we have a lot of other problems at home. Basically, everyone is committed to war, but no one really wants to consider a Marshall Plan for the Middle East.

Has it occurred to anyone that the authority of the United Nations is also in question? Yes, the UN is a place where countries can come together to resolve disputes. But, tell me this, what real power does the United Nations have? If you haven’t noticed, the answer is none. Look t Israel, for instance. That country was created in 1948, with approval from the United Nations. Whether or not it was the right thing to do (it wasn’t, since when does a country other than a European one need to feel guilt about the Jews? Germans should have given up their homes instead of the Palestinians) it was a decisive statement by the newly formed organisation. Immediately after the vote to establish Israel, after the United Nations mandate, there was a war for Israel. The countries that were present for the vote, instead of trying to resolve the dispute with the United Nations, immediately defied the authority of the United Nations to attack Israel. Israel isn’t even the victim in this at all time. Time and Time again in the 1990’s, the United Nations has passed resolutions demanding the Israel stop settlements in the West Bank; Israel has ignored every single one of those resolutions. Even countries ESTABLISHED by the United Nations ignore the UN. What does this tell us? It tells us that the UN has miserably failed to establish order in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. What this means in the Iraq situation is that, even though Security Council resolutions have been passed, no one is really going to pay attention to them anyhow. National interests always take precedent over global interests, and this United Nations experiment has proved that beyond any rational thought.

So, in conclusion, Colin Powell did, in fact, produce convincing evidence that Iraq is evading the United Nations weapons inspectors. In light of this, Iraq needs to be dealt with by some force, or usurpation of power. While we are committed to removing him, we are not committed to completely rebuilding his country. If we invade his country, we run the risk of destabilising the Middle East and threatening our interests even more. I have also established that the United Nations is not exactly relevant to world politics, in the sense that if people don’t agree with it, they ignore it.  Basically, we shouldn’t attack Iraq because, even if Saddam Hussein is gone, we cannot ensure that the future in that part of the world, and its great effects on our nation, will be positive. Sorry for being so long, but sometimes it just has to be that way.