Great Foreign Affairs article on pre-Iraq war diplomacy

Politics and religion
21

I can’t speak for the rest of the world, but I imagine their general disdain for Americana (despite their embrace of American pop culture) factors in there somewhere.

I don’t think Bush fucked the diplomacy, France et al did. If they’d played with us, bluffed, and multilaterally told Saddam we were going to bomb him into the 8th dimension if he didn’t give up the ghost, we wouldn’t have had a problem getting him to fold. Instead, they all showed early on that they’d put a monkey wrench in UN intervention, and as a result, the US and Britain had to step up to the plate.

I fully believe there would NOT have been a war if France, Germany, and Russia had just played along with our threats of making good on 1441. Instead, they made a selfish power-grab, and we had to carry the slack, lest we look afraid of going to war.

The Osamas of the world love to see America back down from a hard-line stance, because it reinforces their belief that they will not recieve retribution for their actions. Just like us pulling out of Somalia showed him in '93.

22

Arrrghgh.

Question: why did the population - i’m not talking about the leaders - of virtually the entire world oppose the Iraq invasion by margins of 2-1 or more? Billions of people are “evil and stupid” isn’t an explanation, and neither is “people always oppose war”; they supported the first Gulf War.

My take: People only support a war when there’s a blatantly obvious good reason, and Iraq didn’t have one. It had a few goods ones (WMD/human rights/defiance of the UN), but it required careful diplomatic explanations and negotation to get everyone on board. Instead, Bush basically threatened everyone to get into line, presenting no flexibility whatsoever. People aren’t stupid; when Bush starts talking to Mexican newspapers about how “there’ll be consequences for Mexican immigrants to the US” if Mexico doesn’t vote for the US position; when Perle demands the German PM resign for not defying the 75% polling numbers in Germany; when Rumsfeld refers to our allies for 50 years disdainfully as “Old Europe”, the population of all those countries get mighty pissed off at being shoved around.

There was a perfectly good set of reasons for invading Iraq, but Bush basically screwed up. He sold the Iraq war through an extremely abusive, tone-deaf public relations campaign designed more to fire up support domestically with his political base than to actually put together worldwide popular support for the plan. I can’t even imagine Reagan talking like Bush and crowd did in the runup to this thing; I really don’t think the level of abuse heaped on the rest of the world, the European democracies specficially, has a parallel in US diplomatic history.

23

I can’t speak for the rest of the world, but I imagine their general disdain for Americana (despite their embrace of American pop culture) factors in there somewhere.

I don’t think Bush fucked the diplomacy, France et al did. If they’d played with us, bluffed, and multilaterally told Saddam we were going to bomb him into the 8th dimension if he didn’t give up the ghost, we wouldn’t have had a problem getting him to fold. Instead, they all showed early on that they’d put a monkey wrench in UN intervention, and as a result, the US and Britain had to step up to the plate.

I fully believe there would NOT have been a war if France, Germany, and Russia had just played along with our threats of making good on 1441. Instead, they made a selfish power-grab, and we had to carry the slack, lest we look afraid of going to war.

The Osamas of the world love to see America back down from a hard-line stance, because it reinforces their belief that they will not recieve retribution for their actions. Just like us pulling out of Somalia showed him in '93.[/quote]

I believe “Americana” is the proper word to use when describing American Culture.

24

Yep. I agree completely. Bush mishandled this thing and continues to do so as of this morning. But at the same time I wonder why “the rest of the world” (I’m talking about the leaders here) didn’t see or acknowledge the, as you call it, “perfectly good set of reasons for invading Iraq.”

25

Well, I’m kind of annoyed they didn’t know any better, but in context it makes sense. I mean, Bush gets into office, then:

Starts tearing up treaties left and right and trying to yank itself out of international commitments (land mine treaty, chemical warfare treaty, kyoto, the ICC, protectionism, you name it).

Announces a pre-emptive doctrine (for no apparent reason; it’s not like we needed to announce it, even if we decided to use it) that seems almost calculated to piss off the rest of the world.

Stiff-arms NATO for no apparent reason in Afghanistan, more or less ignoring their first-ever invocation of Article 5.

To boot, he’s really religious in both rhetoric and personal style, in a way totally culturally out of sync with the rest of the world (Europe, at least, definitively).

Any one of these by itself would only be mildly annoying, but it all adds up to a pattern that no doubt grates on the rest of the world. It’s not the conservatism that does it; the world didn’t loathe Bush I, or Reagan, like this. It’s the diplomatic style - what ends up in the foreign papers is nothing but snubs and insults. I wish I could find the article that said it, but I remember a description of this administration as “Gulliver, thrashing violently at tiny restraints only he can see.”

I think the leaders were just more or less following the will of their constituents (although as that article points out, there was any number of occasions where Bush probably could have got the leaders on board). You can’t expect foreign leaders to both defy strong poll numbers and smile while you’re kicking them in the shins. Maybe one, but not both.

26

I think that’s true of most of the nations. Germany, Russia, and especially France (who were allegedly benefitting a great deal from Iraq and the status quo) are more suspect here. Still, as one journo said (Zakaria?) it was a humbling moment in US history when the Bush administration had to approach 3rd world nations to get votes, and failed to get them on most counts.

There is one potential positive here. If we get a new President in 2004, that President will find it easy to re-forge these alliances because a lot of this anti-American sentiment seems to be anti-Bush administration and we’re lucky to get a mini-revolution every 4-8 years.

27

Jason, I’m fuzzy on your ‘rest of the world’ claim. Exactly which countries were not with us besides Germany, France, and Russia?

28

No matter what happens in 2004, history is not going to be kind to the Bush administration. Has any presidency in living memory done so much damage to the United States? The US economy is in tatters, the deficit is soaring, the dollar is in freefall, old allies have been alienated, and every nutbar in the world wants to blow up an American. Some of these factors would no doubt have arisen under Gore, but Bush has exacerbated every potential problem at every turn.

29

The Coalition of the Willing that invaded Iraq.

Afghanistan
Albania
Australia
Azerbaijan
Bulgaria
Colombia
Costa Rica
Czech Rep.
Denmark
Dom. Rep.
El Salvador
Eritrea
Estonia
Ethiopia
Georgia
Honduras
Hungary
Iceland
Italy
Japan
South Korea
Latvia
Lithuania
Macedonia
Micronesia
Netherlands
Nicaragua
Palau
Philippines
Poland
Portugal
Romania
Slovakia
Spain
Solomon Isls.
Tonga
Turkey
Ukraine
UK
Uzbekistan

Countries that contributed any amount of comabt troops beyond a token are in bold. Both of them.

Everyone else did nothing. When you remove all countries with a GDP under $10,000, you get…

Australia
Czech Rep
Denmark
Estonia
Hungary
Iceland
Italy
Japan
South Korea
Netherlands
Portugal
Slovakia
Spain
UK

30

Yup, all bush’s fault. The ‘whole world’ is against us al because of Bush…ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzz

31

Yeah, and how many countries on that coalition actually had popular support? I think the UK (and maybe some of the eastern european countries like poland) are it.

Yeah, I hope so.

As to Russia, they’re more or less a dictatorship at this point; Germany’s still extremely pacificist; and the French are a pain in the ass. I think talking about “convincing the leaders” is a bit of a misnomer, though; while you can do so, it’s normally a lot more effective to convince the population. The leaders will follow.

32

Was there any actual proof of those French deals? Because I heard on the radio a month or two ago about how surprised and upset French journalists was at the lies and vitriol spewed by the US during that period.

33

France has a pretty long and well established business history with Iraq. I understand they basically held the purse strings for the Oil for Food program and were getting great rate on oil out of the relationship. I can think of a certain nuclear reactor France built for Iraq which was far larger than it needed to be… Are the French completely oblivious to these things? To Chirac’s visits to Iraq (under Saddam) where he was recieved with great honor?

34

If you want to go back that far, the US sold 'em poison gas. I’d stick to post Gulf War I.

35

And again, proof? Actual numbers?

36

Of course you are well informed by unbiased medias. I’m laughing my ass off on this one…

37

Of course, Donald Rumsfeld never had a meeting with Saddam Hussein while he was America’s friend for kicking Iran’s butt… Relations come and go, old “friends” became foes, and vice versa. That’s politics.

38

Ooopsie. That’s not Chirac!

39

Maybe thats why Hussein is still alive! Rumsfeld doesn’t want to kill a buddy! OIL IS OUR FRIEND!

etc

40

To our great Shame the always provocative Jean Marie Le Pen also went to visit Saddam. It made quite a big fuss here. He should have stayed in Irak while the US were attacking. Two birds with one stone…