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"The Next War"
November 18, 2002, The New Yorker On-Line

On September 28, 2002, Richard Holbrooke, the former United States Ambassador to the United Nations, moderated a discussion on the possibilities of war after September 11th with the New Yorker writers Jeffrey Goldberg, Isabel Hilton, and Lawrence Wright, and Leslie Gelb, who is the president of the Council on Foreign Relations. The panel was part of the New Yorker Festival; here are some excerpts from the conversation.

RICHARD HOLBROOKE: The subject today is the next war. Where will it be, and how will it be waged? I think we know where it's going to be, so let's talk about various other aspects of it. Is it really going to happen? What kind of war is it going to be? And what will happen afterward? I want to start with Jeffrey Goldberg, because of the impact of his article on the Iraqi gassing of the Kurds, which Vice-President Cheney and many others have cited, and which I think is a great piece of journalism. In light of your recent reporting, how do you see the road ahead?

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: I see a war ahead of us, probably by January. I think there's no way that Saddam Hussein will comply with the U.N. resolutions. He hasn't complied with U.N. resolutions on this subject for the past ten years, and there's no way that the President is going to abide that, with or without the approval of the United Nations. So I think it's coming. I would like to know when, to book a flight, but I don't know for sure. But it's coming.

R.H.: Where would you most like to be on the first day? Baghdad, or Sulaymaniyah, or . . .

J.G.: I'd like to be near Kirkuk, in northern Iraq. Although you never know with these things.

R.H.: Jeff, assuming there is a war, assuming it can't be avoided, do you share the assumption in Washington that the overwhelming force advantage of the United States would result in a relatively quick success, success being defined as changing the regime in Baghdad?

J.G.: Yes, with one caveat. Saddam has anywhere from fifteen hundred to fifteen thousand troops he could count on for something close to absolute loyalty. The reason he keeps his regular Army far out of Baghdad is that he doesn't trust his regular Army. And then between the regular Army and Baghdad are the Republican Guard units. They're outside of Baghdad as well, because he doesn't fully trust them, either. There's a special Republican Guard surrounding Baghdad, and there's the S.S.O., the Special Security Organization, roughly fifteen hundred men, who are fiercely dedicated to him, although it's important to remember that this is a secular regime—these aren't suicide bombers. They aren't committed to him life or death. Many of these people will be willing to make a deal. That said, getting to Baghdad is one thing, getting Saddam is probably another. The man has bunkers under bunkers. And it might be some time before they actually finish off the remnants of the regime. But, in terms of getting into Baghdad, I think it's a matter of days.

R.H.: Were you in Israel recently, Larry?

LAWRENCE WRIGHT: No, I was in Cairo.

R.H.: Well, why don't we go there next. The Iraqi military is one third of what it was in 1991. Our weapons are much more accurate. Jeff says it's logical that military superiority will tell. But, the last time out, Saddam launched thirty-five or forty Scud missiles against Tel Aviv; the Israelis did not respond, because the elder President Bush begged and convinced them not to. They've said that this time around they will respond. Now, if our military cannot destroy and degrade Iraq's ability to do that at the outset, and the Israelis do respond, what will the Arab states do? Will it metastasize from a U.S.-Iraqi war into an Arab-Israeli war, or will the other Arab countries sit it out? Particularly Egypt, Syria, and Iran—what will they do?

L.W.: Those regimes are having a hard time containing their populations' anger toward the U.S. and Israel already. It's terrifying to think about a massive Israeli response in Iraq in conjunction with us. If we are together with Israel in a war against Iraq—let's say in the best case scenario, if the Arab states sit it out—the alignment against the United States will be solidified for generations, I think. And it would be a terrible catastrophe for that to happen.

R.H.: But do you think that if the U.S. attacks Iraq, and Iraq responds by attacking Israel, and Israel responds by attacking Iraq, is this "The Guns of August," 2002 style? What is the next step? What do the Arabs do? Do they get angry in the street and parade? Or do they take some action against Israel? That's a critical difference.

L.W.: I don't think that the regimes are going to attack Israel. I think that the real danger is that the populations will attack their own regimes. And that's the great danger we're facing in the Middle East, not Mubarak or Syria—which has not near the capacity to wage war on that level—getting involved. But what I could see happening is popular anger resulting in the overthrow of Musharraf, Mubarak, and having those kinds of regimes go down would be a real catastrophe for our interests in that region.

R.H.: You mentioned Musharraf, which is a nice segue to you, Isabel. Several critics of the Administration's policies, including Senator Kennedy and former Vice-President Gore, have said this week that this is a diversion from our efforts on terror, our efforts in Afghanistan. Musharraf himself, who was here in New York two weeks ago, said that he would not want Pakistan to participate in any action against Iraq. He's already (a) the indispensable leader for the American effort in Afghanistan, and (b) on a very tight rope himself. How would a war in Iraq affect the situation in Pakistan, if at all?

ISABEL HILTON: Well, it would obviously make life more difficult for Musharraf, and, as you say, Musharraf is the indispensable leader. But he's an indispensable leader who is now almost friendless in Pakistan, unlike Zia ul-Haq, who was the indispensable leader the last time the United States was militarily engaged in that part of the world, and who at least had the ability to keep certain sectors of his constituency happy. But Musharraf seems to have come this far with most sectors of Pakistani society alienated. He's alienated the civilian political sector because he's rewritten the constitution to entrench the Army. He's facing elections, which he has promised, which the Supreme Court has ordered, having tried and failed to construct political parties that would be congenial to his staying in power. At the same time, he has excluded from the electoral process two parties that do represent Pakistani electoral wishes, insofar as we know them. At the same time, because of the position he took after September 11th, he has a very angry fundamentalist militant sector that doesn't prevail electorally but does have tremendous nuisance value, and the series of terrorist events that you've seen in Pakistan itself and in India, which are designed to provoke a war between Pakistan and India, are likely to continue. And, as though that was not enough, there is a substantial sector of his own armed forces which is sympathetic to the Islamic cause, and which is also rather fed up with him. So it's not easy to see this as a strong position. To see Musharraf as a man now sustained, really, by his friend the United States is to put him in a very weak and nervous position at the point at which his friend the United States attacks another Arab country.

R.H.: We all understand that Musharraf is on the most delicate tightrope. But will Pakistan be affected by events in Iraq or is it driven by its own internal engines, the ones you just listed?

I.H.: Well, I think it's very hard to separate out these narratives. Once the war in Afghanistan began, for instance, Kashmir became much more volatile and tense, and since then we have nearly had the world's first nuclear war twice. Now, those are not separate narratives, nor will this be. You can say, "What does it matter to Pakistan if America invades Iraq?" Well, what matters is that it generates another huge distraction in which more trouble can be made. And there is a great deal of trouble waiting to be made.

R.H.: Some people argue that an American-led attack in Iraq based on the Bush doctrine of preëmptive war—which I think is a nutty thing to have done, but nonetheless he's done it and asserted it, and he thereby muddled the whole Iraq issue—some people say that that, in effect, could be used by New Delhi as a rationale against Kashmir. Do you see that?

I.H.: Well, absolutely. Once the doctrine of preëmptive war is out there, then, first India, clearly, but many other people, could say that this is ideal, thank you. All these conditions are met. And all the conditions that the Administration has listed, as far as Iraq is concerned, can be met in several other situations. These cases can be made.

R.H.: Before I call on Leslie to be the clean-up hitter in this round, I want to go back to preëmptive war. The reason I am so appalled by this doctrine is that it muddied the case against Saddam. Those of you in this room who think that Saddam is dangerous and should be taken on, that argument has been confused by a generic argument about the right to wage a preëmptive war. The Administration should have focussed on Saddam; it weakened its own case. It also, in my view, weakened its own case by assertions about links to Al Qaeda, when no one has yet seen a smoking gun. So that's why I objected. Les, you've heard from the three writers who've been there, and you've been watching this a long time. Give us a sense of where you think we're at.

LESLIE GELB: I think we're about to cross a Rubicon, and in modern times it's every bit as fateful as Caesar's crossing. I believe we should cross it, for all the reasons Jeff has been writing about. This guy really is a serious threat, and a danger. And it's important for us to go after him, to get rid of him. But I shudder at my beliefs and my conviction that we should do this, because I think this act of war will set off momentous events. This is a war maybe beyond anything we've done since the end of the Second World War, in its potential overflow into our lives here and abroad. I think it has the potential to do more to the world and to us than Korea, than the first Gulf War, and maybe even Vietnam. I think the war as a military battle will probably be over quite quickly. U.S. military might, at this point, to fight a straight-up conventional war, is awesome. And Saddam is weaker. Whatever his tactics will be, the shock of American military power in a straight-up military battle will be fearsome. I think it's what happens after the victory that engages us and worries me. Good things can come of it, and I hope they will, particularly in that region of the world, because Iraq and Iran really have a chance, and deserve a chance for the next stage in their history, for the kind of potentially middle-class societies where you can build more rule of law and have a good preoccupation with economic development. And that could set a good example for the rest of the Arab and Islamic world. And it would be good to have that kind of example. They need it, we need it. At the same time, it is a terrible roll of the dice. And it could unleash a terrible anti-Americanism, and a fanaticism, an active fanaticism, even beyond what we've seen. So I'm in favor of doing it, for all the reasons you've heard time and again, but this is, I think, potentially the most momentous decision of our adult lifetime.

J.G.: Now, I just wanted to take issue with one thing that's been brought up, which is that the application of American strength, or a successful invasion of Iraq, will unleash these terrible forces of anti-Americanism in the Middle East and elsewhere. It's not that I don't necessarily believe that, but I think there's a counterargument, which is that in the Middle East—here, too, but especially in the Middle East—nothing succeeds like success. Strength is respected. One could argue that the situation we're in today stems directly from President Carter's inability to confront the Iranians in 1979, when they invaded the American Embassy in Tehran, and we might unleash very positive forces in the Middle East. We don't know.

L.G.: You know, Dick, I've been on many panels, no one will define for me what I said. That's what I said. I said it could have beneficial effects, or it could unleash this other thing. This is a roll of the dice, and if you're prepared to go to war without realizing it is a roll of the dice, then I don't think you've thought it through any better than the Bush people.

J.G.: Well, I have to say this, that I look at—I shudder at my own beliefs, too, sometimes . . .

L.G.: I hope so.

J.G.: Because—no, no, no, but let me tell you seriously. Let's use an example from recent Middle East history. In 2000, two years ago, Israel pulled forces out of south Lebanon. The Americans applauded, the Europeans applauded, most Israelis applauded, and we expected that the Arab world would say, "Good. We got a compromise. There's a resolution to this conflict." The exact opposite occurred. This move was seen as an act of terrible Israeli weakness, and it's being exploited today by Palestinian rejectionists, it's being exploited by Hezbollah, and I think it's being exploited by Iran. And all I'm saying is that, in these discussions, which I've been in, which we've all been in, the assumption—and I'm not trying to put words in your mouth, God forbid—is that it's going to go very badly. And I just am not comfortable with that assumption.

L.G.: But, Jeff, if you're impressed with the power of might, of military might, then our kicking the hell out of Saddam ten years ago should have changed the politics in that region, and it didn't.

J.G.: No. Because we didn't go all the way. The Arabs saw us as impotent.

L.G.: It wasn't enough power. But we still kicked the devil out of them. We did.

J.G.: But we didn't.

L.G.: We won.

J.G.: But we didn't kill him.

L.G.: We didn't do enough. But we won. And what was the effect?

J.G.: I think the Arabs saw that as a flinch.

L.G.: It should just give you pause.

J.G.: No, I'm full of pauses, believe me. Especially in this room.

L.W.: The Administration and a lot of Americans have hold of one truth, which is: the only thing Arabs respect is power and the exertion of power. And when I was there the critique that I heard was "You're always projecting American power, but you're not projecting, at least in our part of the world, American values. And if you were holding our part of the world to the same standards that you did Asia, for instance, and built these wonderful capitalistic democracies, or Latin America, or even the efforts that are trying to be made now in Africa, then our world would be different." It's not just because we didn't beat the hell out of them enough the first time and the second time and the third time. We simply don't trust those people to elect their own governments and follow our example. We're afraid of the people. And until we arrange ourselves in that part of the world in a friendly way and understand what they're after and explain to them what we stand for and show them that we stand for it by encouraging civil society and democratic governments in their own countries, we're never going to have friends—real friends—in that area. We'll only have tyrants that we pay for.

J.G.: Larry, I couldn't agree with you more, which is why I'm wondering why, and this is sincere, I don't know why you're so worried about the fall of Mubarak, then. The unleashing of all these forces, post-Iraq, that will topple these . . .

L.G.: Who do you think would take Mubarak's place?

J.G.: Well, this is the question . . .

L.G.: That is the question.

J.G.: One assumes . . .

I.H.: Who will take Saddam Hussein's place?

J.G.: Well, that's a separate issue, because . . .

R.H.: Let's get to that in a minute.

J.G.: There is a moral, compelling reason to that, where there might not be with Mubarak. But I'm asking Larry, seriously, do you think that fundamentalists will take over?

L.W.: We have a real problem with fundamentalists taking over in a lot of countries, because political Islam is a political bubble. It's caused by the lack of any kind of democratic alternatives. The only thing that the governments there fear is the mosque. And so people flee to the mosque. And there are a lot of people under the same banner that have nothing else in common except their objection to the government they're living under. What we should be doing over there is creating civil societies, helping them to encourage political parties; we should be doing those kinds of things now. And then, I think, practically, we are not really threatened by Saddam Hussein right now. The idea of sending in inspectors and tying them up for the next couple of years while we did a little political spadework seems to me a good reason to pause. Keep him on hold, keep his legs crossed, and let him hide his stuff here, hide his stuff there, but if he's doing that he's not giving us any more problems, and it gives us a chance to restore our integrity in that part of the world.

I.H.: I absolutely agree that although the values that America proclaims and wishes to project are admirable, those values as experienced—or American power as experienced on the Arab street and on many other streets—bear no relationship to them. If you talk to people on what is called the Arab streets, the vision that they have of the United States—the arbitrary use of power, the support of tyrants, the anti-Islam as they perceive it, the unwillingness to live with other points of view—are what come up again and again. And if you're going to go in with massive force against Saddam, even if it is successful, you are still going to have to deal with that response. In the Cold War, what did people do with the feelings, if somebody felt that the present world arrangements or their present national arrangements deprived them of hope or justice or liberty? They tended to turn to revolutionary socialism, or whatever it was, which, for all its faults and problems, was at least a post-Enlightenment idea. What they turn to now is not a post-Enlightenment idea. Dialogue with this is extremely difficult, but many people see no alternative. The result is going to be more enemies of the United States, less tamable, less persuadable, less able to be talked to. They don't have a project for a future society, so you can't even moderate that project. And that's very difficult.

R.H.: Let's see where we stand so far. Basically, Les and Jeff have argued in favor of going after Saddam and disagreed about, or, at least, appear to have disagreed—I think the disagreement is less than meets the eye—over the risks of it. And Isabel and Larry have argued that we are not in a rush and we should pay more attention to the consequences in the Arab streets and in the Indian subcontinent. Now, the fact is that we all can agree that Saddam is a truly terrible chief of state and is in the process of trying to create—and we don't know how well he's done, because the inspectors have been gone for over three years—weapons of mass destruction. Now, the Administration's argumentation has been bad and alienating to people who would support a better rationale. But the argument at its best, at the core, is: if you wait, he'll be stronger. So if you know he's dangerous now you ought to take him on now, because he'll be more dangerous later. It's a modern version of the theory that Hitler would've been better to deal with in 1936 than he was by 1939. And that's not a theory; that is an accepted fact. What it really comes down to is the most unknowable of all things: what will actually happen in the fog of war. And the fact is that history is a cautionary guide. I'm in much the same position as Les Gelb here. I think Saddam has to be dealt with, and I would support an international coalition willing to deal with it. But the talk of unilateralism and the talk of preëmption have gravely weakened our case, and there are many, many other concerns that we haven't had time to explore here, like the Turkish-Kurdish issue and the effect on a whole slew of other issues. But I want to underscore this: wars don't go the way people think they will. If the war had gone the way people thought it would in 1914, it would have been over long before Lenin took his train to Finland Station. If the war had gone rationally in 1944-45, Hitler would not have destroyed his country in Europe, the Soviets would never have gotten to Berlin, and the whole Cold War would have either not taken place or had a different shape. Wars don't go according to plan. And then you can make bad plans. The decision to end the war after exactly a hundred hours in 1991, which I would submit to you as the single worst decision any American leader has made since the end of the Vietnam War, is the reason we're sitting here today. Carter may have mishandled Khomeini, but that's not why we're here today, Jeff. We're here today because of a catastrophic mistake, and, by the way, followed up by General Schwarzkopf being allowed to negotiate, without any Washington supervision, the most conciliatory, permissive ceasefire regime, which then allowed Saddam to gas the Shiites and drive the Kurds out and create appalling humanitarian consequences. Now, I say that because none of us know what's going to happen in the war. If it's a protracted war, if the Israelis come in, if the street then rises up the way you predicted, that's one scenario. If it's a quick war, it still will be hell, because wars are hell, and there will be casualties on our side as well as massive civilian casualties in Iraq. But if it's a quick war, or if we get very lucky—and right now the Iraqi generals are sitting around saying, you know, "We're going to get destroyed unless we get a new leader"—and maybe avoid the war, then it's a different scenario. So I want to underscore, before we move on to the next issue, which is post-Saddam Iraq, that much will depend on the war itself. The idea that there's war and then there's diplomacy is wrong. What happens after a war is derived directly from the way it unfolds. And we don't know that. Now, let's turn to post-Saddam Iraq. Isabel, why don't you go first.

I.H.: Well, I absolutely take your point that what happens, what post-Saddam Iraq looks like, depends to a great extent on how we get there. And there does seem to be a fairly clear idea of the strength of Saddam's forces, or at least the forces that count. Their loyalties in various situations are not clear. Nor is it clear to me where this war will be fought. The last one was fought in the western desert; will this one be fought in the cities? If it's fought in population centers, is there a limit to the number of Iraqi civilian casualties that this war will produce? And on all these questions I think we don't really have an answer. There are, as I'm sure you know, various projections for how Iraq should or might go in a post-Saddam world. The one that appears to be favored by the Administration is, as it were, a new version, but a cleaner and more friendly version, of the strongman: another general. The Iraqi opposition would clearly prefer something else, and they will lay out for you what that would require. One of them says five hundred thousand American troops and five years to stabilize, eighteen months before the constitutional convention and the election. Well, I can't see that happening. If that's the price, I can't see it being paid. If Saddam is to be overthrown in order for there to be a similar set of arrangements with a different man, then I think that many of the consequences that we have laid out in our Jeremiah-like way are more likely. If you forget a democratic, stable Iraq, which we would all clearly like, financed by renewed oil flows and so on and so forth. It's a question for me still as to whether the American Administration really wants that.

R.H.: Now, Jeff. Iraq was invented eighty years ago, as I'm sure everyone in this room knows, by Winston Churchill and Gertrude Bell, on a Sunday afternoon in Cairo, and they made a mistake. They shouldn't have created the country, they should have let it go into the three provinces that it had been under the Ottomans. Today, that option—letting there be a Kurdish north, a Sunni middle, and a Shiite south—is not possible. Because, as I understand it, the Saudis will not agree on the south, and the Turks, who I know very well, have said that is an absolute red line, and we can't do the war without the Turks. The Turks are going to say, "No autonomy for the Kurds beyond what they have now, or less." So my question is—starting with the Kurds, who are living in a golden age now, with their de-facto independent country, which nobody recognizes, supported by the British and the United States intelligence services—are they going to agree to a post-Saddam future for Iraq in which they once again report to Baghdad and argue over the oil, or are we setting the stage for a different kind of Iraq, a Yugoslavia-type Iraq—Yugoslavia in the period of 1991-95 and afterward? What's going to happen? Let us predicate now that there's been a successful outcome, Saddam is gone. Put yourself in the Kurdish area for a moment and tell us what's going to happen.

J.G.: Well, the official position of the Kurdish party, the two main parties, is that they want a democratic federal Iraq.

R.H.: Yes, but that's not the real position.

J.G.: That is their real position. What's in their hearts is, of course, the desire for a greater Kurdistan. They have a morally compelling case, President Wilson promised them, didn't carry through, they have a good case, but I think that the Kurds—you know, I'm not going to speculate on that. Because some of their leaders have been saying things in the last few days that have been pretty intemperate and have made the Turks extremely angry. So let me put it this way. One very smart Kurdish leader I spoke to in Washington a couple of weeks ago said this: "If we're smart, we'll march to Baghdad. If we're dumb, we'll march to Kirkuk." Kirkuk, of course, is the oil center in the north that the Turks are very keen on having. If they march on Kirkuk, the Turks are going to see that as a signal; the Turks will come in, and then it'll be a bloodbath.

R.H.: We need to underscore that for all of you. If the Kurds do anything in the line that Jeff's suggesting, the Turks, and this has not been reported in the papers here, but it's quite clear that the Turks will send troops into the northern part of Iraq, there's no question about it. So go ahead.

J.G.: So it depends on American pressure. If the Bush Administration can bang Kurdish heads together and say, "Look, what we're going to get you is access to the revenue that is derived from the oil under your land. What we're going to give you is autonomy. We're going to give you X, Y, and Z, but if you make a false move the Turks are going to kill you." So it depends on a couple of leaders in Kurdistan, on whether they have the sense to take advantage of the situation without bringing catastrophe upon themselves.

R.H.: It's very tough. Any of you who have ever talked to the Kurds would tell you that the No. 1 name in the English language most distrusted in any Kurdish area is Bush. Because they feel they were totally betrayed by President Bush, Sr. . . .

J.G.: Kissinger is close.

R.H.: And Kissinger. Kissinger and Nixon are right up there. Les, let us postulate that we're successful one way or another, and recognizing that the way it happens is critical, and that Saddam is removed at the end of a military engagement or by his own people. What do you think the U.S. commitment going forward should be, and what should our goal be? Just to say "a democratic Iraq" is nice, but the odds aren't very high that that's achievable.

L.G.: I won't say it's going to be a democratic Iraq. I think, you know, that the Bush Administration is trying to do the right thing. I think they are. And in almost all the wrong ways: doing it the wrong way in preparing for this war and stripping us of the natural support I think the cause deserves; doing it the wrong way in terms of not dealing with Isabel's questions. You can't do something like this without thinking about the aftermath and planning for it before you launch that first missile. And they're not doing the right thing in terms of preparing this country for the possible cost here as well, in terms of terrorist attacks and in terms of impact on the economy. Iraq really could turn into a bloodbath. The scenario that the Shiites could decide to take vengeance against the ruling Sunnis is not at all far-fetched. And, if that happens, that triggers terrible things throughout that region. That's big business. You've got to think about the deals you want to try to make with the different factions in Iraq now, and begin to think of how you're going to try to apportion power, and begin to prepare Americans and other countries for the postwar commitment. It's a big deal if you want to avoid the most negative kinds of consequences. And this has not been done. Here at home, we'd have to assume that what we do in Iraq could well trigger more terrorist attacks against us. I pray it doesn't happen, but responsible policy demands that we plan for it. Nothing has happened on that front. Our cities aren't much better prepared today than they were a year ago to deal with even more terrible attacks than the one on the World Trade towers. That really has to be done. Now, I really am more concerned, as I said, about all the aftermath of war than about the war itself. And here, before the first blow is struck, the Bush Administration owes us a good accounting for these questions.

R.H.: Larry.

L.W.: Well, the view from the Middle East is that we go in and knock off Saddam—our history is we bang somebody on the head and then we go home. And the Administration is trying to sell this "Marshall Plan" idea. Oh, come on. You know, nobody believes it. If you want to do a Marshall Plan, Afghanistan's waiting there for that kind of help right now. We can set up a model if we really want to do that—there's a country that's desperate for our help. There are many countries desperate for our help, where we could set up a democratic, prosperous alternative to the autocracy that we're contending with in the Middle East right now. Our history gives nobody any confidence that we are going to stay there and clean up the mess that we're going to create. And we will create a huge mess, because Iraq is a fractious country of five thousand years of contending ethnic groups.

R.H.: Not really a single country.

L.W.: Right. And somehow we're becoming the guarantor of the status quo all over the world. Change is happening everywhere. And, especially in this region, we're trying to impose a rigid form of paralysis, holding people in a framework that is not natural and didn't come from them. They want to change. We should be able to help them change by providing them some sort of political leadership and assistance, rather than hammering into them, you know, "You can do this, and you can't do that, and if you cross this red line we'll take away your leader." Well, I don't think that's a good role for us, and it's going to leave that whole region in—I think that the Iranians are going to take advantage of the chaos. I think that the Turks are naturally going to try to protect their interests, and this whole entity will be pulled apart, and there will be this chaotic vacuum that we will then be responsible for.

R.H.: I want to go back to Afghanistan points before calling on Jeff. The story on Afghanistan since our military success is really extraordinarily disturbing to me. The Administration itself estimated a fifteen-billion-dollar reconstruction need. Fifteen billion—of which they themselves pledged two per cent. Normal order of magnitude ought to be about twenty per cent, if we want the rest of the world to respond. The Administration offered two hundred and eighty million dollars this fiscal year, but has delivered less than half of it, and has now pledged eighty million dollars two weeks ago to rebuild the roads. By the way, these are roads that were built during the Eisenhower and Kennedy Administrations by the United States. Afghanistan used to have a great road network, the southern part of which had been built by us and the northern part by the Soviet Union. It's all a wreck now, and it has to be rebuilt. But the eighty million dollars the Administration pledged for the road, with big fanfare two weeks ago, it turned out that almost all of that came out of existing funds for rural education, women's education, health clinics; in other words, it was just a shuffle of the existing money from one necessary account to another. A very bad precedent. And nothing actually disturbs me more about this Administration's approach to these issues than the fact that they think that they can walk away from the post-conflict consequences and say it's a European or a Japanese problem. That is a pattern, and it is a pattern with extremely serious consequences. And I think for those of us on this side of the platform who favor an aggressive approach toward Saddam, at least for me, that's the most disturbing thing. And Les put it very well: if we're not going to deal with the consequences of our military actions, then it really does give you pause. Jeff?

J.G.: Let me just make two quick points. One is that it's true: Iraq after an American invasion could be a bloodbath. But what's true now is that it is a bloodbath. If you go to the Web site of Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch and look at their reports about what's happening in Iraq, this is a man who has killed massive numbers of his own citizens. And I'm not even talking about the genocide of the Kurds. I'm talking about his Sunni citizens. So it already is a bloodbath. Let's take that into account when we talk about the possibilities.

R.H.: Let's talk about post-Saddam Iraq.

J.G.: Well, all right, let me talk about post-Saddam, because this is the second point. Let's assume the Americans invade Iraq in January. Three years from now, will Iraq be a Jeffersonian democracy? Probably not. But the Iraqi government that's imposed, if you want to use that word, by the American government will not do the following things: it will not fire ballistic missiles at Saudi Arabia and Israel; it will not massacre the Kurds; it will not invade Iran; it will not invade Kuwait; it will not be building nuclear weapons; it will not be building biological- and chemical-weapons factories—it will not be doing all of these things. Yes, democracy in Iraq would be a wonderful thing. Maybe the idea would spread to the Arab world. But I don't want to make this perfect solution the enemy of . . .

R.H.: But do you agree with what Larry and I and Les and Isabel are suggesting—especially in light of what happened in Afghanistan, and especially in light of their desire to cut our presence in the Balkans to zero—that, granted that you favor military action on Saddam, and the odds favor success, that what happens afterward is just as important, Les's point, and that that is an area we ought to focus on?

J.G.: It's true. I mean, we're feckless, and we're cheap, and we have the attention span of fleas when it comes to rebuilding countries we invade or countries we try to aid. But I don't know the answer to that. I mean, that's up to Congress, that's up to the Administration, that's up to the people there as well. It is a tough one. It is a tough one; but it is not a reason to not act for our own national security.