In an article I read this morning, North Korea suggests that it can strike the Unites States first. What North Korea is suggesting, is that it holds just as much pre-emptive authority to strike a nation, as the U.S. does. How did this happen? How is it that another nation now looks to pre-emptive action as a viable political tool? The answer is simple really, when one of the worlds most leading nations indicates acceptable foreign policy through it’s actions, the world will take note. North Korea has been paying attention to how the U.S. has been metering out it’s foreign policy as of late.
I don’t want to sound as though I don’t support our administration, or support our military forces overseas, because I do; however, I do think we may have made a mistake and as the years pass by, we are beginning to see the fallout of our actions in Iraq. Our doctrine of self-defense changed when it was decided the U.S. would pre-emptively strike Iraq. No longer was it a doctrine of striking back, it was a doctrine of striking first. Instead of turning the other cheek, or taking an eye for an eye, we are now the ones to poke the other in the eye first.
In Iraq, I do think we have deposed a dangerous dictator. I do think we have provided liberty to many Iraqi citizens. I do think there is some measure of good we have done for Iraq, it’s people and it’s relationship with the world. I do think we’ve sent a message to terrorists but I don’t think it will hold them down. I do think we’ve sent a message to other rogue nations, but will it hold them down? Most recently Iran has been pounding it’s chest, and now North Korea is once again making bold statements. Has the U.S. instilled a new kind of thought among the rogue nations? By it’s pre-emptive action in Iraq, has the United States sent a message to the rest of the world that if you don’t fall in line with what we want you to, or if you get in our way, we have every right to strike you first.
Iraq was identified as a danger before the first Gulf war in the early 1990’s. After invading Kuwait and being repelled by an international coalition of military forces, Iraq was put on notice that it has better cooperate with the United Nations, fall in line and work toward being an economic neighbor instead of a regional bully. Several resolutions later, U.N. sanctions were found to be non-effective and going nowhere. The United States made a case for deposing the dictator of Iraq in order to lessen the threat against the U.S. and the world. In hindsight, the U.S. made it’s case for invasion on faulty information, on data viewed with blinders on. Our President made the best decision he could and Iraq was given every opportunity to comply with resolutions prior to invasion.
What really happened is that the United States called Iraq’s bluff. Yes, Iraq had mostly been bluffing, been puffing itself up, had been rattling it’s sabers. Iraq had not recovered as well as expected from the first Gulf War. Although pursuing weapons both nuclear and biological, Iraq was not as deep into weapons programs as the U.S. had been led to believe. The message now became “don’t bluff the United States, unless you want war.” But what did this really prove? Was it necessary to go into Iraq to discover this? Probably, but what has the United States learned from this?
A doctrine of self-defense is usually a pretty good doctrine. We as citizens of the Unites States generally believe a threat has to be very real, very visible and perhaps already in action. To draw a parallel, if a gunman walks into a store and demands money, the threat is already in motion, there is an implied open-door to self-defense. If however, a man sits in his parked car, with a gun holstered, there is no motion of threat at that time; there is no action directed at any person place or thing, there is no door open for self-defense by pre-emptive action. Perhaps the man in the car with a gun holstered was an upstanding citizen with a right-to-carry permit and not illegal designs. A pre-emptive action against the man presumes guilt, which is against our societal values. In the end, Iraq was no different.
In the early 1990’s, when the multi-national coalition force pushed Iraq out of Kuwait, Iraq had learned a valuable lesson: don’t be a bully in the playground. Iraq learned that even though they had what was considered to be a stronger mechanized ground force, they were no match for advanced technologies, international cooperation and the determination of defensive forces on the side of right. Iraq had invaded a neighboring country and that country called for help to defend itself. The action in the first Gulf War was not pre-emptive, it was defensive.
In 2001 and 2002, when the Bush administration was building a case for invasion, Iraq was not in any threatening posture; Iraq was not a nation warring with any other, Iraq was not preparing for invasion, Iraq was only holding weapons inspectors at bay, not allowing them to perform thorough inspections. There was a perception that by those actions Iraq was hiding something sinister, but it did not necessarily convey a plan for war. The United States looked upon it as a tangible threat, but not enough that it called for self-defense. Instead, the United States had to draft a new defensive posture, one built upon pre-emptive actions.
A lesson the United States tried learn after World War II was that it could not stand idly by while a dictator metered out actions that would lead to the destruction of humanity, otherwise known as genocide. The U.S. pledged it would not let that kind of thing happen again. In Iraq, the U.S. thought it saw the same kind of thing happening, but it really wasn’t on the same scale. Yes, a dictator had allegedly killed thousands of people of a different ethnic background, but it had happened a long time ago.
To take a brief tangent, I am reminded of a situation arising out of Libya, another dictator, from another country. International investigations of various bombings and terrorist attacks became linked to the leader of Libya. The United States administration at the time decided on a defensive strike against Libya to show our resolve and the power of our forces. The U.S. did not invade, did not take over the country, did not displace a nation or it’s beliefs. The dictator got the message, although he still took out his frustration on a subset of hostages purchased from other terrorists at the time. Since then, Libya and it’s dictator have been rather quiet on the terrorist front.
So why does the action in Iraq open a Pandora’s Box? Because for decades the United States has been the bastion of freedom and liberty, of protecting human rights, of working toward peaceful agreements and economic solutions, and with a change of heart after September 11, 2001, the U.S. changed the rules. An invasion of Afghanistan was a defensive move after reviewing the details behind the attack on the United States. It was swift, it was decisive, and it brought liberty back to a nation that had been held hostage to religious fundamentalists. The U.S. also felt it was a good time to put Iraq in it’s place, to get Iraq to start cooperating more with the U.N. or to risk invasion. The political rhetoric began to climb, the U.N. would raise the stakes and Iraq would call. Soon, the U.S. raised the stakes and Iraq called it as a bluff again, but they were wrong. Diplomacy might have been able to go further, but we will never know now.
The United States decided on a pre-emptive course of action in order to get a country to comply with U.N. sanctions, to open it’s factories and plants for inspection, to depose a dictator who was uncooperative and put in place an idea of democracy in a bid to satisfy two ultimate goals. The first goal of putting a democracy in place in Iraq was to free it’s people to govern themselves in a manner which they chose, the second was to establish democracy in the region with the hope of it spreading to other nations, to bring down other dictators and oppressive governments, to free more people to a life of liberty.
Had the invading U.S. forces discovered huge stockpiles of weapons, had they discovered nuclear weapons in the final stages of development, had they discovered plans for invasion of other countries, had they been given information from captured soldiers, general and administration executives of impending terror against other nations or people, the U.S. might have been able to make a case for self-defense. Unfortunately, history has now proven the reasons for invasion were not transparent, were not tangible, were not reliable. The precedent however, had been set and other nations will now follow.
Israel, a close ally of the United States, has made public statements that it would consider pre-emptive action against other countries if it perceived an impending threat. Where did they get that idea? North Korea now has made statements that it would use pre-emptive measures if it felt the U.S. was a threat. Where did they get the idea of pre-emptive?
In the 1980’s a new term came into being related to the Cold War with Russia; MAD. The term MAD was an acronym for Mutually Assured Destruction, and it coincidentally described the action of nuclear war; a nuclear war started by either side, by any country, was simply a mad idea since it had at it’s core no real winner and would in all clear thinking cause as much damage to both sides regardless of who started it. This idea is the very thing that kept Russia and the United States from turning the Northern Hemisphere into a smoldering cinder of ash. In the end, as Reagan worked with the Soviet Union to disarm and work cooperatively, we found they too had no intentions of a first strike and were simply poised for self-defense. The two biggest nations in the world, with the greatest military might ever known, came to an amiable agreement that averted war and opened up what was considered to be an oppressive political system, allowing liberty to seep into it’s society. The Soviet Union had freed the U.S. from a fear of nuclear war, and the U.S. had freed Russia from itself. Why then, was it so difficult to work with Iraq?
Iraq was not ready for peace. Without going into all the historical reasons why Middle Eastern nations appear to be constantly at each other throats, let it suffice to say there are still many nations in the Middle East who believe their tribe is the chose by God, and the others are unfit to live in God’s country. Iraq and Iran are two examples and being such, they have been at war with each other for decades if not centuries. An appearance by Iraq to be weak would give Iran the bolster it needed to take Iraq. If Iraq allowed inspectors and those inspectors subsequently found out Iraq was bluffing, Iran would know Iraq was ripe for the picking. Action by Iran against Iraq would have destabilized the region even more than the U.S. did. Therefore, the dictator of Iraq had it in his countries best interest to not allow the inspections. The better course of action may have been for the dictator of Iraq to work with the U.N. and the United States to enter into free elections and the restoration of liberty among the people; for Irag to have shown an alliance with stronger nations so that Iran would not be tempted to invade. The dictator lost his gamble.
You can’t close a Pandora’s Box, because once opened, the contents will have been released and you can never get them back. So what course is left for the United States with regard to a doctrine of pre-emptive strikes? What course is there for the U.S. involvement in Iraq? Painful as it may be to admit or implement, the U.S. needs to plan a pull-out of Iraq to be complete before year-end, and to return to a doctrine of self-defense and defense of it’s neighbors and allies. I am not advocating a cut-and-run paradigm, I am not advocating isolationism and I am not advocating defeat. What I am proposing is a firm and forceful stance on an economic based world platform.
The present administration has found success in Iraq. The dictator was deposed, free elections have been held, a government is in place, security forces have been trained. The United States now needs to bring an Iraqi delegation to the United Nations. Iraq needs to declare itself a sovereign country once again and ask for help in restoring internal peace. Perhaps Iraq needs to break itself apart into separate sovereign states along ethnic lines to help alleviate some tensions. What Iraq needs to do most, is politely ask the United States to remove the majority of it’s military forces, and to establish a newly invigorated dialog of diplomacy with the United States and the United Nations. Iraq needs to invite the U.S. to keep a small force in Iraq for diplomacy and economic bridge-building. This is the only way in which Iraq will be looked upon as whole again, and it’s the only way the United States can exit quickly and efficiently.
Once an exit from Iraq has been accomplished, with perhaps only a diplomatic and small military contingent remain under invitation, the United States needs to boldly illustrate to the world a new military doctrine of self-defense based on economic alliances. Just exactly what does that mean? The U.S. trades with many nations in a global economic picture and each of those trading nations is, by way of economy, an ally of the U.S. The U.S. has a vested economic interest in protecting it’s trade partners, it’s economic partners, it’s trade routes. This is the doctrine I grew up with in the Military and it’s one we need to return to. At it’s core, it needs a President to speak to both the nation and the world about U.S. interests overseas and how the U.S. will protect those interests. It needs to go something like this:
Today, the United States of America is returning to a military doctrine of self-defense. Pre-emptive action is not an avenue for consideration unless a clear, concrete and tangible threat to the safety and security of the United States has been made. This self-defensive posture extends from the United States to all allied nations of trade. Let me make this point clear. The United States trades economically with many nations around the world, and we will protect that trade with any means necessary. If you invade, oppress, or in any way create human hardship against any nation the United States trades with, be sure that the United States will strike back swiftly and decisively. Any act of aggression against a sovereign nation the United States trades with, will be considered an act of aggression against the United States
The United States will, at it’s discretion, determine what levels of trade it will support with any nation. The United States supports a humanitarian doctrine of democratic freedom and liberty, and will more willingly trade with nations adopting a similar government administration. This does not mean a country must have the same kind of democracy as the United States, or even a democracy as such. This simply means that in the course of living, the peoples of your nation must have certain liberties that align themselves with the basic humanitarian tenants of the United Nations. The less free your people are, the less we may trade with you.
The United States will not impose it’s religion upon any other country and we shall expect no other nation to impose it’s religion upon us. This country was founded upon an idea of religious freedom, which in that time was defined as a freedom from religious persecution of Christians. The United States is a Christian nation and as such, practices a level of tolerance with most other recognized religions. The United States invites people of other nations and religions to practice their religious freedoms in a healthy loving and tolerant manner.
The United States has in place laws, regulations and programs for the immigration and employment of peoples from other nations. We also have laws against illegal immigration and we shall from this day forward enforce those laws to their fullest extent. Make no mistake, if you are in this country illegally, you will be deported, you are not entitled to nor will you receive any benefit from the hardworking people of this country. If you wish to live and work here, you will go through the proper channels to obtain a legal status as an immigrant worker. If you are caught entering the United States illegally, you will be considered an aggressor against the United States; you will be incarcerated, you will be interrogated, and you will summarily be deported to your country of origin.
If you are not a United States citizen and are in this country legally, you do not retain the same rights as a citizen and you will be subject to monitoring. If you are found to be harboring aggressive plans against the United States, you will be considered an aggressor against the United States; you will be incarcerated, you will be interrogated, and you will summarily be deported to your country of origin. All your assets in the United States will be seized.
This administration would also remind those who are citizens of the United States, that you have a personal responsibility to secure your own safety, security and liberty past what your government is able to provide. This is a reminder to be vigilant, to be observant, to be proactive in the identification of possible threats to the nations security. We would also remind the citizens of the United States, that when traveling overseas, you are being hosted by another nation and as such you do not enjoy the same freedoms as you do at home. Be mindful of your hosts and do not presume other nations have or should have the same democratic freedoms you enjoy here. There are many nations who enjoy a productive society and economic stability without a democratic government. You as citizens as well as the government, need to be mindful of that.
The United States therefore invites other nations to trade with us in an equitable and balanced fashion. We encourage other nations to work together to improve economic and social conditions through trade and cooperation. We do not wish destruction upon ourselves as we do not wish destruction upon any other nation. If you do not wish to trade with the United States, we will not impose our will upon you, we will find another trade partner.
The United States, in summary, will not tolerate any act of aggression against us on our soil. We will not tolerate any act of aggression against a neighbor or trade partner that in turn is directed to affect us. We will not strike unless stricken, we will not attack unless attacked. We will not run, we will not hide, we will be swift, we will be decisive. It’s time the terrorists, insurgents and aggressors of this world woke up and realized the real people they are hurting, because it sure isn’t the United States of America.
And that’s pretty much what I’d want to say.
Asa Jay
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