Adam Graham

Eco

Cleaver

A Necessary War

On January 16, 1991, when the U.S. decided to go to war with Iraq in the Persian Gulf, historians came up with four perceived reasons of action. The four identified actions are oil, international order, homeland security, and Israel. Historians wonder if any or all of these reasons justify the war. Also if the gamble is worth the casualties and if there might be other strategies to take other that the U.S. acting as the world police.

Going to war over middle-eastern oil is viewed as an acceptable reason in many peoples’ minds. This area contains two-thirds of the world’s know petroleum. I seems to be in the interest of oil-consuming, not to let one country gain control it all. There is the threat of Iraq destroying Saudi or other gulf oil facilities through missile or air strikes causing, not only direct economic oil problems, but large environmental damage to neighboring countries. If the U.S. is to dismantle the Iraqi army and destroy Hussein’s power, there will always be a threat of him using his power to intimidate the weak oil-producing states once U.S. forces leave. Disbelievers argue that even if the U.S. does its task, that does not prevent the possibility of new threats rising up. I was mentioned that Saudi Arabia has regularly pursued oil-pricing policies as detrimental to U.S. interests as those of Hussein’s. If the U.S. is to do this right, not only will we have to eliminate Hussein’s power but also continue to hold him in check by limiting imports of arms shipments, since Iraq is dependent on imports for power.

With International order, some believe that the U.S. along with the U.N. had to go to war in order to prove that aggression will not stand in the new world order and that other leaders will see the price Hussein has paid for invading Kuwait. However, it is stated that it is not in America’s best interest to become the world’s police. Also that American deployment into the Gulf is unlikely to be repeated in the future since the U.S. Treasury will not permit the U.S. to play such a role and that less states will be willing to support or finance the next American military effort on behave of world order. This reasoning for entering the war has been questioned on a sense of fairness. Will the U.S. apply the same amount of decency in other countries that has gave to Kuwait. Examples of the past say no. One example being terrible violations of human rights in Tibet which is a country that China invaded and conquered. However, the U.S. with President Bush has gone out of its way to maintain a good relationship with China. It is said that America does not need to be the world’s police, but still maintain some security along with the U.N. on such topics as ABC weapons (atomic, biological, chemical). Also, the U.S. should help establish international norms of behavior. Instead of completely dominating Iraq, America should help create a balance of power in the Middle-eastern countries by hold Iraq a bay while surrounding countries in time, grow stronger.

The argument of U.S. security is simple. It is that if we do not fight now we will be forced to fight later under more difficult conditions. For example, one day Iraq will acquire nuclear weapons one day, might use them. Some think that Hussein is a modern day Hitler when in reality, he is no where close to being as strong. Germany was the leading industrial state of Europe and second largest in population under the Soviet Union. Germany was also capable of producing many goods and most of the modern day sophisticated weapons itself. Unlike Germany was, Iraq, once again, depends solely on imports for its military potential. It is not nearly as developed and only has 18 million people. With that, it should be easy to gain control over Iraq. For security with oil the U.S. can shut down Iraq’s exporting of oil by way of three countries (U.S., Saudi Arabia, Turkey). Ninety-five percent of Iraq’s foreign exchange is eared through these oil exports. Over all the U.S. is worried about national security, but is conflicted with the idea of helping any Gulf country is fear of that country gaining too much power.

The final reason of why we went to war with Iraq is the issue of Israel. There are many Israeli supporters in the U.S. who wanted to use the crisis as a way to enhance Israel’s security through U.S. force. Also, the U.S. asked Israel to agree to accept a demilitarized Palestine state if we helped them through the crisis. This reason was also backed by the leaders of all major Christian churches.

With all four of these reasons for war, it seems that the U.S. is acting as the world’s police. It should be taken into consideration what America should do in future crisis. It is stated that there are always other options out there. However, now that we have begun this war, we should also be focusing on long-run diplomatic goals with this region.

Mayness, William Charles. “A Necessary War”, Foreign Policy, No. 82, Spring 1991 (159-177)