Who Would Really Be "In A Box"?

An editorial in today's Minneapolis Star Tribune proposes that instead of war with Iraq we should attempt containment:

It's time to try something else, and Bush has, by his forceful display of military power, created another viable option: long-term containment of Saddam. Iraq is disarming, slowly, and the weapons inspectors make it almost impossible for Saddam to restart his nuclear, biological and chemical weapons programs. An enhanced weapons regime, with even more people on the ground and surveillance craft in the air, arguably would make it fully impossible.

The editorial does not get into specifics about how many troops would be required for this containment. Calling it "containment" is not entirely accurate as we would not just need forces to prevent Iraq from expanding (which was the goal of containment in the Cold War), rather we would have to have a large enough force to be able to threaten to enforce disarmament, which is what we are trying to do today. Right now we have 250,000 troops in the Gulf for that purpose so I would assume that most of them would be required for adequate containment as well.

There are so many things wrong with this plan that it's hard to know where to begin.

The Safety of US forces

Can we really ask our young men and women to sit in the desert for untold years within easy range of Iraq's chemical and biological weapons? What about terrorist attacks? And what about the morale of the troops? Waiting and inaction kill the spirit of armed forces. Kuwait is not like Germany. Many of our forces are literally camping out in the dessert. For how many years can we expect them to do this? And if they are then called into action can we expect them to perform to anywhere near their peak levels?

Cost?

Lately we've heard a lot of talk about the cost of the war and how many kindergartens we could build instead (what about the children?) but what is it going to cost us to keep 250,000 troops in the Gulf indefinitely? Of course if there is a war there will be a huge price to pay and the postwar occupation and rebuilding of Iraq will not be cheap. But as soon as the war ends and the rebuilding begins our costs should continue to decrease year after year. And the Iraqi oil revenue could be used to foot a large portion of the rebuilding bill instead of building WOMD and palaces for Saddam as it does now. If we opt for containment the check is going to be ours alone with a tab that might be open for years.

Forces Tied Down

Tying down such a large contingent of our forces will also limit our ability to project power elsewhere in the world. if we go to war we'll be in the same boat for a while but after Iraq is somewhat stabilized we should be able to withdraw a good chunk of our troops for use elsewhere. The containment policy would leave them committed to the Gulf for an undetermined length of time. And in the event that we had to pull some of these forces out for action elsewhere it would be an invitation for Saddam to cause trouble.

Iraq

Perhaps most distressing of all this plan would leave Saddam in power and once again sell the Iraqi people out. While his ability to build WOMD might be limited under containment it would not alleviate the suffering of the Iraqi people nor bring them any closer to freedom.

Iran & The Rest of the Middle East

What would the Iranians take from this policy? The mullahs in power would see no consequences for pursuing WOMD and supporting terrorism and would have little reason to cease doing so. The Iranian opposition would see that despite verbal support from the U.S. when the rubber meets the road they can expect no help from us in freeing their country. The same could be said for Syria (although at this point there isn't much of a Syrian opposition to speak of). Containment would do little to encourage Egypt or Saudi Arabia to pursue more democratic government and would do nothing at all to promote democracy in the region which a liberated Iraq could.

Workability

Does anyone really believe that we would actually vigorously enforce this containment policy for years given our past history with Iraq? I can envision it slowly weakening over time as has happened previously. The French and Russians would be continually pushing us to ease up the inspections or lift sanctions. With no imminent threat we would gradually draw down our forces in the region and focus our attention elsewhere. Saddam would play his usual games and we would do nothing. Five years, maybe more, down the road the inspections would have ceased, we would have no meaningful force to threaten Iraq, and Saddam once again would be free to do as he pleases. If I had to choose between a containment policy and the Buchananite isolationist position of packing up and going home I would choose the latter, for in in the long run it is the less harmful alternative.

Finally what would we gain from containment? According to the Strib's editorial:

It is also a war the world clearly won't countenance. Rather than pushing for a vote they will lose on a new Security Council resolution, the United States and Britain should be searching for a containment strategy that will be acceptable to the council. For a host of reasons -- not least the serious damage it would do to the core postwar notion of multilateralism -- the United States simply can't do this on its own.

What exactly has that precious "notion of multilateralism" achieved for us anyway? Multlateralism and a buck fifty will get you a cup of coffee in today's world.