Doug Bandow, from Cato, lays out a case against a war with Iraq.

The problem with a lot of these arguments (not just Doug’s), is that they set up strawmen, in the sense that they describe the array of arguments against going after Saddam, and then knock them down, one by one. The problem with that approach is that no single argument is probably sufficient to justify it–it is the combination of them, in totality that justifies it (if it is indeed justified).

For example, he says:

Lots of arguments have been offered on behalf of striking Baghdad that are not reasons at all. For instance, that Saddam Hussein is an evil man who has brutalized his own people.

Certainly true. But the world is full of brutal regimes that have murdered their own people. Indeed, Washington ally Turkey’s treatment of its Kurds is scarcely more gentle than Iraq’s Kurdish policies.

Moreover, the U.S. warmly supports the royal kleptocracy next door in Saudi Arabia, fully as totalitarian, if not quite as violent, as Saddam’s government. Any non-Muslim and most women would probably prefer living in Iraq.

The point is not that Saddam should be taken out because he’s a brutal dictator–as Doug points out, that criterion applies to lots of thugs around the world.

The fact that he’s a brutal dictator is simply used to buttress the more important argument that he will have no compunction against using such WMD against us, if he can get his hands on them. Particularly if he can do it in such a way as to not leave fingerprints. Of course, that’s an argument that Doug doesn’t address.

Another point that Doug makes is that Saddam is rational; therefore he can be contained and deterred. However, there’s a lot of evidence to believe otherwise–he’s calculating, to be sure, and has a strong sense of self preservation, but he’s also liable to major missteps, and miscomprehension about just what he can get away with (the invasion of Kuwait being a notable example).

What needs to be done, and I don’t have time to do right now, is to lay out a whole series of criteria that one would use to determine whether or not to go to war with a despot like Saddam. Put them in a matrix, and come up with rules about how many must be met, or how many must be met in conjunction with others, to make a go decision. One would hope that someone is doing that in the State Department or the Pentagon or the White House Security Council.

That will be a much less assailable argument for those who are opposed to the war, than allowing them to go after rationales piecemeal.