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To hear them tell it What a Wonderful WorldBy Rick Horowitz We keep hearing it, because they keep saying it. They toss it into the conversation whenever they feel the need, whenever they feel a bit of pressure or a hint of criticism. It's the Swiss Army knife of answers -- convenient, easy to use and oh-so-versatile. "The world is better off without Saddam Hussein," they say, as if that clinches the argument. As if that ends the argument. Every argument. Have we heard some version of that sentence -- in speeches, at news conferences, on the talk shows -- at least a few dozen times in the months since the statue came down? Do you think there's a chance we'll hear it again once or twice over the next few months? (Do you think there's a chance the sun will rise tomorrow morning?) So we might as well take a look at it. After all, other than "9/11 changed everything," it's probably top of the pops, rhetorically speaking-wise. And here's my position on "The world is better off without Saddam Hussein." The world is better off without Saddam Hussein. Of course, the world would also be better off without crabgrass, reality TV and Rush Limbaugh. But that doesn't mean they should be at the top of our hit list either. Or that getting rid of them wouldn't have consequences, some of them worse than the problems we're trying to solve. These things are complicated. It's not just a matter of doing X, as attractive an option as X might be. Doing X can also mean delaying Y, and giving up on Z, not to mention setting A and B in motion and exacerbating C, and maybe Y would have been just as good as X, and Z even better, while A and B and C are disasters in the making. Complicated? We haven't even scratched the surface. Nature may abhor a vacuum, but the president's people can't get enough of them. In a vacuum, if the choice is "Saddam Hussein in power" or "Saddam Hussein out of power" -- hey, that's a no-brainer. But what if the choice is "Saddam Hussein out of power and Iraq functioning smoothly" or "Saddam Hussein out of power and they still don't have reliable electricity and they're getting really angry"? What if the choice is "Saddam Hussein still in power but under a microscope" or "Saddam Hussein out of power with nothing to lose"? Not so easy all of a sudden, is it? Not to worry -- it gets worse. What if the president's people were so convinced that "the world is better off without Saddam Hussein" that they exaggerated the evidence of Saddam's chemical and biological and nuclear weapons to make a stronger case for war? American credibility takes a pounding -- does that make the world better off? What if the president's people were so convinced that "the world is better off without Saddam Hussein" that they were willing to stiff-arm any other country, ally or not, which saw the situation differently? Those countries decide it's payback time when we turn to them for help -- does that make the world better off? What if the president's people were so convinced that "the world is better off without Saddam Hussein" that they let personal pique at any dissenters cloud their judgment, even spur them to leak the name of an undercover CIA operative just to get back at her husband? In the middle of a war, the White House has to focus on managing a scandal -- does that make the world better off? What if the president's people were so convinced that "the world is better off without Saddam Hussein" that they launched, virtually alone, an invasion that further inflamed anti-American sentiment among Arabs and throughout the Muslim world? "Hostility toward America has reached shocking levels," a panel appointed by the administration has just reported -- does that make the world better off? And what if the president's people were so convinced that "the world is better off without Saddam Hussein" that they shifted attention and talent and finite resources away from other, even graver, danger spots? Al Qaeda is up and running again in Afghanistan, and somewhere, Osama bin Laden is still on the loose -- does that make the world better off? We keep hearing it, because they keep saying it. That doesn't mean we have to believe it. Posted 10/2/03. If
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Rick Horowitz
