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Transcript of PAYNE Buildup to Iraq War as Farce
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The Buildup to the Iraq War as Farce
2010 ISSS/ISAC Annual Conference
Providence, RI
14-16 October 2010
Professor Rodger A. Payne
Department of Political Science
203 Ford Hall
2301 S. Third Street
University of Louisville
Louisville, KY 40208
(502) 852-3316 (office)
(502) 852-7923 (fax)
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected] -
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Abstract
Realist international relations theorists commonly describe world politics in terms of tragedy.
Dramatically, tragic narratives focus on the downfall or death of an elite character, often caused
by the protagonists inherent character flaws. The stories are set in the Great Hall or on the
battlefield and reveal how little control (despite concerted attempts) the protagonist has over
difficult situations and conflict. Despite the obvious parallels with realist views of IR, however,
the events of global politics sometimes seem more like farce than tragedy. Farcical narratives
often focus on elites, but place the characters in improbable or ludicrous situations that may be
exaggerated for comic effect even though the threat of violent action that would shock the
audience often looms over the tale. These are usually frantically paced stories serving to reveal
the ridiculous and to critique the characters and the situation. A farce often turns on intentional
acts of deception, but does not end in the complete downfall or death of the protagonist.
This paper will explain the buildup to the Iraq war in terms of farce focusing on the period
between August 2002 and March 2003. As is now well-known, the war was premised on
evidence and rationales that have been largely undermined by subsequent revelations and
events. In retrospect, the claims were improbable and perhaps even ludicrous. Can international
relations scholars recognize a farce while they are observing it?
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The Buildup to the Iraq War as Farce
It is difficult to imagine many subjects more deadly serious than the study of
international relations (IR). The practice and study of interstate politics literally centers around
life-or-death political and security issues often, the accumulation and use of military force.
Historically, for instance, war has been the paramount concern for IR scholars and foreign
policy practitioners alike because the associated violence is horrific and extraordinarily lethal. In
the twentieth century alone, many tens of millions of people were killed during wartime. A
number of weighty issues tend to dominate discussions about politics among nation-states, such
as their relative material power or the various military threats and political risks they confront.
Realist scholars and statesmen are self-described pessimists as their view of international
political life emphasizes perpetually recurring dilemmas that tend to limit national policy
choices often providing options that yield bad, or even worse, results. The condition of
international anarchy, or perhaps some primal urge in human nature, generates tremendous
fear, promotes perceptions of insecurity, and encourages competition even when no states are
actively seeking to exploit apparent advantages over others.
To help explain their views, realists commonly argue that interstate relations are best
explained in terms of tragedy stories about heroic figures doomed by their own flaws or by
circumstances beyond their control. For example, as will be elaborated below, the recent Iraq
war has frequently been discussed in terms of tragedy.1 As part of the so-called war on
terrorism, the United States and its coalition partners expended tremendous amounts of
resources to topple Saddam Husseins regime and destroy its capacity to build weapons of mass
destruction (WMD), but wound up involved in a prolonged and violent struggle against
insurgent forces. Moreover, as it turned out, Iraq did not possess significant WMD capabilities
and the war improved the strategic position of neighboring Iran, which has a clearly more
menacing nuclear research program. Even though other narrative storylines might occasionally
1 See, for instance, Rob Zaleski, Professor Sees Iraq War as Tragedy,Madison Capitol Times,November22, 2005 (available athttp://www.commondreams.org/views05/1122-32.htm); andAssociated Press, McCain Calls Iraq war great tragedy, April 27, 2007 (available athttp://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18348393/).
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1122-32.htmhttp://www.commondreams.org/views05/1122-32.htmhttp://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18348393/http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18348393/http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18348393/http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1122-32.htm -
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be employed to describe elements of the Iraq war, the tragic storyline has some built-in
advantages that make it seem especially persuasive in this and other cases.2 In fact, tragic stories
often seem to overwhelm other narrative possibilities.
To the extent students of IR embrace the tragic narrative to explain adverse outcomes,
they arguably make it difficult to find fault with foreign policymakers or to suggest means to
avoid tragedy in the first place. If a result seems inevitable, then the critical decisions seem
unavoidable. In this paper, however, I argue for an alternative narrative that could perhaps be
employed to challenge the veracity of key decisions as they are publicly debated. In broad
terms, of course, alternative narrative forms involve very different plot devices, agendas,
interpretations of events, and moral choices. As a result, audiences and critics will draw very
different conclusions about decisions and events. I have argued elsewhere, for instance, that
comedic narratives generally provide a unique and interesting perspective on the field
focusing on a wider array of concerns, including the diverse needs of ordinary people around
the world, and suggesting the possibility of happy endings.3 Below, I specifically discuss the
potential value of interpreting the buildup to the Iraq war during 2002 and early 2003 as farce
rather than as a tragedy.
The paper is divided into three major sections. In the opening section, the traditional
realist concern with tragedy is summarized to cement the importance of dramatic narratives in
the field and to stress the contours and limits of the typical tragic story. The tragic interpretation
of the Iraq war is also very briefly outlined. The second section develops a case for studying
comedy in world politics by stressing the importance of farce. The third section overviews the
farcical elements of the buildup to the Iraq war, focusing particularly on the period between
August 2002 when the George W. Bush administration in the US launched the public relations
campaign in support of the impending war and March 19, 2003, when the first airstrikes on
Baghdad found their targets. Finally, the conclusion considers whether audiences, including
international relations scholars, can recognize, highlight, and react to a real-world farcical
situation while it is occurring.
2 See Erik Ringmar, Inter-Textual Relations: The Quarrel Over the Iraq War as a Conflict betweenNarrative Types, 41 Conflict and Cooperation, 2006, 403- 21.3 Rodger A. Payne, The Comedy of Great Power Politics in the 21st Century, 48th Annual Convention,International Studies Association Annual Meeting, Hilton Chicago, IL, February 2007.
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I. The Tragic Realist NarrativeA. The Tragedy of power politics.
While it is widely accepted that social constructivists, critical theorists, and postmodern
scholars study the role of discourse and communication in international politics, it is important
to emphasize that realists too have developed and highlighted a specific narrative vision to help
explain their perspective of international political life. It is not unusual to find examples of
hard-nosed realists openly discussing discursive elements of international politics.4
Additionally, many scholars who analyze realism from critical or postmodern theoretical
viewpoints often reflect upon its paradigmatic stories and narrative forms.5
Almost everyone in the field, including realists, considers states and other global entities
to be principal actors, or perhaps players, in international politics. After all, these terms are
standard jargon in the discipline. Likewise, IR scholars commonly place these actors in specific
narrative settings, such as in a Hobbesian state of nature or in the midst of stag hunt. In an
interview with the editors of the journal International Relations, the neorealist John Mearsheimer
on several occasions refers to the story or even to my story when differentiating his version
of neorealism from other accounts.6 Other scholars argue that these well-established stories
shape player preferences and behavior in a manner that generates familiar outcomes. The
neorealist Stephen Krasner describes various features of international politics as cognitive
scripts, including both the Westphalian model in general and the international legal
understanding of sovereignty.7 Similarly, the constructivist John Gerard Ruggie claims that
actors, in the context of these [neorealist and neoliberal institutionalist] models, merely enact
(or fail to) a prior script.8
4 Elsewhere, I have argued that realists both reject and embrace certain communicative dimensions ofcritical theory. See Rodger A. Payne, Neorealists as Critical Theorists: The Purpose of Foreign PolicyDebate, 5 Perspectives on Politics, 2007, pp 503-5145 For example, see Francis A. Beer and Robert Hariman, eds. Post-Realism; the rhetorical turn in internationalrelations (East Lansing: Michigan State, 1996); and Stefano Guzzini, Realism in International Relations and
International Political Economy; the Continuing Story of a Death Foretold (NY: Routledge, 1998), p. ?.6 Conversations in International relations, Interview with John J. Mearsheimer (part II), 20 InternationalRelations, 2006 p. 241. See also, part I, pp. 115, 121.7 Stephen D. Krasner, Sovereignty, Organized Hypocrisy (Princeton, 1999) pp. 41, 69.8 See Ruggie, What Makes the World Hang Together? Neo-utilitarianism and the Social ConstructivistChallenge, 52 International Organization, Autumn 1998, p. 876. Somewhat similarly, Hollis and Smithdiscuss actors working within states fulfilling specific roles in the same manner as theatrical actors in aplay. See Martin Hollis and Steve Smith, Explaining and Understanding International Relations (Oxford:Clarendon Press, 1990), pp. 155-7.
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Some scholars go even further, viewing the participants in international politics as if
they are skilled theatrical artists appearing in elaborate performances. For instance, in his
seminal work published more than thirty years ago, Kenneth N. Waltz employed the standard
realist usage of many key terms: As long as the major states are the major actors, the structure
of international politics is defined in terms of them. That theoretical statement is of course borne
out in practice. States set the scene in which they, along with nonstate actors, stage their
dramas.9 Likewise, Hans Morgenthau commonly discussed political actors on the scene,
playing roles, and occasionally employing disguises or enacting policies of deception. For
instance, when describing prestige politics, Morgenthau noted that the essence of a policy of
bluff is well illustrated in the theater device of letting a score of extras, dressed as soldiers, walk
about the stage, disappear behind the scenery, and come back again and again, thus creating the
illusion of a great number.10
As elaborated below, many realists have a "genuinely tragic" vision of international
political dramas.11 Classically, a tragedy was a deadly serious dramatic story focused on the
downfall of a prominent even aristocratic protagonist. The heros demise would typically be
caused by his or her own human fallibility, often developed as an inherent character flaw. In
some tragedies, the failing could be attributed to a greater power beyond the control of the
protagonist, such as fate. As befitting a noble, the tragic tale would ordinarily be set in the
Great Hall or on the battlefield, and the tragic decline would be initiated by some sort of
critical test. The story would turn on this conflict, which could be the source of tremendous
torment for the protagonist. The dramatic plot would highlight the virtual inevitability of the
heros collapse, generally his (or her) death, given the circumstances. The main characters
reaction to the conflict typically worsens the situation, though before death the protagonist
often discovers that attempts to control and resolve the conflict have actually compounded it. In
other words, the hero finally recognizes the fact that many of his problems are of his own
making. Throughout these dramatic narratives, tragic heroes are passionately egocentric and
answer only to themselves. They can thus be viewed as "radically unsociable beings who are
9 Kenneth N. Waltz, Theory of International Politics (NY: McGraw Hill, 1979), p. 94.10 Hans J. Morgenthau, revised by Kenneth W. Thompson, Politics Among Nations; The Struggle for Powerand Peace 6th edition (NY: Knopf, 1985), pp. 98, 103, 49411 John J. Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (NY: WW Norton, 2001), p. 3. For an interestingoverview of realist views, see Michael Spirtas, A House Divided: Tragedy and Evil in Realist Theory, 5Security Studies, 1996, pp. 385-423.
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willing to suffer in the service of their own vision of themselves.12 In other words, tragic
heroes behave almost exactly like realists expect states to act in IR.
Like the classic genre of Greek drama, realists argue that the grand stage of interstate
politics is dominated by rich and powerful nation-state protagonists. Indeed, realists openly
proclaim and embrace a generic national interest in grabbing and maintaining political power
so as to assure state survival and achieve other important goals. Interests are defined fairly
simply and narrowly in terms of material gain, not by the attainment of pie-in-the-sky ideals or
alignment with particular moral codes. The strategic logic of realism is based on an ethic of
necessity, favored because adherents believe that the alternatives are obviously worse.
Inevitably and tragically, realists concede, a world comprised of egotistical power-seeking states
is bound to feature recurring competition and violence. The game might be rigged in favor of
the rich and powerful, but every state has strong incentives to pursue policies that maximize
any advantage, avoid critical losses, and minimize perilous risks. Inspired by thinkers like
Niccol Machiavelli and statesmen like Otto von Bismarck, realists have long embraced an
essentially pessimistic understanding of the world. Nation-states have virtually no choice but to
build up military power and to seek fulfillment of their own selfish desires, even though these
pursuits are almost certain to conflict with the actions of other states and make the use of
violence virtually inevitable. International political life among the great powers is thus akin to a
Hobbesian state of nature, potentially a war of all against all. The academic realist Waltz, for
instance, warns that international relations occur in the brooding shadow of violence.Among
states, the state of nature is a state of warwar may at any time break out.13
As do the heroes of classic dramatic productions, states make critical but unavoidable
errors in their relations with other states and thereby produce great pain and suffering and
often their own collapse. The parallels are obvious, as both dramatic playwrights and realist
scholars tell compelling stories centered upon important figures that are forced to confront the
limits of their power. The stories often end with calamity the rise and fall of great powers is a
recurring IR storyline. Frequently, realists explain that great powers fall because the reach of
12 Ian Johnston, Lecture, prepared for English 366: Studies in Shakespeare, June 1999, MalaspinaUniversity College, Nanaimo, BC. This text is in the public domain and was last revised in December2000. Available February 6, 2010 at http://records.viu.ca/~johnstoi/eng366/lectures/lecture1.htm.13 Waltz, 1979, p. 102.
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their ambition exceeds their grasp, as understood in the notion of imperial overstretch.14
Realists frequently make great use of metaphorical tragedies as well, including Rousseaus so-
called stag hunt parable and sometimes the prisoners dilemma game (PDG).15 Both the stag
hunt and PDGs are tragedies because fully informed and rationally self-interested players
nonetheless find themselves condemned to a jointly dispreferred outcome.16 Some scholars
also apply the so-called tragedy of the commons metaphor to international relations.17
B. The Iraq War as Tragedy
Realists were very skeptical of the Iraq war and proved to be among the most vocal
critics of the Bush administration during the public debate.18 Realist scholars like Mearsheimer
and Stephen Walt did not think that Hussein was a particularly great threat to U.S. or western
interests and had actually behaved rather predictably in the past vis--vis his neighbors and
towards bigger powers. These and other realists believed in the ability of the US to contain
Hussein at best and perhaps to deter any nascent WMD at worst. As Ringmar describes their
view, a war against the country was unnecessary, foolhardy, and simply not in the national
interest of the US. By their account, the war was irresponsible adventurism sold to the
American public under false pretenses with cheap patriotic rhetoric.19 It was also predictably
tragic. Fighting for our ideals may be a noble thing to do, but it is also foolish, and the hubris
of the romantic hero is always the cause of his fall. Hubris distorts our judgment and makes us
embark on badly considered ventures.20 Schmidt and Williams, though somewhat critical of
the realist role in the public debate, acknowledge that many realists would view the argument
about Iraq as essentially tragic, given that realist timeless wisdom was cast aside.21
14 Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict (New York:Random House, 1988).15 In the stag hunt, every hunter in a group outing has an individual incentive to leave fellow hunters inthe lurch should a tempting hare be spotted.16 See John Tilley, Accounting for the tragedy in the Prisoners Dilemma, 99 Synthese, May 1994, pp.251-76.17 See Louis Ren Beres, Bipolarity, Multipolarity and the Tragedy of the Commons, 26 Western PoliticalQuarterly, December 1973, pp. 649-58.18 See Payne, 2007.19 Ringmar, pp. 408-9.20 Ringmar, p. 406.21 Brian C. Schmidt and Michael C. Williams, The Bush Doctrine and the Iraq War: NeoconservativesVersus Realists, 17 Security Studies, 2008, p. 209.
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C. The Limits of the Tragic Narrative
The tragic understanding of global politics is seriously constricted and obviously cannot
explain every action or aspect of international political life. Tragic stories focus on a narrow set
of characters staging their dramas in a limited domain. One or more alternative narratives may
sometimes better explain international relations and may well end happily, rather than
tragically. While this paper primarily explores the possibility of a specific alternative narrative
form, it is nonetheless worthwhile to summarize the broader critique of tragedy.
To begin, the pessimistic realists who embrace this perspective and focus their attention
narrowly on interstate competition, do not say nearly enough about global politics writ large.
Put simply, by studying statesmainly the great powersthey overlook most other actors in
global politics. As Waltz argues, nonstate actorsshow no sign of developing to the point of
rivaling or surpassing the great powers. Rather, the most significant nonstate actors are
stronger than just a few of the minor states.22 As a consequence, realist tragedies do not
devote much attention to nongovernmental organizations, international institutions,
transnational corporations, or even terrorists.23 Additionally, the worlds bottom billion
people usually do not figure prominently into realist stories, even though individuals are
increasing prioritized by a growing literature on human security.24 In fact, realists tend even to
overlook the entrepreneurial behavior of middle and minor powers.25
Second, while the setting for both tragic dramas and realist tales of international politics
is in the Great Hall or on the battlefield, world politics should be seen as having a much broader
scope. Realists tend to neglect a plethora of global concerns often defined fairly pejoratively as
low politics, including economic well-being, the global environment, poverty, disease, human
trafficking, human rights abuses, and sexual violence. Nonetheless, the fate of literally millions
if not billions of human begins may well hinge on the successful political resolution of these
22 Waltz, Political Structures, in Neorealism and Its Critics, ed. by Robert O. Keohane (NY: ColumbiaUniversity, 1986), p. 89.23 On non-state actors in world politics, see Margaret E. Keck and Kathryn Sikkink,Activists BeyondBorders, Advocacy Networks in International Politics (Cornell University: 1998).24 Paul Collier, The bottom billion: why the poorest countries are failing and what can be done about it (OxfordUniversity, 2007); and Human Security Centre, University of British Columbia, Human Security Report2005, War and Peace in the 21st Century (NY: Oxford, 2005).25 See Christine Ingebritsen, Norm Entrepreneurs, Scandinavias Role in World Politics, 37 Cooperationand Conflict: Journal of the Nordic International Studies Association, 2002, p. 11-23; and Lloyd Axworth andSarah Taylor, A ban for all seasons, The landmine convention and its implications for Canadiandiplomacy, International Journal, Spring 1998, pp. 189-203.
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potential life-and-death issues. Some of these threats kill or menace far more people than war
and even many utilitarian or instrumental perspectives would designate them as higher
priorities on the global agenda.
Third, realist stories feature tragic plots that cannot explain nearly all international
political behavior. Realists, for instance, downplay the potentially large amount of mutual
interest and genuinely cooperative behavior that links states and other actors in global
politics. According to realist accounts, states in the international system tragically cannot solve
shared problems, no matter how pressing they are. In his seminal treatise, Waltz briefly
discussed an array of world-shaking problems such as poverty, population, pollution and
proliferation that cry out for global solutions, but there is no global agency to provide them.
Necessities do not create possibilities. 26 When states do seek to cooperate in organizations,
realists argue that the pursuit of relative gains and fear of cheating preclude meaningful
cooperation. Mearsheimer says policymakers place false faith in institutional theories.27
However, by way of contrast, the literatures on norm construction28 and international regimes29
suggest the successful institutionalization of solutions that directly address shared problems. As
shall be developed below, realists tragic plots likewise stand in stark contrast to farcical plots,
which serve very different narrative purposes.
Fourth, realists vehemently reject happy endingsor what critical theorists call
emancipatory purpose. The characters in dramatic tragedy make fateful choices that virtually
always end badly. At best, realist theory reflects a very strong status quo bias that makes it
almost impossible to explain or predict desirable transformations in world order. According to
realist logic, great powers cannot escape the security dilemma. Mearsheimer explains his
pessimism as a pragmatic inevitability: it behooves us to see the world as it is, not as we would
like it to be.30 Morgenthau likewise famously called for studying IR as it actually israther
than as people would like to see it. Morgenthau embraces the moral principle of national
26 Waltz, 1979, pp. 109, 210.27 Mearsheimer, The False Promise of International Institutions, 19 International Security, Winter1994/95, pp. 5-49. The quote is from p. 49.28 For an overview of the norms literature, see Martha Finnemore and Kathryn Sikkink, InternationalNorm Dynamics and Political Change, 52 International Organization, Autumn 1998, pp. 887-917.29 For a neoliberal essay that directly addresses many of realisms boldest claims, see Robert O. Keohaneand Lisa L. Martin, The Promise of Institutionalist Theory, 20 International Security, Summer 1995, pp.39-51.30 Mearsheimer, 2001, p. 4.
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survival and consider[s] prudenceto be the supreme virtue in politics.The best that can be
hoped in international relations, Morgenthau wrote, is the realization of the lesser evil rather
than of the absolute good.31 While some realists literally assert the maxim might makes right,
virtually all would agree that the balance of power almost certainly does not reflect either a just
order or magnanimous cooperation. Scholars who imagine the possibility that the international
system might be transformed into a more harmonious and meaningful political community are
accused by realists of promoting fantasy theory.32 To turn the tables on such claims, note that
the critical IR theorist Robert W. Cox dubbed neorealism a science at the service of big-power
management of the international system.33
In sum, realist tragedies do not address many globally important actors and settings,
even though these stories are arguably importantand end happily at least some of the time.
Indeed, even if one shies away from the kind of end-of-history gloating that some
neoconservatives proclaimed in the 1990s, almost everyone should recognize that there has
been a steady stream of good news in global politics over the past few decades that is difficult to
explain from a tragic realist perspective. Mearsheimer may miss the cold war, but most
ordinary people in the former Soviet Union and its satellite states likely do not. Great power
war itself has apparently disappeared from the international system, and even the remaining
internal conflicts seem to reflect the remnants of war rather than a dangerous Hobbesian
world of interstate competition.34 Democratic change has progressed unevenly, with some
notable reversals, but many more of the worlds peoples now live under accountable
government than ever before in history. Many high profile despotic regimes have been toppled,
such as the apartheid government in South Africa, and non-democratic states such as China
seem inevitably destined to confront popular demands for change. Events in Rwanda and
Darfur prove that genocide can happen again, but the world is much more attentive to human
rights norms than it was through the first half of the twentieth century. Institutions like the
United Nations and International Criminal Court may bring only a modicum of justice to
current world politics, but that nonetheless compares favorably to the more distant past.
31 Morgenthau, 1985, pp. 17, 12, and 4.32 Randall L. Schweller, Forum: Fantasy Theory, 25 Review of International Studies, 1999, pp. 147-150.33 Robert W. Cox, Social Forces, States and World Orders: Beyond International Relations Theory, inNeorealism and its Critics, ed. by Robert O. Keohane (NY: Columbia, 1986), p. 248.34 John Mueller, The Remnants of War(Cornell University, 2004).
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These transformations in world politics have for the most part occurred non-violently
typically in response to goals pursued by political movements, not armed forces on the
battlefield. Indeed, many of the most emancipatory changes to the prevailing world order have
occurred because entrenched political actors and systems were recognized as illegitimate. Those
who challenged the status quo identified and criticized the hypocrisy often embedded in
established order and demanded the creation of legitimate arrangements.35
II. Farce
While I have argued elsewhere for a comedic turn in the study of global politics, this
section narrowly focuses on the potential narrative value of farce. Generally, comedic narratives
focus on the concerns of ordinary people and offer the prospect of happy endings. However,
farce can provide an exaggerated means by which to critique the attitudes and behavior of
powerful elites especially in situations weighed down by the threat of violence. Farce is a form
of drama that tends to feature stereotypical characters that frequently appear in disguise and
may well be mistaken for one another. Ridiculous wordplay often makes a speaker out to be a
fool or clown. Many characters in farce are said to be deliberate monuments to stupidity,
though a farce will also feature a knave who is the equivalent of the villain in melodrama.
The knave is a trouble-maker with a spirit of mischief, but farce is forever demonstrating
that the knaves ingenuities get him nowhere.36 Actually, either the fool or the knave may
behave outrageously and they are often involved in highly improbable situations and plots.
Farce is the form in which we temporarily forget what makes the world a well-ordered
place.37 Booth similarly argues that farce is a mechanism for revealing disorder or contesting
established norms. Farce functions by profaning approved moral, sexual, social and familial
codes and flourishes in periods of stability when such codes are the received dogma of the
audience.38 Masons description is apt: Farce challenges the spectator, vacillating between an
apparent depiction and a travesty between what seems to be and what lurks, leering gleefully,
35 See Rodger A. Payne and Nayef H. Samhat, Democratizing Global Politics (SUNY, 2004); and Samhat andPayne, American Foreign Policy Legitimacy and the Global Public Sphere, 18 Peace Review, #2, 2006, pp.251-9. Realist IR theorists ignore, overlook and even embrace hypocrisy. For example, realists argue thatorganized hypocrisy has been an enduring attribute of international politics. Krasner, 1999.36 Eric Bentley, The Life of The Drama, (NY: Applause Theatre and Cinema Books, 1964), pp. 249-50.37 Richard L. Homan, Farce after Existentialism: Pirandellos It is So! (If You Think So), in Themes inDrama 10:Farce, ed. by James Redmond (Cambridge, 1988), p. 202.38 Michael R. Booth, Feydeau and the farcical imperative, in Redmond, p. 149
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just beneath the surface. The farceur acts on the knowledge that probability necessarily implies
an improbability which carries a license for wild nonsense.39 He continues, the farce-world
appears to be as capricious and as unreliable as Alices Looking-Glass World; not only does it
refuse to follow the laws of the ordinary world, it declines to be consistent within its own
context. It is the product of the tension between its realistic basis and the farcical artifice that
dominates the action.40 Influential scholar and critic Eric Bentley asserts simply that farce is
an extreme case of the extreme. Farce characteristically promotes and exploits the widest
possible contrasts between tone and content, surface and substance41 While farce is
characteristically irreverent, coarse, and rudely figurative, the chief rhetorical devices
employed in farce are hyperbole and extended oxymoron.42
Farce is often condemned as vulgar, base and primitive.43 A typical farce is fast-paced
and relatively brief. Some critics write that the rapid pacing makes the action seem automatic
and explosive rather than generated by free will.44 A farce must be brief because of the means it
employs staccato speech and action, exaggerations of all kinds; the reductio ad absurdum
within simple propositions of behavior; brutal directness; brisk reversalsand so on; all of
which call for short rhythms and brief limits.45 However, Bentley claims that farce is not
merely absurd, farce is a veritable structure of absurdities.we find reason in the madness: the
absurdities which we would be inclined to call stupid are connected in a way we cannot but
consider the reverse of stupid. There is an ingenious and complex set of interrelationships.46
Homan, in fact, finds farce to be a form for examining quite serious matters: Hunger, sexual
inadequacy and poverty are serious problems in real life, yet we accept them as material for
farce.47 Other scholars such as Booth highlight this apparent dichotomy between absurd style
and serious subject. Farce is of course a remarkable paradox. The darkness of its world, the
39 Jeffrey D. Mason, The fool and the clown: the ironic vision of George S. Kaufman, in Redmond, p.207.40 Mason, 1988, p. 215.41 Bentley, 1964, p. 243. Bentley (p. 242) also argues that the contrast between appearance and reality,order and disorder (and violence) constitutes a double dialectic.42 Robert C. Stephenson, Farce As Method, 5 Tulane Drama Review, December 1960, p. 90.43 Gregory Dobrov, The dawn of farce: Aristophanes, in Redmond, p. 15.44 Eric Bentley, ed. Introduction: The Psychology of Farce, Lets Get a Divorce! And other plays (NY: Hilland Wang, 1958), p. xx.45 Stephenson p. 90.46 Bentley, 1964, pp. 244-5.47 Homan, p. 203.
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emptiness it sees at the heart of the human condition, are conveyed to its audience by
marvelous comic techniques which are not only superbly entertaining and laughter-producing
but are also entirely expressive of the nature of that condition and the content and viewpoint of
farce itself. He continues by explaining that nobody in a farce has the slightest sense of
humour. What is uproariously funny to the audience is a dreadful nightmare to the
characters.48Sren Kierkegaard argued that the audience can just as well be moved to sadness
as shaken by laughter when viewing a farce.49
Farce, argues Bentley, depicts man as a violent animal who chiefly uses his intelligence
to think aggression when he is not committing it.50 He argues that the impulse to attack is
the principal moter of farce.51 Moreover, Bentley explains that this hostility is not rationalized
within the context of the story. In farce, what lies beneath the surface is pure aggression, which
gets no moral justification, and asks none.52 Bentley is certainly not alone in arguing that the
prospect of violence often lurks throughout the typically fast-paced narrative of a farce.
Labinger has similarly noted that nearly everyone who has ever written about farce
acknowledges the brutality that lurks just beneath its festive surface.53 Marcoux argues that
this violence fits readily within the archetypal farcical narrative:
The characters in a farce suffer a great deal; at times the innocent along with the guilty.
Physical violence is common; psychological damage often inflicted. We are invited to
laugh at what seems to be a monstrous exaggeration of the human condition. Characters
in a farce are often out of control and seem headed for inevitable disaster. Since they do
not recognize their own self-indulgence, the characters often seem shallow and totally
manipulated by circumstances or by their own passionPlot seems little more than a
mere chain of events, while motives are either non-existent or obviously forced.54
As typical examples of farce, consider the Marx Brothers films, including the geopolitical Duck
Soup, as well as much of the work of Charlie Chaplin. Bentley points out, in fact, that Chaplins
film farces, such as his wartime story, The Great Dictator, are for the most part taken up with
48 Booth, p. 152.49Sren Kierkegaard, Farce Is Far More Serious, 14 Yale French Studies, 1954, p. 4.50 Bentley, 1958, p. xix.51 Bentley, 1964, p. 255.52 Bentley, 1964, p. 296. However, according to Bentley (p. 243), farce offers the interaction of violenceand something else, which means that violence is not the essence of farce.53 Andrea G. Labinger, The cruciform farce in Latin America: two plays, in Redmond, p. 219.54 J. Paul Marcoux, Georges Feydeau and the serious farce, in Redmond, p. 131.
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violent pursuit and violent combat. Fantasy multiples movements and blows by a thousand.55
As these films illustrate, farce can feature absurd physical acts of violence or verbal threats,
even during horrific times of war.
Literary theorists widely reference Bentleys comic catharsis thesis to explain the
importance of this violence in farce. The critic claimed that farce offers a special opportunity
for release of pent-up desires perhaps of aggression. The audience members enjoy the
privilege of being totally passive while on stage our most treasured unmentionable wishes are
fulfilled before our eyes by the most violently active human beings that ever sprang from the
human imagination.56 In another essay, Bentley has argued that the violent release is
comparable to the sudden relieving hiss of steam through a safety valve.57
In sum, a farce is a fast-paced and outrageous story featuring characters who freely
employ hyperbole and make nonsensical claims about their situation. Protagonists and
antagonists can often be described as reckless fools or devious knaves, though the regular
instances of mistaken identity may blur the distinction for members of the audience. Frequently,
the threat of physical violence or aggression looms over the story.
III. The Buildup to the Iraq War as Farce
During the buildup to war, former UNSCOM biological weapons inspector Richard
Spertzel argued that the ongoing weapons inspections in Iraq were a sham and made for farce.
Inspectors were only visiting the facilities that Iraq wanted them to see and scientists were not
interviewed for information. Of course inspectors could not find weapons, he argued, as these
kinds of inspections only help proliferant states like Iraq maintain plausible deniability.58 Most
other contemporary observers would likely have said that the most overtly farcical elements of
the early Iraq war were provided at the regular media briefings of the man known informally as
Baghdad Bob." Iraq's Information Minister Mohammed Saeed Al-Sahhaf, also called comical
Ali by the world press, made all sorts of outrageous statements about the opening stages of the
war, perhaps most famously claiming for the assembled cameras and microphones that
Baghdad was safe even as American troops could be seen on television entering the city:
55 Bentley, 1958, p. xii.56 Bentley, 1964, p. 229.57 Bentley, 1958, p. xiii.58 Richard Spertzel, No Smoking Gun; Farce revealed, National Review Online, January 13, 2003.http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/205498/no-smoking-gun/richard-spertzel
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As information minister, he was the regime's mouthpiece, called on to give an upbeat
assessment of events at the same time the world's media showed the noose tightening
around Baghdad. His daily televised briefings caused amusement and confusion to
journalists and audiences across the world because of his forthright and often skewed
view of the conflict.59
However, the evidence presented in this section reveals that the seven month American buildup
to the Iraq war can also be viewed as farce.60 The movement towards war was fast-paced and
the main characters repeatedly made hyperbolic claims that in retrospect seem foolish, skewed,
and perhaps nonsensical. Obviously, the threat of aggressive violence loomed over the story as
it developed. Looking back, analysts could reasonably argue that the entire plot was a strange
case of mistaken identity. Saddam Husseins Iraq was erroneously linked to the 9/11 attackers,
while Pakistan, in contrast, may have been far more deserving of US preemptive war threats.
As then-White House chief of staff Andrew Card told the New York Times, the Bush
administration in September 2002 began a concerted marketing campaign to sell its Iraq
policy.61 Iraq had been soundly defeated in the 1991 Persian Gulf War, then disarmed by
weapons inspectors and impoverished by more than 10 years of strong international economic
sanctions. Moreover, the U.S. was the worlds only superpower and was much stronger than
Iraq by essentially any measure. Thus, it could have proved challenging to demonstrate that
Iraq was a menacing threat to the U.S. that must be addressed quickly. The National Security
Strategy of the United States, released by the White House in September 2002, made a strong
contribution by reframing the debate around the 9/11 attacks and suggesting the need to act
promptly against the kind of threat Iraq allegedly posed. The document acknowledged that the
U.S. enjoys a position of unparalleled military strength and great economic and political
59 BBC, Profile: Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf, 27 June 2003.http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2927031.stm. For examples of al-Sahhafs statements, see WeLove the Iraqi Information Minister, http://www.welovetheiraqiinformationminister.com/60 Many observers would now view another early 2003 wartime event as farcical. On May 1, President
Bush landed in the co-pilots seat of a Viking jet on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier.He was photographed wearing a naval flight suit and claimed that he had helped fly the plane. Hourslater, he appeared in a business suit and declared that major combat operations in Iraq have ended. Atthe time, he was standing under a large banner that read simply, Mission Accomplished. CNN,Commander in Chief Lands on USS Lincoln, May 2, 2003.http://articles.cnn.com/2003-05-01/politics/bush.carrier.landing_1_bush-speech-observation-deck-flight-deck?_s=PM:ALLPOLITICS.61 Elisabeth Bumiller, Bush Aides Set Strategy to Sell Policy on Iraq, New York Times, September 7, 2002.http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/07/us/traces-of-terror-the-strategy-bush-aides-set-strategy-to-sell-policy-on-iraq.html.
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influence. However, it avowed that The events of September 11, 2001, taught us that weak
states, like Afghanistan, can pose as great a danger to our national interests as strong
states.America is now threatened less by conquering states than we are by failing ones. The
NSS therefore declared that the US would begin taking proactive counterproliferation
measures, even if that meant preemptive options would be used. The United States can no
longer solely rely on a reactive posture as we have in the past. The inability to deter a potential
attacker, the immediacy of todays threats, and the magnitude of potential harm that could be
caused by our adversaries choice of weapons, do not permit that option. We cannot let our
enemies strike first. Bluntly, the document embraced an aggressive strategy, stating that the
best defense is a good offense.62
The farcical application of this policy to Iraq was arguably best reflected in the certain
language employed by administration officials to describe a threat from Saddam Husseins
regime that did not exist at the time. On August 26, 2002, Vice President Dick Cheney jump-
started the marketing campaign when he delivered an important speech to the Veterans of
Foreign Wars. The address offered bold declarations that reflected great and unwarranted
certainty about the supposed threat from Iraq. Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam
Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them to use
against our friends, against our allies, and against us. Worse, Cheney added, we now know
that Saddam has resumed his efforts to acquire nuclear weapons. . . . Many of us are convinced
that Saddam will acquire nuclear weapons fairly soon.63 This comment preceded by about five
weeks the intelligence communitys production of a new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE)
that ostensibly reflected the latest information about Iraq and would later be referenced to
justify the public claims about the risks. Soon, whatever doubt the administration was willing to
acknowledge was dismissed by reference to potential horrific images of destruction. National
Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice made worldwide headlines when she uttered these words
in an interview with CNN on September 8, 2002: The problem here is that there will always be
62 White House, National Security Strategy of the United States, September 2002. http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/nsc/nss/2002/. The greater the threat, the greater is the risk of inaction andthe more compelling the case for taking anticipatory action to defend ourselves, even if uncertaintyremains as to the time and place of the enemys attack. To forestall or prevent such hostile acts by ouradversaries, the United States will, if necessary, act preemptively.63 Richard Cheney, Vice President Speaks at VFW 1034d National Convention, 26 August 2002, . Cheney notedthat the information was obtained from defectors.
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some uncertainty about how quickly he [Saddam Hussein] can acquire nuclear weapons. But
we dont want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud. 64 Again, Dr. Rices comments
preceded the production of the NIE by many weeks. President Bush used the same imagery in
his October 7, 2002, speech in Cincinnati, Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the
final proofthe smoking gunthat could come in the form of a mushroom cloud. We cannotstand by and do nothing while dangers gather.65
Again and again, the administration strongly implied that the worst-case fears about
Iraq were related to very real and immediate threats. The President himself declared in mid-
September: Should his [Saddam Husseins] regime acquire fissile material, it would be able to
build a nuclear weapon within a year.66 This was perhaps literally true, but the assessment
made no mention of the difficulty a state like Iraq would have in acquiring sufficient fissile
material. In Cincinnati, Bush used the word urgent several times to describe the nature of the
threat from Iraq and the obligation the risk placed on the US to act: Understanding the
threats of our time, knowing the designs and deceptions of the Iraqi regime, we have every
reason to assume the worst, and we have an urgent duty to prevent the worst from occurring.67
In a November 23, 2002, radio broadcast, Bush said Iraq posed a unique and urgent threat.68
By that late fall date, the military had apparently fashioned a war plan, later dubbed shock and
awe, and was preparing to deploy tens of thousands of personnel to the Persian Gulf region in
order to be able to implement it.69 The threat of overwhelming violence clearly loomed over the
Iraq discussion.
The marketing campaign to sell war featured multiple key presidential and vice
presidential speeches that were bolstered by advisors appearing on prominent television news
programs and in other high profile venues. Thus, the argument for war continued at a harried
64 Condoleezza Rice, quoted in Interview with Condoleezza Rice, CNN Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer, 8September 2002, CNN transcript #090800CN.V47,.65 George W. Bush, Address to the Nation on Iraq, Cincinnati, Ohio, October 7, 2002, Weekly Compilation
of Presidential Documents 38 (2002): 1718.66 George W. Bush, The Presidents Radio Address, September 14, 2002, Weekly Compilation of PresidentDocuments 38 (2002): 1546.67 Bush, October 7, 2002.68 Bush, President Recaps Historic Week in Domestic and Foreign Affairs, Radio Address of thePresident to the Nation, November 23, 2002.http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2002/11/20021123.html.69 Thomas E. Ricks, War Plan for Iraq Is Ready, Say Officials, Washington Post, November 20, 2002, p.A1.http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A33459-2002Nov9.html.
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pace and never really let up. In January, after international weapons inspectors were at work in
Iraq, Press Secretary Ari Fleischer told the assembled media, We know for a fact that there are
weapons there.70 In his decisive and widely publicized February 2003 presentation to the
United Nations Security Council, Secretary of State Colin Powell declared, We know that
Saddam Hussein is determined to keep his weapons of mass destruction, is determined to make
more.71 Just days before the war was launched in March, on the Sunday morning NBC
television program Meet the Press, Vice President Cheney informed journalist Tim Russert
that Saddam Hussein has been absolutely devoted to trying to acquire nuclear weapons. And
we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons.72 Altogether, these and many other
similar statements created the very strong and yet false impression that Iraq had an active and
dangerous weapons program, including a nuclear one that was precariously close to success.
Based on the information they received from the administration, the US Congress was
goaded into voting prior to the 2002 midterm elections to authorize the use of force against Iraq
on the prospect that diplomacy and weapons inspections would fail. The decisive Senate vote
was 77-23 and the House tally was 296-133. The United Nations Security Council likewise voted
unanimously (15-0) in favor of Resolution 1441 to require Iraqi reporting about alleged WMD,
as well as the return of UN inspectors. Though the US sought an enforcement provision in this
resolution, other states refused to agree to such a measure in advance of the inspections and it
was not included. By the turn of the calendar in 2003, inspectors were on-site in Iraq, but the US
was busily preparing a final onslaught at the UN in the form of the now infamous presentation
about WMD by Secretary Powell. After failing diplomatically to gain another UNSC resolution,
President Bush declared that the US and its coalition partners had lost all patience with the Iraqi
regime. In that March 17, 2003, speech, Bush continued to make absolute assertions about the
threat Iraq allegedly posed: Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no
doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons
70 Office of the Press Secretary, Press Briefing by Ari Fleischer, January 9, 2003. http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2003/01/20030109-8.html.71 UN News Centre, Powell presents US case to Security Council of Iraq's failure to disarm, 5 February2003,http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=6079&Cr=iraq&Cr1=inspect.72 Richard Cheney, quoted in Vice President Dick Cheney Discusses a Possible War with Iraq,Meet thePress, 16 March 2003, LexisNexis news transcript database, . In responseto the IAEAs failure to find evidence of an Iraq nuclear weapons program, Cheney declared flatly, Ithink Mr. ElBaradei frankly is wrong.
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ever devised.Today, no nation can possibly claim that Iraq has disarmed.73 Bush provided
Iraq with a 48 hour ultimatum to eject Saddam Hussein and his two sons. This threat was
rejected and the war began on March 19, 2003.
As is common in a farce, the buildup to the Iraq war appeared to involve a case of
mistaken identity. As has already been documented, the Bush administration portrayed Iraq as
a state in possession of weapons of mass destruction perhaps even a nuclear-armed state,
which is a very small subset of states. Perhaps even worse, given the recent 9/11 attacks on the
US, the administration attempted to tie Iraq to al-Qaeda. In February 2002, Bob Woodward of
the Washington Post quoted President Bush as saying on September 17, 2001, I believe Iraq was
involved [in the 9/11 attacks], but Im not going to strike them now.74 In the January 2002 State
of the Union address, Bush identified Iraq, Iran, and North Korea as states posing a grave and
growing danger because of their pursuit of weapons of mass destruction. Furthermore, Bush
said that these states, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the
peace of the world.75 The day after delivering the speech, Bush went further: He [Saddam
Hussein] is a danger not only to countries in the region but, as I explained last night, because of
his al Qaeda connections, because of his history, he is a danger to Americans.76 Throughout the
pre-war marketing campaign, Bush often linked Iraq and the al-Qaeda terrorists that
perpetrated the 9/11 attacks. The danger, he argued, is that they work in concert. The
danger is, is that al Qaeda becomes an extension of Saddams madness and his hatred and his
capacity to extend weapons of mass destruction around the world. Both of them need to be
dealt with. . . . [Y]ou cant distinguish between al Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the
war on terror.77 On September 28, the New York Times reported Defense Secretary Donald
Rumsfelds assertion that the US had bulletproof evidence of links between Iraq and al-
73 Bush, President Says Saddam Hussein Must Leave Iraq Within 48 Hours, March 17, 2003.http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2003/03/20030317-7.html.74 Bob Woodward and Dan Balz, Combating Terrorism: It Starts Today, The Washington Post, 1
February 2002, p. A1. Bush then apparently said, I dont have the evidence at this point.75 George W. Bush, Address Before a Joint Session of the Congress on the State of the Union, January 29,2002, Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents 38 (2002): 133-39.76 CNN, Bush: Iraq, al Qaeda linked, January 29, 2003.http://articles.cnn.com/2003-01-29/politics/sprj.irq.bush.iraq_1_qaeda-mohammed-aldouri-declassified-intelligence?_s=PM:ALLPOLITICS.77 Bush, quoted in United States, White House Office of the Press Secretary, Remarks Prior toDiscussions With President Alvaro Uribe of Columbia and an Exchange With Reporters, September 272002, Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents 38 (2002), p. 1619.
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Qaeda.78 In his Cincinnati speech in October, Bush claimed that Saddam Husseins regime had
sponsored international terrorists in the past and Iraq and al Qaeda have had high-level
contacts that go back a decade. In the same breath, he asserted that al-Qaeda leaders had fled
Afghanistan for Iraq and that Iraq has trained al Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons
and deadly gases.79 He added that Iraq and al-Qaeda viewed the U.S. as a common enemy.
Arguably, another farcical act in this period concerned the US-Pakistan relationship.
President Bush declared simply in fall 2001 that Pakistan is a strong ally.80 However,giventhe way the U.S. defined threats after the 9/11 attacks, Pakistan might well have been perceived
as an enemy from the start of the war on terror. Pakistan had for years supported the Taliban in
Afghanistan and at least indirectly had ties to al Qaeda via its support for Muslim insurgency in
Kashmir. Many analysts thought that Pakistan was connected to transnational terrorism. The
State Departments Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism, which issued the annual
Patterns of Global Terrorism, was clearly concerned about Pakistans links to terrorists even
before the 9/11 attacks. The report released in April 2001 noted the following:
If the United States deems a country to repeatedly provide support for acts of
international terrorism, the US Government is required by law to add it to the list [of
state sponsors of terrorism]. In South Asia, the United States has been increasingly
concerned about reports of Pakistani support to terrorist groups and elements active in
Kashmir, as well as Pakistani support, especially military support, to the Taliban, which
continues to harbor terrorist groups, including al-Qaida, the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, al-
Gama'a al-Islamiyya, and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan.81
Additionally, the 2000 Report of the National Commission on Terrorism (NCT), which was
created by congressional legislation, found that Pakistan provides safehaven, transit, and
moral, political, and diplomatic support to several groups engaged in terrorism. The NCT
78 Eric Schmitt, Rumsfeld says US Has Bulletproof Evidence of Iraqs Links to Al Qaeda, New YorkTimes, September 28, 2002. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/28/world/threats-responses-intelligence-rumsfeld-says-us-has-bulletproof-evidence-iraq-s.html79 Bush, October 7, 2002, p. 1717.80 Office of the Press Secretary, Remarks by the President and President Musharraf of Pakistan Presidentof Pakistan Reaffirms Commitment to Fight Terrorism, November 10, 2001. Available athttp://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2001/11/20011110-6.html.81 U.S. Department of State, Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism, April 30, 2001.
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Report even recommended that Pakistan be considered a target for U.S. economic sanctions
because it was not cooperating fully on counterterrorism.82
Pakistan on 9/11 also maintained dubious relations with the Taliban regime in
Afghanistan and reportedly to al Qaedas Muslim insurgency efforts. In fact, when the attacks
occurred in 2001, Pakistan was one of only three governments to recognize the Taliban regime
in Afghanistan. It was also the last state to withdraw the status that autumn.83 It is widely
acknowledged by analysts and journalists that Pakistan, particularly its military and
intelligence agency, sponsored the Talibans rise to power in Afghanistan. A Special Report by
the United States Institute of Peace in 1998 explained that the Taliban movement got a
significant boost from the Pakistani intelligence agency, ISI [Inter-Service Intelligence], which
reportedly provided extensive organizational, logistical, and material support to the Taliban
militia.84 Ahmad Shah Massoud, the former Defense Minister of Afghanistan who was
assassinated on September 9, 2001, told The New York Times that his anti-Taliban forces were
having difficulties defeating the Taliban partly because they were supported by 2,500 regulars
from Pakistan's military.85 Perhaps most problematically, Pakistans ISI has long been
suspected of working indirectly with al Qaeda throughout the 1990s and more directly with
Islamic militants fighting in Kashmir against India.86
Moreover, Pakistan was a state clearly armed with the most dangerous weapon of mass
destruction. Perhaps more than any other proliferant, Pakistan also seemed like the nuclear-
armed state most likely to share its capabilities with dubious international actors. Pakistan
82 Report of the National Commission on Terrorism, Countering The Changing Threat Of InternationalTerrorism (June 2000), pp. 24, 25. Available at http://www.gpo.gov/nct/nct9.pdf83 CNN, Pakistan closes Taliban embassy, November 22, 2001. Available athttp://archives.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/asiapcf/south/11/22/gen.taliban.embassy/html. Saudi Arabiaand the United Arab Emirates also recognized the Taliban regime on 9/11, but withdrew ties inSeptember 2001.84 United States Institute of Peace (USIP), Special Report: The Taliban and Afghanistan: Implications forRegional Security and Options for International Action, 1998. Available at
http://web.archive.org/web/20011107141441/www.usip.org/oc/sr/sr_afghan.html.85 Barry Bearak, Cornered Afghan Foes Hope Winter Will Slow the Taliban, The New York Times,November 6, 2000. Available athttp://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C01E3DB1239F935A35752C1A9669C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all86 James Risen and Judith Miller, Pakistani Intelligence Had Links to Al Qaeda, U.S. Officials Say, TheNew York Times, October 29, 2001. Available at:http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/29/international/asia/29PROB.html?ex=1223697600&en=9dcc2011f1bbcee7&ei=5070.
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detonated five nuclear bombs in 1998 and in the words of Paul Leventhal of the Nuclear Control
Institute, became the Typhoid Mary of proliferation.87 Its chief atomic scientist, A.Q. Khan,
was directing the most dangerous proliferation network in the world. He apparently distributed
nuclear information or technology to five states that the U.S. viewed as sponsors of terrorism
and allegedly even offered to provide a nuclear bomb design to Saddam Hussein. Khan was not
arrested until 2004 and the definitive evidence of his guilt apparently did not appear until
October 2003 when the U.S. and its allies seized a freighter headed for Libya. When challenged
with the evidence aboard the vessel, Libya agreed to disclose and abandon its nuclear program,
apparently in hopes of losing its rogue status. However, the U.S. and other intelligence agencies
had been monitoring Khans international travel literally for decades and the CIA certainly in
2001 feared that he had developed a proliferation network. Soon after the 9/11 attacks, the U.S.
communicated some of its concerns to the Musharraf government and publicly expressed
worries that Pakistani nuclear scientists had met with members of al-Qaeda.88
Some members of the U.S. security bureaucracy viewed Pakistan as a dangerous rogue
state in 2001 prior to the 9/11 attacks. This was perhaps made most clear in May 2001 within
the first months of office for members of the new Bush administration when State Department
envoy Richard Armitage, visiting India at the time, hinted that the U.S. viewed Pakistan as a
rogue states. This was a designation for outlaw or challenger states widely used in the 1990s
by the Bill Clinton administration that continued to appear in speeches by Bush officials. In
December 2001, for instance, President Bush declared that Rogue states are clearly the most
likely sources of chemical and biological and nuclear weapons for terrorists.89 Likewise, the
2006 U.S. National Security Strategy warns about threats from rogue states armed with missiles
and WMD. It notes that nuclear weapons hold special appeal to rogue states and terrorists.90
According to the Indian newspaper covering his 2001 visit, Armitage named the following
rogue states: Libya, Iraq, Iran, North Korea and other countries in your neighbourhood.
87 MSNBCs Buchanan & Press Interview of Paul Leventhal, Nuclear Control Institute, May 8, 2003.
Available at http://www.nci.org/03NCI/05/buchanan-press-transcript.htm.88 William J. Broad and David E. Sanger, The Bomb Merchant: Chasing Dr. Khans Network, New YorkTimes, December 26, 2004. Available athttp://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CE7DE1F30F935A15751C1A9629C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all89 Office of the Press Secretary, President Speaks on War Effort to Citadel Cadets, December 11, 2001.Available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/12/20011211-6.html.90 White House, National Security Strategy of the United States of America, March 2006. pp. 18-9. Available athttp://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/nsc/nss/2006/.
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Pressed to elaborate, he said we have questions about Pakistan which are well known and of
which you are equally aware.91
The 2008 Republican presidential candidate, Senator John McCain, prominently asserted
in a September debate with Barack Obama that Pakistan was a failed state in 1999 when General
Musharraf came to power.92 Moreover, this was not the first time McCain had levied this
charge. On a previous occasion the Senator also asserted that General Musharraf had saved
Pakistan from its failed status. In December 2007, McCain was campaigning in Iowa and
reportedly said, Prior to Musharraf, Pakistan was a failed state. He continued, They had
corrupt governments and they would rotate back and forth and there was corruption, and
Musharraf basically restored order.93 Based on her travels throughout Pakistan in 2001,
veteran New Yorkerjournalist Mary Anne Weaver wrote that after the 1980s, when it was the
conduit for American assistant to the mujahedeen in Afghanistan, Pakisan had been
transformed into one of the most frightening places on earth. She speculated in her 2002 book
that failure to reform Pakistan could lead either military or religious hard-liners to take over the
country. Under these scenarios, Pakistan will become a theocracy like Iran, or the country will
be faced with complete chaos and fall apart. Pakistan could well become the worlds newest
failed state a failed state with nuclear weapons.94 While these scenarios are worrisome and
suggest that Pakistan was in trouble in 2001, Weaver does not write that Pakistan was literally a
failed state at that time. Though other analysts felt quite differently about Pakistans stability
91 C. Raja Mohan, Bush proposals aimed at rogue states: Armitage, The Hindu, May 12, 2001. Availableat http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/2001/05/12/stories/01120001.htm.92 McCain added: Everybody who was around then, and had been there, and knew about it knew that itwas a failed state. For a transcript of the event, see CNN, Transcript of first presidential debate,September 26, 2008 (updated October 14, 2008). Available athttp://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/26/debate.mississippi.transcript/.93 Associated Press, Pakistan's crisis puts new focus on candidates' foreign policy skills,Minneapolis StarTribune, December 28, 2007. Available at http://www.startribune.com/world/12904501.html. TheAmerican ambassador to Pakistan in 1999, William Milan, was quoted by a journalist-blogger as writing,
Pakistan was not a failed state as we normally define such states. I am on record as stating publicly that,having come to Pakistan from Liberia a year before the takeover, I had a pretty good idea of what failedstates look like, and it was not one. See Matthew Yglesias, Former Ambassador to Pakistan Milam,Think Progress Yglesias Blog, September 30, 2008. Available athttp://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2008/09/former_ambassador_to_pakistan_milam_i_had_a_pretty_good_idea_of_what_failed_states_look_like_and_it_was_not_one.php. See also Paul Richter and
Julian E. Barnes, Fact-checking the debate, The Los Angeles Times, September 27, 2008. Available athttp://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-factcheck27-2008sep27,0,5241908.story.94 Mary Anne Weaver, Pakistan; In the Shadow of Jihad and Afghanistan (Macmillan, 2002), p. 10.
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and status in 2001, the U.S. surely could have viewed it as dangerously weak given the periodic
propensity of democracy to give way to military coup.
IV. Conclusion
In retrospect, the buildup to the Iraq war could reasonably be interpreted as a farce. The
action was relatively fast-paced and the threat of aggressive violence clearly loomed as the Bush
administration pushed the US and many other states towards launching a war it framed as
unavoidable and justified. Indeed, one could interpret the push to war against Iraq in terms of
Bentleys comic catharsis thesis. The US population seemingly had a pent-up vengeful lust for
aggression after the 9/11 attacks and the demonization of Iraq was a convenient means to
relieve that pressure. Top-level US government officials certainly helped focus political energy
as they showed very little doubt when making frightening claims about the status of alleged
Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and links to transnational terrorists. These assertions, as will
be discussed in more detail below, turned out to be outlandishly ridiculous. Moreover, the
entire enterprise could be interpreted as an embarrassing instance of mistaken identity. Not
only was Saddam Husseins secular Iraqi regime falsely linked to the 9/11 al-Qaeda jihadists,
but also Pakistan was at the same time deemed a vital ally in the war on terror. This was despite
the fact that nuclear-armed Pakistan had nurtured the Taliban in Afghanistan and encouraged
Muslim jihadists in its struggles with India over Kashmir.Can scholars and other observers of international affairs recognize, highlight, and react
to a foreign policy farce when they see it? Some realists became prominent critics of the
impending war, but they mostly doubted the significance of Iraq weapons of mass destruction
for US security. They argued that Iraq could be contained or deterred and would likely not
recklessly transfer any WMD to terrorists.95 Likewise, the French and German governments
primarily argued that war should be a last resort. They favored weapons inspections to attempt
to disarm Iraq and did not seriously challenge the idea that Iraq had these weapons. These
critics did not argue that the administrations entire set of claims about Iraq WMD threats were
outrageous, though some realists did argue that the war would distract the US from its fight
against al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. At the time of the buildup to war, in fact, very few analysts
argued that Iraq absolutely did not have weapons of mass destruction. After all, the regime had
95 See Schmidt and Williams, 2008.
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managed to develop and use chemical weapons against Iran and its own Kurdish population. It
certainly seemed plausible that Iraq could have repeated this past success. Among members of
the foreign policy elite, it was commonly presumed that Iraq had or could readily have WMD.
David Kay, head of the Iraq Survey Group testified to the Senate in January 2004, we were all
wrong about the alleged weapons of mass destruction.96 He repeated this point multiple times
for emphasis, but noted that even governments opposed to the war had also been wrong,
including France and Germany.97
Then again, as former intelligence analyst and National Security Council staffer Kenneth
M. Pollack has argued, Iraqs alleged nuclear program was the real linchpin of the Bush
Administrations case for an invasion.98 Indeed, a recent scholarly study found that many
members of Congress gave the nuclear threat as the main or one of the main reasons for their
votes supporting the war resolution in October 2002.99 Could a third-party observer have
known that the Bush administrations claims about the Iraq nuclear program were farcical?
Former US marine and UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter perhaps came closest to
challenging the Bush administrations public claims, though he too seemed to be working
primarily to avoid war and sustain an inspections regime:
I have never given Iraq a clean bill of health! Never! Never! I've said that no one has
backed up any allegations that Iraq has reconstituted WMD capability with anything
that remotely resembles substantive fact. To say that Saddam's doing it is in total
disregard to the fact that if he gets caught he's a dead man and he knows it. Deterrence
96 CNN, Transcript: David Kay at Senate hearing, January 28, 2004. http://articles.cnn.com/2004-01-28/politics/kay.transcript_1_iraq-survey-group-wmd-weapons-inspector?_s=PM:ALLPOLITICS97 In the end, the pro-war governments had the most egg on their faces. By summer 2003, officials in theBritish government were retreating from claims made in a so-called dodgy dossier prepared earlier that
year about the threat from Iraq WMD. Foreign Secretary Jack Straw called it a complete Horlicks,which is British slang for a total mess. See George Jones, Campbell: Iraq dossier was dodgy,TheTelegraph (UK), 26 June 2003.http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/1434049/Campbell-Iraq-dossier-was-dodgy.html.98 Kenneth M. Pollack, Spies, Lies, and Weapons: What Went Wrong, The Atlantic Monthly,
January/February 2004, p. 81.99 Chaim Kaufman, Threat Inflation and the Failure of the Marketplace of Ideas: The Selling of the IraqWar, 29 International Securit,y Summer 2004, p. 31.
http://articles.cnn.com/2004-01-28/politics/kay.transcript_1_iraq-survey-group-wmd-weapons-inspector?_s=PM:ALLPOLITICShttp://articles.cnn.com/2004-01-28/politics/kay.transcript_1_iraq-survey-group-wmd-weapons-inspector?_s=PM:ALLPOLITICShttp://articles.cnn.com/2004-01-28/politics/kay.transcript_1_iraq-survey-group-wmd-weapons-inspector?_s=PM:ALLPOLITICShttp://articles.cnn.com/2004-01-28/politics/kay.transcript_1_iraq-survey-group-wmd-weapons-inspector?_s=PM:ALLPOLITICShttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/1434049/Campbell-Iraq-dossier-was-dodgy.htmlhttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/1434049/Campbell-Iraq-dossier-was-dodgy.htmlhttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/1434049/Campbell-Iraq-dossier-was-dodgy.htmlhttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/1434049/Campbell-Iraq-dossier-was-dodgy.htmlhttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/1434049/Campbell-Iraq-dossier-was-dodgy.htmlhttp://articles.cnn.com/2004-01-28/politics/kay.transcript_1_iraq-survey-group-wmd-weapons-inspector?_s=PM:ALLPOLITICShttp://articles.cnn.com/2004-01-28/politics/kay.transcript_1_iraq-survey-group-wmd-weapons-inspector?_s=PM:ALLPOLITICS -
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has been adequate in the absence of inspectors but this is not a situation that can succeed
in the long term. In the long term you have to get inspectors back in.100
Joseph Cirincione of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace declared more decisively
in August, 2002: "Iraq almost certainly does not have nuclear weapons....There is no evidence
that Iraq has a nuclear weapon or will soon have one." Cirincione cited open intelligence from
the US finding that Iraq unconstrained would need several years to produce enough material
for a nuclear weapon.101 British academic Glen Rangwala likewise used open intelligence
sources to declare fairly decisively in advance of the war that Iraq did not have a nuclear
program. In September, he wrote this with MP Alan Simpson, There is no case for a war on
Iraq. It has not threatened to attack the US or Europe. It is not connected to al-Qa'ida. There is
no evidence that it has new weapons of mass destruction, or that it possesses the means of
delivering them.102
After the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 1441, international nuclear
weapons inspectors operated relatively freely in pre-war Iraq and visited over 140 Iraqi sites
looking for signs of nuclear activity. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors
also conducted interviews with Iraqi scientists and other personnel of interest and reviewed a
significant amount of written documentation related to Iraqs nuclear program that was
provided by the regime. Thus, it is very significant that before the Iraq war was launched in
mid-March, the IAEA had found no evidence of a nuclear weapons program in Iraq. In January
2003, agency director Mohamed ElBaradei told the United Nations Security Council, We have
to date found no evidence that Iraq has revived its nuclear weapon programme since the
elimination of the program in the 1990s.103 By March 7, ElBaradei was able to further cement
this finding: After three months of intrusive inspections, we have to date found no evidence or
plausible indication of the revival of a nuclear weapon program in Iraq.104 Ultimately,
100 Massimo Calabresi, Scott Ritter In His Own Words, Time, September 14, 2002.
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,351165,00.html.101 Joseph Cirincione, Iraq's WMD Arsenal: Deadly But Limited, 5 Carnegie Proliferation Brief, #11, 2002.http://www.carnegieendowment.org/publications/index.cfm?fa=view&id=1050102 Alan Simplson and Glen Rangwala, The Dishonest Case for War on Iraq, Iraq Watch, September 16,2002. http://www.iraqwatch.org/perspectives/rangwala-091602.htm103 Mohamed ElBaradei, The Status of Nuclear Inspections in Iraq, 27 January 2003,.104 Mohammed ElBaradei, The Status of Nuclear Inspections In Iraq: An Update, 7 March 2003,.
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,351165,00.htmlhttp://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,351165,00.htmlhttp://www.carnegieendowment.org/publications/index.cfm?fa=view&id=1050http://www.carnegieendowment.org/publications/index.cfm?fa=view&id=1050http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/Statements/2003/ebsp2003n003.shtmlhttp://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/Statements/2003/ebsp2003n006.shtmlhttp://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/Statements/2003/ebsp2003n006.shtmlhttp://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/Statements/2003/ebsp2003n003.shtmlhttp://www.carnegieendowment.org/publications/index.cfm?fa=view&id=1050http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,351165,00.html -
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everyone learned that these reports were accurate as US inspections of occupied Iraq likewise
found no significant WMD efforts or programs.
The assertions about links to al-Qaeda may have been more difficult to challenge prior to
the war. However, the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States
(known popularly as the 9-11 Commission) somewhat decisively dismissed the links between
Iraq and al-Qaeda in their 2004 report. The Commission did acknowledge some relatively minor
meetings between representatives of Iraq and al Qaeda. We have seen no evidence that these
or the earlier contacts ever developed into a collaborative operational relationship. Nor have we
seen evidence indicating that Iraq cooperated with al Qaeda in developing or carrying out any
attacks against the United States.105 Commission spokesperson Al Felzenberg was even more
sweeping when talking to the media that June when the report was released: "We found no
evidence of joint operations or joint work or common operations between al Qaeda and Saddam
Hussein's government, and that's beyond 9/11.106
105 National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, The 9/11 Commission Report, 2004, p.66.http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/report/911Report.pdf.106 See Dana Milbank, 9/11 Panel's Findings Vault Bush Credibility To Campaign Forefront, WashingtonPost, June 20, 2004, p. A1. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A54702-2004Jun19.html
http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/report/911Report.pdfhttp://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/report/911Report.pdfhttp://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/report/911Report.pdfhttp://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/report/911Report.pdf