We learn of a diplomatic breakthrough -- the United States and Britain have convinced Libya's Colonel Moammar Khaddafi to drop his program to develop weapons of mass destruction. When it happened, George W. Bush was so eager to take credit for it that he made the public statement himself. Indeed, credit should be given to those negotiators, both career diplomats and appointees of the Bush and Blair governments, for reaching this deal.It's a pity that Bush and Blair couldn't have tried the same thing with Saddam Hussein.
It might have failed. After all, Hussein was a power-hungry dictator given to seemingly irresponsible and irrational behavior. Oh, but then, so is Khaddafi. Of course, Hussein has a record of reneging on his deals -- and so does Khaddafi. Additionally, Hussein has actively supported international terrorism -- and guess what? So has Khaddafi. But we've bombed Hussein-s people and compounds before -- and whaddya know, we've done the same to Khaddafi!
Yes, but ...
George W. Bush must have had some reason for his willingness to negotiate with Khaddafi that didn't apply to Hussein. Mustn't he? I mean, wouldn't it be crazy to send 150,000 U.S. troops, spend hundreds of billions of dollars, and accept the death of hundreds (and eventually thousands) of American soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines, without a good, rational, irrefutable reason? Especially when it's clear that negotiating with terrorist-sponsoring, deal-breaking, irrational, dictatorial madmen with WMD programs can work, wouldn't it be crazy not to try with Hussein?
So what's the difference between Hussein and Khaddafi? Why is it possible to deal with Khaddafi but impossible to deal with Hussein? Could it be that Hussein has been in the news lately and Khaddafi hasn't? Could it be that the Bush administration figured the Arab world wouldn't accept an invasion of Libya but would sit idly by while we annexed Iraq? Could it be that we put Saddam Hussein in power and sold him every WMD he ever used?
Or could it be that Iraq's oil can be exploited by Bush's big oil buddies, but Libya's can't?
So many other major decisions the Bush administration has made seem to benefit his big oil friends. He wants to open drilling in the Alaska National Wildlife Reserve. He nixed U.S. approval of the Kyoto accord. He refused to support hybrid car technology that exists today, favoring long-term "studies" of fuel cells that may never work in automobiles.
And crude oil prices are at their highest sustained levels ever.
George W. Bush has had eight months during which he could send anyone he wanted anywhere in Iraq to look for anything they could find. In all that time, looking around a country about the size of California, they've found not one shred of evidence that Saddam Hussein had any chemical or biological weapons. And the only "evidence" of a nuclear weapon program turned out to be a colossal fraud.
Suppose that, instead of invading Iraq, we had reached a deal with Hussein where he allowed complete access to U.N. weapons inspectors in exchange for lifting the economic sanctions that were killing his people. What would have been the effect?
- The U.S. government deficit would have been a lot smaller. Most of the $166 billion already spent in the invasion and occupation of Iraq wouldn't have been spent.
- We might have caught Osama bin Laden. Some of that $166 billion could have been spent looking for him. We could have had thousands more special forces and other military personnel in Afghanistan looking for him.
- Over 100,000 troops would be home with their families this holiday season.
- Americans would feel a lot safer, because there wouldn't be the same level of terrorist threat against us.
- OPEC oil production would be up, because Iraq would be pumping at full speed, and the price would be nearly $15 a barrel lower. This means that gasoline and heating oil would be about 25 cents a gallon cheaper.
- Natural gas prices would be about 40% lower as well.
Those are only some of the direct effects. But it gets even worse. In addition to significantly higher energy prices and commodity prices, the dollar is falling -- far and fast. Unless interest rates are raised significantly and soon, inflation will be back with a vengeance. Higher interest rates will choke off the incipient economic recovery as the housing market falls apart and business investment collapses. Unemployment will rise again, and George W. Bush will have nobody to blame but himself.
He won't be able to blame anyone else, because he's the one who failed to see that Moammar Khaddafi and Saddam Hussein were, as far as American foreign policy is concerned, separated at birth.
Copyright 2003, Dan Jacoby
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