The Redhunter

Just the Facts, Please

Interestingly, the financial argument is made by both the left and the isolationist right. The left wants to spend the money here at home, and the right want to put it in the pockets of people.

We saw the left use the financial argument during the 2004 presidential election. John Kerry criticized the president on this, claiming that we needed the money at home for health care:

$200 billion for Iraq, but they tell us we can't afford health care for our veterans...We're spending $200 billion in Iraq while the costs of health care have gone through the roof and we're told we don't have the resources to make health care affordable and available for all Americans. They're charging 17 percent more for Medicare while making America pay $200 billion for a go-it-alone policy in Iraq. That's the wrong choice; that's the wrong direction; and that's the wrong leadership for America.

The only difference between Kerry and the pathologist at Walter Reed is what they wanted to do with the money we would save by not being in Iraq. Otherwise, the arguments are pretty similar.

But as the chart below shows, the war in Iraq is not expensive at all, at least when compared with other wars our country has fought:

Chart by Jerry Bower at NRO

As you can see, OIF(Operation Iraqi Freedom) is more in line with the Mexican War or the Spanish-American war than anythig else. It isn't even close to Vietnam, the liberals favorite, nor is it even getting close.

The "Status Quo" wasn't Cheap

Forgotten in all this is that we weren't exactly ignoring Iraq in the period between the Gulf War and OIF. We were maintaining two "no fly" zones, one in the north and the other in the south. Every day, US and (mainly) British fighters patrolled these zones, their objective to prevent Saddam from massacring more Kurds and Shi'is.

In addition, the United States and our allies patrolled the seas around Iraq, enforcing the sanctions. We stopped and borded ships, checking for contaband.

The cost of all this was perhaps 1 billion dollar per year, paid for by American and British taxpayers. Most importantly, there was no end in sight to any of it. Saddam is 68 years old, and could easily live another 10 or more years. His sons, Udan and Qusay, one of whom would have taken power when Saddam died, were 39 and 37 respectively when they were killed in 2003, and could have lived another 40 years.

The 1 billion dollars per year only covered the situation in "normal" times. Occasionally, as with Operation Desert Fox in 1998, when US and British warplanes attacked Iraq over a 3 day period, the cost would go much higher.

Will the Real Objection Please Stand Up?

So if the war isn't really that expensive, why do some people persist in saying it is?

The left says it's too expensive because they are in need or more and more money to fund their ever more costly social programs. They are convinced that the problems with health care insurance can only be solved with more money, as the example above shows.

But aren't these the same people who are always telling us that we need to increase foreign aid, especially to Africa? And aren't they the same ones who get so upset when we withhold money from the UN, arguably the most wasteful, if not outright harmful, organization on the planet?

Therfore, I cannot take the financial argument at face value when it comes from the left.

Nor can I accept that argument when it comes from the right. There is no advantage to the United States in keeping the rest of the world poor. Quite the opposite, we gain when everyone does well. We are better off today with Japan and Germany as economicaly well-off nations than if we'd tried to keep them poor and undeveloped after the Second World War. We imagine that we have a problem with a trade imbalance with Japan, but consider our problems if we didn't have them to trade with. Remember that they buy our goods as well. What type of airplanes do we think their airlines fly?

My objection to foreign aid has never been from an "I need the money instead" position. My objection has been that most of it doesn't work.

Reshaping the Middle East

We have a chance to reshape the entire Middle East. The democracy in Iraq is very imperfect, and we should not expect even that to spread quickly across the region. Trouble with Iranian nuclear weapons could spell doom for the entire project. But by the same token the results of success would be immense.

This is not a "do gooder" stance, although I believe that as Christians we have an obligation to help other people. The Middle East has long been a source of instability, and the cause is that all Arab/Muslim governments save that of Iraq today are dictatorships of one sort or another (Jordan's is somewhat more benign, but the King is an absolute ruler nonetheless). By reforming the region we can end a source of conflict and as such we can relieve ourselves of a security headache.

By not repeating the mistakes of Versailles in Germany after World War II, we ended the vicious cycle of European wars. By rebuilding Japan in our image, we squashed their militarism.

However, by ending theReconstruction of the American South after the Civil War prematurely in 1876, we sentenced blacks to another hundred years of persecution.

In summary, by historical standards the Iraqi war does not cost very much, and in time history will show that the return on our investment will prove it to be some of the best money we've ever spent.