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. Can
We Afford to Occupy Iraq? Rep. Ron Paul 09/03/03: The recent bombing of the UN headquarters in Iraq has refocused the world’s attention on the dangerous situation in that nation. The Bush administration is now softening its position against UN involvement, and is considering the use of UN military forces to serve as an international peacekeeping coalition in Iraq. We should not expect any international coalition to help us pay the bills for occupying Iraq, however. American taxpayers alone will bear the tremendous financial burden of nation building in Iraq. We are already spending about 5 billion dollars in Iraq every month, a number likely to increase as the ongoing instability makes it clear that more troops and aid are needed. We will certainly spend far more than the 65 billion dollars originally called for by the administration to prosecute the war. The possibility of spending hundreds of billions in Iraq over several years is very real. This is money we simply don’t have, as evidenced by the government’s deficit spending- borrowing- to finance the campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq to date. It’s
easy for politicians to say, “We will spend whatever it takes to
rebuild Iraq,” but it’s not their money.
Occupying Iraq is not a matter of noble national resolve like
World War II. The cost of
restoring order will be enormous, and we need to carefully weigh the
supposed benefits and ask ourselves exactly what we hope to get for our
money. I doubt many
Americans believe Iraq is worth bankrupting our nation or saddling
future generations with billions more in debt. The
American public deserves clear goals and a definite exit strategy in
Iraq. It’s not enough for
our political and military leaders to make vague references to some
future time when democratic rule and a civil society somehow will emerge
in Iraq. It’s patently
unrealistic to expect that nation’s various warring factions to
suddenly embrace representative democracy and accept the outcome of a
western-style vote. Even if
open elections could be held, the majority might well choose an
anti-American fundamentalist regime.
This puts Washington in a Catch 22: The U.S. clearly will
influence the creation of a new Iraqi government to ensure it is
friendly to America, yet the perception that we installed the government
will create further hostility toward America.
There obviously are no easy solutions to the dilemmas we face in
Iraq, and the complexity of the political and social realities begs the
question: How do we ever hope to get out?
If real stability and democratic rule simply cannot be attained
in Iraq, are we prepared to occupy it for decades to come? The
Korean conflict should serve as a cautionary tale against the open-ended
military occupation of any region. Human
tragedy aside, we have spent half a century and more than one trillion
of today’s dollars in Korea. What
do we have to show for it? North
Korea is a belligerent adversary armed with nuclear technology, while
South Korea is at best ambivalent about our role as their protector.
The stalemate stretches on with no end in sight, while the
grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the brave men who fought in
Korea continue to serve there. Although
the situation in Iraq is different, the lesson learned in Korea is
clear. We must not allow
our nation to become entangled in another endless, intractable, overseas
conflict. We literally
cannot afford to have the occupation of Iraq stretch on for years.
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