In Perspective

Great column from the deeply unserious Nicholas Kristof:

At the end of the day, we have only so much money and so much energy. One option is to continue to devote $10 billion a month and countless lives to Iraq in hopes that our luck will somehow turn. Or we could devote those sums to health care at home and humanitarian programs all around the world — because in the long run, the best hope to defeat the jihadis worldwide isn’t to drop bombs but to build schools.

With the caveat that I actually think the schools-jihadism connection is widely misunderstood, this is precisely right. When I read something like Anthony Cordesman's report on Iraq I doubt not so much his analysis of Iraq, as his Policy Analysis 101 skills: "there is still a tenuous case for strategic patience in Iraq . . . strategic patience is a high risk strategy . . . trends are uncertain . . . there is a window of opportunity that could significantly improve the chances of US success in Iraq if the Iraqi government acts upon it."

None of that actually sounds like a properly assembled case for strategic patience to me. One doesn't, ordinarily, advocate extremely costly courses of action with low odds of success merely on the grounds that expending gargantuan sums of resources "could significantly improve the chances" of the policy working. By that standard, you could justify doing anything at all.

U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Summer M. Anderson

Comments

Yeah, but when it gets right down to it the hawks will always argue that if we leave SOMETHING TERRIBLE WILL HAPPEN, and that makes people in power really nervous, because it is obvious that terrible things happen in Iraq all the time and one can't be sure they won't get a lot worse. It's a Catch-22.

Posted by Jeff | August 13, 2007 1:26 PM

remind the christians of the church hymn ("and they'll know we are christians by our love, by our love") to try to sell them on this approach vs. the revive the crusades approach that seems to be more popular these days.

Posted by christians | August 13, 2007 1:45 PM

By that standard, you could justify doing anything at all.

That, I believe, is the point.

Posted by Thomas Allen | August 13, 2007 1:56 PM

"Or we could devote those sums to health care at home and humanitarian programs all around the world — because in the long run, the best hope to defeat the jihadis worldwide isn’t to drop bombs but to build schools."

I think this is pretty naive to believe that the money will go to social work worldwide.

One could make the same Zero Sum argument about Afghanistan. (I forgot, that's the "okay" war).

It just seem like anti-war folk are trying to play to Americans' worst, nativist side. Like Kerry's statement about building firehouses.

Posted by Peter K. | August 13, 2007 2:05 PM

Is Kristoff still in favor of using the U.S. military in Darfur? He is a hypocrite who uses sloppy, emotional arguments that he would reject if they were used against him. Imagine his reaction if one of his readers pointed out that any moneys he wants for one of his international causes -- e.g., sex slaves in Asia, blacks in Darfur -- could be used on health care in the U.S.

Posted by Fred | August 13, 2007 2:13 PM

Peter K., what in the world are you talking about? how is talking about a "worldwide" program an appeal to nativism?

whether it's feasible to spend more money on projecting soft power is, of course, a perfectly legitimate question, but so is the issue of whether what we are doing in iraq is some kind of humanitarian venture.

Fred, instead of continuing to live in dream land, you're welcome to pose your supposedly devastating question exposing kristoff's hypocrisy to him: he does reader chats, after all. my guess, based on years of exposure to him, is that he would say that his argument isn't as simplistic as you make it, in that he references both "home" and "all around the world."

but it's more fun, i'm sure, to make up the answer you think your devastating riposte would cause him, because i'm sure, on his own, he never would have undertaken such a deep thought.

Posted by howard | August 13, 2007 2:32 PM

Seems like if we really want to cool the jets of the Jihadists, there's a more direct way to do it: we could convert to Islam and declare Islam to be our national religion. What's there for a lefty to lose? You don't like Christianity anyway; those of you who are Jews are, for the most part, lapsed ones; and if you're athiests, what would be the harm in going through the motions of being a Muslim? We could be Muslim like that great secular democracy Turkey is; we wouldn't have to live under Sharia law.

Posted by Juan | August 13, 2007 2:48 PM

I hink your photo is posted backward - the arabic on the flags reads left to right. Or are we seeing the back side of the banners?

Posted by Keith | August 13, 2007 2:53 PM

"Peter K., what in the world are you talking about? how is talking about a "worldwide" program an appeal to nativism?"

And I quote "Or we could devote those sums to health care at home ..."

Posted by Peter K. | August 13, 2007 2:55 PM

"Or we could devote those sums to health care at home and humanitarian programs all around the world — because in the long run, the best hope to defeat the jihadis worldwide isn’t to drop bombs but to build schools."

How noble! Problem is these funds are borrowed to begin with, so it's hard to see how spending our children's money on anything (without their consent) is really all that altruistic.

Posted by kafka | August 13, 2007 2:58 PM

Peter K., you do understand the word "and" don't you? you use it to reflect "both" conditions.

so i repeat, how is it an appeal to "nativism" to support a worldwide program?

for that matter, how is it an appeal to "nativism" to support a better health-care system in america?

kafka, i take it that therefore, you oppose spending a single further cent on iraq, since it's all our "children's" money being spent there.

Posted by howard | August 13, 2007 3:08 PM

The fundamental error here is the notion that there is any NEED to "defeat the jihadis".

Email me when "the jihadis" are any SIGNIFICANT threat to the US.

And 9/11 does NOT count. Neither does a nuclear "dirty bomb". Wake me when they have a REAL nuke, let alone a BS "dirty bomb".

Kristof's point was to stop spending money on Iraq - and start spending it on interventions everywhere else - probably starting with Iran - with a sop to the taxpayer by talking about health programs at home - all for the purpose of "defeating the jihadists".

Sure, right, I buy that argument - NOT.

Take the hundred billion a year (and maybe a couple hundred more billion from the DOD budget - not to mention the other $50 billion or so from the "black budgets") and start spending it on nanotech research. In twenty or thirty years, we'll have a clean environment, no dependency on oil, and as a bonus, we'll all live to be 500 years old...talk about "health care"...how does no cancer or heart disease sound to you?

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | August 13, 2007 5:54 PM

Peter K. is obviously arguing in bad faith. He is simply taking putting words into people's mouths to the next level: taking away the actual words that people say. This is a rather silly form of deconstructionism.

Posted by Reality Man | August 13, 2007 8:34 PM