But I'm not arguing that he was a decent leader, just that the Clinton administration was perfectly capable of seeing the fatal consequences of their policies and went ahead with them anyway. Yes. But I am inclined to believe the alternatives were not especially appealing either. We now know that Saddam spent several years trying to maintain WMD programs after the Gulf War, and only really shut them down after his sons-in-law defected with information on them. Had Iraq been allowed unrestricted trade, he might've continued to build up these programs, and he would certainly have continued to brutally and violently oppress his own people. Which again amounts to large-scale suffering, although it is hard to quantify and compare this counterfactual case. Plus other countries may have been tempted to develop WMD programs as well, and the slippery slope there could easily involve well over a half million deaths should nuclear war have been the outcome. The West tried (belatedly, it must be said) to ease the suffering of Iraqis through oil for food, and Saddam stole from those funds too, conniving with the governments and/or officials of a number of countries (although not the US or UK, for obvious reasons) using the vouchers scheme.
Did Saddam have to give in to demands from other powers to get rid of sanctions? Sure, but opening Iraq up to inspections was reasonable, given the circumstances, and would have been in the interests of the world as whole. So yeah, the large-scale deaths were obviously a terrible, terrible thing, but I'm not sure Clinton had any good options there, and I certainly don't think he can be held culpable at a level even remotely resembling Saddam.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Re: As an unapologetic remaining fan of the Clinton years
Date: 2008-11-15 12:18 am (UTC)Yes. But I am inclined to believe the alternatives were not especially appealing either. We now know that Saddam spent several years trying to maintain WMD programs after the Gulf War, and only really shut them down after his sons-in-law defected with information on them. Had Iraq been allowed unrestricted trade, he might've continued to build up these programs, and he would certainly have continued to brutally and violently oppress his own people. Which again amounts to large-scale suffering, although it is hard to quantify and compare this counterfactual case. Plus other countries may have been tempted to develop WMD programs as well, and the slippery slope there could easily involve well over a half million deaths should nuclear war have been the outcome. The West tried (belatedly, it must be said) to ease the suffering of Iraqis through oil for food, and Saddam stole from those funds too, conniving with the governments and/or officials of a number of countries (although not the US or UK, for obvious reasons) using the vouchers scheme.
Did Saddam have to give in to demands from other powers to get rid of sanctions? Sure, but opening Iraq up to inspections was reasonable, given the circumstances, and would have been in the interests of the world as whole. So yeah, the large-scale deaths were obviously a terrible, terrible thing, but I'm not sure Clinton had any good options there, and I certainly don't think he can be held culpable at a level even remotely resembling Saddam.