DICTATORIAL BUT SOVEREIGN?:

Shawcross's Allies is a must-read on the war in Iraq. (Gary Brown, June 01, 2004, Online Opinion)

The main line of argument in this work will be familiar to all who are acquainted with the pre- and postwar Iraq debate. You will not find anything new here but the case is presented with clarity and vigour; it will serve well as a reference for anyone seeking to extract the key arguments. The writing is both clear and succinct; it is an easy book to read.

There is, as might be expected from a British-based writer, a strong focus on European-American issues and relations. Australians unacquainted with the intricacies of European politics may be a trifle hampered by the extent of the knowledge which Shawcross assumes in his readers. Nevertheless the case he builds remains clear. The Australian role in the build-up to war, and in the war itself, receives only bit-player status in this book. This is, of course, an accurate reflection of Australia's real importance (or lack thereof) in the affairs of the great and powerful.

It is always a temptation for a reviewer who disagrees with the central argument of a book to take up the debate, using the review to further one side of the case. I hope to avoid this trap, but it is fair to point to deficiencies in Shawcross' argument and at least one of his predictions.

Shawcross' treatment of what might be called the opposing case is perhaps questionable. Some people are reduced to caricatures - his dislike of the French Foreign Minister, Dominique de Villepin, for example, is poorly concealed (it is perhaps, too easy to dislike the French when they become notably Gallic). Shawcross also has a tendency to fall into the trap of arguing that Saddam's forcible removal was justifiable because he was a tyrant, and not because of any major security threat he may have posed. He is perhaps forced to this position by the collapse of the case built up around weapons of mass destruction, a subject on which he can only state, pre-war, that many believed Iraq possessed these in quantity.

Shawcross argues cogently that Saddam's pre-war defiance and obstruction of the UN inspections process threatened to devalue the United Nations as an institution - to drain it of credibility. He is less willing to accept that launching the war without UN approval has had a similar effect, preferring to argue that the UN needs to update its conception of what constitutes justification for war in the modern era.

Mr. Brown seems terribly confused here: (1) is he really suggesting that the forcible removal of a tyrant is not self-justifying?; (2) the UN having drained itself of credibility by refusing to enforce its own resolutions, what was left to damage?

Posted by Orrin Judd at June 11, 2004 9:26 PM