PAYNE Buildup to Iraq War as Farce

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The Buildup to the Iraq War as Farce

2010 ISSS/ISAC Annual Conference

Providence, RI

14-16 October 2010

Professor Rodger A. Payne

Department of Political Science

203 Ford Hall

2301 S. Third Street

University of Louisville

Louisville, KY 40208

[email protected]

(502) 852-3316 (office)

(502) 852-7923 (fax)
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]


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Abstract

Realist international relations theorists commonly describe world politics in terms of tragedy.

Dramatically, tragic narratives focus on the downfall or death of an elite character, often caused

by the protagonists inherent character flaws. The stories are set in the Great Hall or on the

battlefield and reveal how little control (despite concerted attempts) the protagonist has over

difficult situations and conflict. Despite the obvious parallels with realist views of IR, however,

the events of global politics sometimes seem more like farce than tragedy. Farcical narratives

often focus on elites, but place the characters in improbable or ludicrous situations that may be

exaggerated for comic effect even though the threat of violent action that would shock the

audience often looms over the tale. These are usually frantically paced stories serving to reveal

the ridiculous and to critique the characters and the situation. A farce often turns on intentional

acts of deception, but does not end in the complete downfall or death of the protagonist.

This paper will explain the buildup to the Iraq war in terms of farce focusing on the period

between August 2002 and March 2003. As is now well-known, the war was premised on

evidence and rationales that have been largely undermined by subsequent revelations and

events. In retrospect, the claims were improbable and perhaps even ludicrous. Can international

relations scholars recognize a farce while they are observing it?


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The Buildup to the Iraq War as Farce

It is difficult to imagine many subjects more deadly serious than the study of

international relations (IR). The practice and study of interstate politics literally centers around

life-or-death political and security issues often, the accumulation and use of military force.

Historically, for instance, war has been the paramount concern for IR scholars and foreign

policy practitioners alike because the associated violence is horrific and extraordinarily lethal. In

the twentieth century alone, many tens of millions of people were killed during wartime. A

number of weighty issues tend to dominate discussions about politics among nation-states, such

as their relative material power or the various military threats and political risks they confront.

Realist scholars and statesmen are self-described pessimists as their view of international

political life emphasizes perpetually recurring dilemmas that tend to limit national policy

choices often providing options that yield bad, or even worse, results. The condition of

international anarchy, or perhaps some primal urge in human nature, generates tremendous

fear, promotes perceptions of insecurity, and encourages competition even when no states are

actively seeking to exploit apparent advantages over others.

To help explain their views, realists commonly argue that interstate relations are best

explained in terms of tragedy stories about heroic figures doomed by their own flaws or by

circumstances beyond their control. For example, as will be elaborated below, the recent Iraq

war has frequently been discussed in terms of tragedy.1 As part of the so-called war on

terrorism, the United States and its coalition partners expended tremendous amounts of

resources to topple Saddam Husseins regime and destroy its capacity to build weapons of mass

destruction (WMD), but wound up involved in a prolonged and violent struggle against

insurgent forces. Moreover, as it turned out, Iraq did not possess significant WMD capabilities

and the war improved the strategic position of neighboring Iran, which has a clearly more

menacing nuclear research program. Even though other narrative storylines might occasionally

1 See, for instance, Rob Zaleski, Professor Sees Iraq War as Tragedy,Madison Capitol Times,November22, 2005 (available athttp://www.commondreams.org/views05/1122-32.htm); andAssociated Press, McCain Calls Iraq war great tragedy, April 27, 2007 (available athttp://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18348393/).
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1122-32.htmhttp://www.commondreams.org/views05/1122-32.htmhttp://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18348393/http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18348393/http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18348393/http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1122-32.htm


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be employed to describe elements of the Iraq war, the tragic storyline has some built-in

advantages that make it seem especially persuasive in this and other cases.2 In fact, tragic stories

often seem to overwhelm other narrative possibilities.

To the extent students of IR embrace the tragic narrative to explain adverse outcomes,

they arguably make it difficult to find fault with foreign policymakers or to suggest means to

avoid tragedy in the first place. If a result seems inevitable, then the critical decisions seem

unavoidable. In this paper, however, I argue for an alternative narrative that could perhaps be

employed to challenge the veracity of key decisions as they are publicly debated. In broad

terms, of course, alternative narrative forms involve very different plot devices, agendas,

interpretations of events, and moral choices. As a result, audiences and critics will draw very

different conclusions about decisions and events. I have argued elsewhere, for instance, that

comedic narratives generally provide a unique and interesting perspective on the field

focusing on a wider array of concerns, including the diverse needs of ordinary people around

the world, and suggesting the possibility of happy endings.3 Below, I specifically discuss the

potential value of interpreting the buildup to the Iraq war during 2002 and early 2003 as farce

rather than as a tragedy.

The paper is divided into three major sections. In the opening section, the traditional

realist concern with tragedy is summarized to cement the importance of dramatic narratives in

the field and to stress the contours and limits of the typical tragic story. The tragic interpretation

of the Iraq war is also very briefly outlined. The second section develops a case for studying

comedy in world politics by stressing the importance of farce. The third section overviews the

farcical elements of the buildup to the Iraq war, focusing particularly on the period between

August 2002 when the George W. Bush administration in the US launched the public relations

campaign in support of the impending war and March 19, 2003, when the first airstrikes on

Baghdad found their targets. Finally, the conclusion considers whether audiences, including

international relations scholars, can recognize, highlight, and react to a real-world farcical

situation while it is occurring.

2 See Erik Ringmar, Inter-Textual Relations: The Quarrel Over the Iraq War as a Conflict betweenNarrative Types, 41 Conflict and Cooperation, 2006, 403- 21.3 Rodger A. Payne, The Comedy of Great Power Politics in the 21st Century, 48th Annual Convention,International Studies Association Annual Meeting, Hilton Chicago, IL, February 2007.


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I. The Tragic Realist NarrativeA. The Tragedy of power politics.

While it is widely accepted that social constructivists, critical theorists, and postmodern

scholars study the role of discourse and communication in international politics, it is important

to emphasize that realists too have developed and highlighted a specific narrative vision to help

explain their perspective of international political life. It is not unusual to find examples of

hard-nosed realists openly discussing discursive elements of international politics.4

Additionally, many scholars who analyze realism from critical or postmodern theoretical

viewpoints often reflect upon its paradigmatic stories and narrative forms.5

Almost everyone in the field, including realists, considers states and other global entities

to be principal actors, or perhaps players, in international politics. After all, these terms are

standard jargon in the discipline. Likewise, IR scholars commonly place these actors in specific

narrative settings, such as in a Hobbesian state of nature or in the midst of stag hunt. In an

interview with the editors of the journal International Relations, the neorealist John Mearsheimer

on several occasions refers to the story or even to my story when differentiating his version

of neorealism from other accounts.6 Other scholars argue that these well-established stories

shape player preferences and behavior in a manner that generates familiar outcomes. The

neorealist Stephen Krasner describes various features of international politics as cognitive

scripts, including both the Westphalian model in general and the international legal

understanding of sovereignty.7 Similarly, the constructivist John Gerard Ruggie claims that

actors, in the context of these [neorealist and neoliberal institutionalist] models, merely enact

(or fail to) a prior script.8

4 Elsewhere, I have argued that realists both reject and embrace certain communicative dimensions ofcritical theory. See Rodger A. Payne, Neorealists as Critical Theorists: The Purpose of Foreign PolicyDebate, 5 Perspectives on Politics, 2007, pp 503-5145 For example, see Francis A. Beer and Robert Hariman, eds. Post-Realism; the rhetorical turn in internationalrelations (East Lansing: Michigan State, 1996); and Stefano Guzzini, Realism in International Relations and

International Political Economy; the Continuing Story of a Death Foretold (NY: Routledge, 1998), p. ?.6 Conversations in International relations, Interview with John J. Mearsheimer (part II), 20 InternationalRelations, 2006 p. 241. See also, part I, pp. 115, 121.7 Stephen D. Krasner, Sovereignty, Organized Hypocrisy (Princeton, 1999) pp. 41, 69.8 See Ruggie, What Makes the World Hang Together? Neo-utilitarianism and the Social ConstructivistChallenge, 52 International Organization, Autumn 1998, p. 876. Somewhat similarly, Hollis and Smithdiscuss actors working within states fulfilling specific roles in the same manner as theatrical actors in aplay. See Martin Hollis and Steve Smith, Explaining and Understanding International Relations (Oxford:Clarendon Press, 1990), pp. 155-7.


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Some scholars go even further, viewing the participants in international politics as if

they are skilled theatrical artists appearing in elaborate performances. For instance, in his

seminal work published more than thirty years ago, Kenneth N. Waltz employed the standard

realist usage of many key terms: As long as the major states are the major actors, the structure

of international politics is defined in terms of them. That theoretical statement is of course borne

out in practice. States set the scene in which they, along with nonstate actors, stage their

dramas.9 Likewise, Hans Morgenthau commonly discussed political actors on the scene,

playing roles, and occasionally employing disguises or enacting policies of deception. For

instance, when describing prestige politics, Morgenthau noted that the essence of a policy of

bluff is well illustrated in the theater device of letting a score of extras, dressed as soldiers, walk

about the stage, disappear behind the scenery, and come back again and again, thus creating the

illusion of a great number.10

As elaborated below, many realists have a "genuinely tragic" vision of international

political dramas.11 Classically, a tragedy was a deadly serious dramatic story focused on the

downfall of a prominent even aristocratic protagonist. The heros demise would typically be

caused by his or her own human fallibility, often developed as an inherent character flaw. In

some tragedies, the failing could be attributed to a greater power beyond the control of the

protagonist, such as fate. As befitting a noble, the tragic tale would ordinarily be set in the

Great Hall or on the battlefield, and the tragic decline would be initiated by some sort of

critical test. The story would turn on this conflict, which could be the source of tremendous

torment for the protagonist. The dramatic plot would highlight the virtual inevitability of the

heros collapse, generally his (or her) death, given the circumstances. The main characters

reaction to the conflict typically worsens the situation, though before death the protagonist

often discovers that attempts to control and resolve the conflict have actually compounded it. In

other words, the hero finally recognizes the fact that many of his problems are of his own

making. Throughout these dramatic narratives, tragic heroes are passionately egocentric and

answer only to themselves. They can thus be viewed as "radically unsociable beings who are

9 Kenneth N. Waltz, Theory of International Politics (NY: McGraw Hill, 1979), p. 94.10 Hans J. Morgenthau, revised by Kenneth W. Thompson, Politics Among Nations; The Struggle for Powerand Peace 6th edition (NY: Knopf, 1985), pp. 98, 103, 49411 John J. Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (NY: WW Norton, 2001), p. 3. For an interestingoverview of realist views, see Michael Spirtas, A House Divided: Tragedy and Evil in Realist Theory, 5Security Studies, 1996, pp. 385-423.


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willing to suffer in the service of their own vision of themselves.12 In other words, tragic

heroes behave almost exactly like realists expect states to act in IR.

Like the classic genre of Greek drama, realists argue that the grand stage of interstate

politics is dominated by rich and powerful nation-state protagonists. Indeed, realists openly

proclaim and embrace a generic national interest in grabbing and maintaining political power

so as to assure state survival and achieve other important goals. Interests are defined fairly

simply and narrowly in terms of material gain, not by the attainment of pie-in-the-sky ideals or

alignment with particular moral codes. The strategic logic of realism is based on an ethic of

necessity, favored because adherents believe that the alternatives are obviously worse.

Inevitably and tragically, realists concede, a world comprised of egotistical power-seeking states

is bound to feature recurring competition and violence. The game might be rigged in favor of

the rich and powerful, but every state has strong incentives to pursue policies that maximize

any advantage, avoid critical losses, and minimize perilous risks. Inspired by thinkers like

Niccol Machiavelli and statesmen like Otto von Bismarck, realists have long embraced an

essentially pessimistic understanding of the world. Nation-states have virtually no choice but to

build up military power and to seek fulfillment of their own selfish desires, even though these

pursuits are almost certain to conflict with the actions of other states and make the use of

violence virtually inevitable. International political life among the great powers is thus akin to a

Hobbesian state of nature, potentially a war of all against all. The academic realist Waltz, for

instance, warns that international relations occur in the brooding shadow of violence.Among

states, the state of nature is a state of warwar may at any time break out.13

As do the heroes of classic dramatic productions, states make critical but unavoidable

errors in their relations with other states and thereby produce great pain and suffering and

often their own collapse. The parallels are obvious, as both dramatic playwrights and realist

scholars tell compelling stories centered upon important figures that are forced to confront the

limits of their power. The stories often end with calamity the rise and fall of great powers is a

recurring IR storyline. Frequently, realists explain that great powers fall because the reach of

12 Ian Johnston, Lecture, prepared for English 366: Studies in Shakespeare, June 1999, MalaspinaUniversity College, Nanaimo, BC. This text is in the public domain and was last revised in December2000. Available February 6, 2010 at http://records.viu.ca/~johnstoi/eng366/lectures/lecture1.htm.13 Waltz, 1979, p. 102.


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their ambition exceeds their grasp, as understood in the notion of imperial overstretch.14

Realists frequently make great use of metaphorical tragedies as well, including Rousseaus so-

called stag hunt parable and sometimes the prisoners dilemma game (PDG).15 Both the stag

hunt and PDGs are tragedies because fully informed and rationally self-interested players

nonetheless find themselves condemned to a jointly dispreferred outcome.16 Some scholars

also apply the so-called tragedy of the commons metaphor to international relations.17

B. The Iraq War as Tragedy

Realists were very skeptical of the Iraq war and proved to be among the most vocal

critics of the Bush administration during the public debate.18 Realist scholars like Mearsheimer

and Stephen Walt did not think that Hussein was a particularly great threat to U.S. or western

interests and had actually behaved rather predictably in the past vis--vis his neighbors and

towards bigger powers. These and other realists believed in the ability of the US to contain

Hussein at best and perhaps to deter any nascent WMD at worst. As Ringmar describes their

view, a war against the country was unnecessary, foolhardy, and simply not in the national

interest of the US. By their account, the war was irresponsible adventurism sold to the

American public under false pretenses with cheap patriotic rhetoric.19 It was also predictably

tragic. Fighting for our ideals may be a noble thing to do, but it is also foolish, and the hubris

of the romantic hero is always the cause of his fall. Hubris distorts our judgment and makes us

embark on badly considered ventures.20 Schmidt and Williams, though somewhat critical of

the realist role in the public debate, acknowledge that many realists would view the argument

about Iraq as essentially tragic, given that realist timeless wisdom was cast aside.21

14 Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict (New York:Random House, 1988).15 In the stag hunt, every hunter in a group outing has an individual incentive to leave fellow hunters inthe lurch should a tempting hare be spotted.16 See John Tilley, Accounting for the tragedy in the Prisoners Dilemma, 99 Synthese, May 1994, pp.251-76.17 See Louis Ren Beres, Bipolarity, Multipolarity and the Tragedy of the Commons, 26 Western PoliticalQuarterly, December 1973, pp. 649-58.18 See Payne, 2007.19 Ringmar, pp. 408-9.20 Ringmar, p. 406.21 Brian C. Schmidt and Michael C. Williams, The Bush Doctrine and the Iraq War: NeoconservativesVersus Realists, 17 Security Studies, 2008, p. 209.


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C. The Limits of the Tragic Narrative

The tragic understanding of global politics is seriously constricted and obviously cannot

explain every action or aspect of international political life. Tragic stories focus on a narrow set

of characters staging their dramas in a limited domain. One or more alternative narratives may

sometimes better explain international relations and may well end happily, rather than

tragically. While this paper primarily explores the possibility of a specific alternative narrative

form, it is nonetheless worthwhile to summarize the broader critique of tragedy.

To begin, the pessimistic realists who embrace this perspective and focus their attention

narrowly on interstate competition, do not say nearly enough about global politics writ large.

Put simply, by studying statesmainly the great powersthey overlook most other actors in

global politics. As Waltz argues, nonstate actorsshow no sign of developing to the point of

rivaling or surpassing the great powers. Rather, the most significant nonstate actors are

stronger than just a few of the minor states.22 As a consequence, realist tragedies do not

devote much attention to nongovernmental organizations, international institutions,

transnational corporations, or even terrorists.23 Additionally, the worlds bottom billion

people usually do not figure prominently into realist stories, even though individuals are

increasing prioritized by a growing literature on human security.24 In fact, realists tend even to

overlook the entrepreneurial behavior of middle and minor powers.25

Second, while the setting for both tragic dramas and realist tales of international politics

is in the Great Hall or on the battlefield, world politics should be seen as having a much broader

scope. Realists tend to neglect a plethora of global concerns often defined fairly pejoratively as

low politics, including economic well-being, the global environment, poverty, disease, human

trafficking, human rights abuses, and sexual violence. Nonetheless, the fate of literally millions

if not billions of human begins may well hinge on the successful political resolution of these

22 Waltz, Political Structures, in Neorealism and Its Critics, ed. by Robert O. Keohane (NY: ColumbiaUniversity, 1986), p. 89.23 On non-state actors in world politics, see Margaret E. Keck and Kathryn Sikkink,Activists BeyondBorders, Advocacy Networks in International Politics (Cornell University: 1998).24 Paul Collier, The bottom billion: why the poorest countries are failing and what can be done about it (OxfordUniversity, 2007); and Human Security Centre, University of British Columbia, Human Security Report2005, War and Peace in the 21st Century (NY: Oxford, 2005).25 See Christine Ingebritsen, Norm Entrepreneurs, Scandinavias Role in World Politics, 37 Cooperationand Conflict: Journal of the Nordic International Studies Association, 2002, p. 11-23; and Lloyd Axworth andSarah Taylor, A ban for all seasons, The landmine convention and its implications for Canadiandiplomacy, International Journal, Spring 1998, pp. 189-203.


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potential life-and-death issues. Some of these threats kill or menace far more people than war

and even many utilitarian or instrumental perspectives would designate them as higher

priorities on the global agenda.

Third, realist stories feature tragic plots that cannot explain nearly all international

political behavior. Realists, for instance, downplay the potentially large amount of mutual

interest and genuinely cooperative behavior that links states and other actors in global

politics. According to realist accounts, states in the international system tragically cannot solve

shared problems, no matter how pressing they are. In his seminal treatise, Waltz briefly

discussed an array of world-shaking problems such as poverty, population, pollution and

proliferation that cry out for global solutions, but there is no global agency to provide them.

Necessities do not create possibilities. 26 When states do seek to cooperate in organizations,

realists argue that the pursuit of relative gains and fear of cheating preclude meaningful

cooperation. Mearsheimer says policymakers place false faith in institutional theories.27

However, by way of contrast, the literatures on norm construction28 and international regimes29

suggest the successful institutionalization of solutions that directly address shared problems. As

shall be developed below, realists tragic plots likewise stand in stark contrast to farcical plots,

which serve very different narrative purposes.

Fourth, realists vehemently reject happy endingsor what critical theorists call

emancipatory purpose. The characters in dramatic tragedy make fateful choices that virtually

always end badly. At best, realist theory reflects a very strong status quo bias that makes it

almost impossible to explain or predict desirable transformations in world order. According to

realist logic, great powers cannot escape the security dilemma. Mearsheimer explains his

pessimism as a pragmatic inevitability: it behooves us to see the world as it is, not as we would

like it to be.30 Morgenthau likewise famously called for studying IR as it actually israther

than as people would like to see it. Morgenthau embraces the moral principle of national

26 Waltz, 1979, pp. 109, 210.27 Mearsheimer, The False Promise of International Institutions, 19 International Security, Winter1994/95, pp. 5-49. The quote is from p. 49.28 For an overview of the norms literature, see Martha Finnemore and Kathryn Sikkink, InternationalNorm Dynamics and Political Change, 52 International Organization, Autumn 1998, pp. 887-917.29 For a neoliberal essay that directly addresses many of realisms boldest claims, see Robert O. Keohaneand Lisa L. Martin, The Promise of Institutionalist Theory, 20 International Security, Summer 1995, pp.39-51.30 Mearsheimer, 2001, p. 4.


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survival and consider[s] prudenceto be the supreme virtue in politics.The best that can be

hoped in international relations, Morgenthau wrote, is the realization of the lesser evil rather

than of the absolute good.31 While some realists literally assert the maxim might makes right,

virtually all would agree that the balance of power almost certainly does not reflect either a just

order or magnanimous cooperation. Scholars who imagine the possibility that the international

system might be transformed into a more harmonious and meaningful political community are

accused by realists of promoting fantasy theory.32 To turn the tables on such claims, note that

the critical IR theorist Robert W. Cox dubbed neorealism a science at the service of big-power

management of the international system.33

In sum, realist tragedies do not address many globally important actors and settings,

even though these stories are arguably importantand end happily at least some of the time.

Indeed, even if one shies away from the kind of end-of-history gloating that some

neoconservatives proclaimed in the 1990s, almost everyone should recognize that there has

been a steady stream of good news in global politics over the past few decades that is difficult to

explain from a tragic realist perspective. Mearsheimer may miss the cold war, but most

ordinary people in the former Soviet Union and its satellite states likely do not. Great power

war itself has apparently disappeared from the international system, and even the remaining

internal conflicts seem to reflect the remnants of war rather than a dangerous Hobbesian

world of interstate competition.34 Democratic change has progressed unevenly, with some

notable reversals, but many more of the worlds peoples now live under accountable

government than ever before in history. Many high profile despotic regimes have been toppled,

such as the apartheid government in South Africa, and non-democratic states such as China

seem inevitably destined to confront popular demands for change. Events in Rwanda and

Darfur prove that genocide can happen again, but the world is much more attentive to human

rights norms than it was through the first half of the twentieth century. Institutions like the

United Nations and International Criminal Court may bring only a modicum of justice to

current world politics, but that nonetheless compares favorably to the more distant past.

31 Morgenthau, 1985, pp. 17, 12, and 4.32 Randall L. Schweller, Forum: Fantasy Theory, 25 Review of International Studies, 1999, pp. 147-150.33 Robert W. Cox, Social Forces, States and World Orders: Beyond International Relations Theory, inNeorealism and its Critics, ed. by Robert O. Keohane (NY: Columbia, 1986), p. 248.34 John Mueller, The Remnants of War(Cornell University, 2004).


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These transformations in world politics have for the most part occurred non-violently

typically in response to goals pursued by political movements, not armed forces on the

battlefield. Indeed, many of the most emancipatory changes to the prevailing world order have

occurred because entrenched political actors and systems were recognized as illegitimate. Those

who challenged the status quo identified and criticized the hypocrisy often embedded in

established order and demanded the creation of legitimate arrangements.35

II. Farce

While I have argued elsewhere for a comedic turn in the study of global politics, this

section narrowly focuses on the potential narrative value of farce. Generally, comedic narratives

focus on the concerns of ordinary people and offer the prospect of happy endings. However,

farce can provide an exaggerated means by which to critique the attitudes and behavior of

powerful elites especially in situations weighed down by the threat of violence. Farce is a form

of drama that tends to feature stereotypical characters that frequently appear in disguise and

may well be mistaken for one another. Ridiculous wordplay often makes a speaker out to be a

fool or clown. Many characters in farce are said to be deliberate monuments to stupidity,

though a farce will also feature a knave who is the equivalent of the villain in melodrama.

The knave is a trouble-maker with a spirit of mischief, but farce is forever demonstrating

that the knaves ingenuities get him nowhere.36 Actually, either the fool or the knave may

behave outrageously and they are often involved in highly improbable situations and plots.

Farce is the form in which we temporarily forget what makes the world a well-ordered

place.37 Booth similarly argues that farce is a mechanism for revealing disorder or contesting

established norms. Farce functions by profaning approved moral, sexual, social and familial

codes and flourishes in periods of stability when such codes are the received dogma of the

audience.38 Masons description is apt: Farce challenges the spectator, vacillating between an

apparent depiction and a travesty between what seems to be and what lurks, leering gleefully,

35 See Rodger A. Payne and Nayef H. Samhat, Democratizing Global Politics (SUNY, 2004); and Samhat andPayne, American Foreign Policy Legitimacy and the Global Public Sphere, 18 Peace Review, #2, 2006, pp.251-9. Realist IR theorists ignore, overlook and even embrace hypocrisy. For example, realists argue thatorganized hypocrisy has been an enduring attribute of international politics. Krasner, 1999.36 Eric Bentley, The Life of The Drama, (NY: Applause Theatre and Cinema Books, 1964), pp. 249-50.37 Richard L. Homan, Farce after Existentialism: Pirandellos It is So! (If You Think So), in Themes inDrama 10:Farce, ed. by James Redmond (Cambridge, 1988), p. 202.38 Michael R. Booth, Feydeau and the farcical imperative, in Redmond, p. 149


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just beneath the surface. The farceur acts on the knowledge that probability necessarily implies

an improbability which carries a license for wild nonsense.39 He continues, the farce-world

appears to be as capricious and as unreliable as Alices Looking-Glass World; not only does it

refuse to follow the laws of the ordinary world, it declines to be consistent within its own

context. It is the product of the tension between its realistic basis and the farcical artifice that

dominates the action.40 Influential scholar and critic Eric Bentley asserts simply that farce is

an extreme case of the extreme. Farce characteristically promotes and exploits the widest

possible contrasts between tone and content, surface and substance41 While farce is

characteristically irreverent, coarse, and rudely figurative, the chief rhetorical devices

employed in farce are hyperbole and extended oxymoron.42

Farce is often condemned as vulgar, base and primitive.43 A typical farce is fast-paced

and relatively brief. Some critics write that the rapid pacing makes the action seem automatic

and explosive rather than generated by free will.44 A farce must be brief because of the means it

employs staccato speech and action, exaggerations of all kinds; the reductio ad absurdum

within simple propositions of behavior; brutal directness; brisk reversalsand so on; all of

which call for short rhythms and brief limits.45 However, Bentley claims that farce is not

merely absurd, farce is a veritable structure of absurdities.we find reason in the madness: the

absurdities which we would be inclined to call stupid are connected in a way we cannot but

consider the reverse of stupid. There is an ingenious and complex set of interrelationships.46

Homan, in fact, finds farce to be a form for examining quite serious matters: Hunger, sexual

inadequacy and poverty are serious problems in real life, yet we accept them as material for

farce.47 Other scholars such as Booth highlight this apparent dichotomy between absurd style

and serious subject. Farce is of course a remarkable paradox. The darkness of its world, the

39 Jeffrey D. Mason, The fool and the clown: the ironic vision of George S. Kaufman, in Redmond, p.207.40 Mason, 1988, p. 215.41 Bentley, 1964, p. 243. Bentley (p. 242) also argues that the contrast between appearance and reality,order and disorder (and violence) constitutes a double dialectic.42 Robert C. Stephenson, Farce As Method, 5 Tulane Drama Review, December 1960, p. 90.43 Gregory Dobrov, The dawn of farce: Aristophanes, in Redmond, p. 15.44 Eric Bentley, ed. Introduction: The Psychology of Farce, Lets Get a Divorce! And other plays (NY: Hilland Wang, 1958), p. xx.45 Stephenson p. 90.46 Bentley, 1964, pp. 244-5.47 Homan, p. 203.


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emptiness it sees at the heart of the human condition, are conveyed to its audience by

marvelous comic techniques which are not only superbly entertaining and laughter-producing

but are also entirely expressive of the nature of that condition and the content and viewpoint of

farce itself. He continues by explaining that nobody in a farce has the slightest sense of

humour. What is uproariously funny to the audience is a dreadful nightmare to the

characters.48Sren Kierkegaard argued that the audience can just as well be moved to sadness

as shaken by laughter when viewing a farce.49

Farce, argues Bentley, depicts man as a violent animal who chiefly uses his intelligence

to think aggression when he is not committing it.50 He argues that the impulse to attack is

the principal moter of farce.51 Moreover, Bentley explains that this hostility is not rationalized

within the context of the story. In farce, what lies beneath the surface is pure aggression, which

gets no moral justification, and asks none.52 Bentley is certainly not alone in arguing that the

prospect of violence often lurks throughout the typically fast-paced narrative of a farce.

Labinger has similarly noted that nearly everyone who has ever written about farce

acknowledges the brutality that lurks just beneath its festive surface.53 Marcoux argues that

this violence fits readily within the archetypal farcical narrative:

The characters in a farce suffer a great deal; at times the innocent along with the guilty.

Physical violence is common; psychological damage often inflicted. We are invited to

laugh at what seems to be a monstrous exaggeration of the human condition. Characters

in a farce are often out of control and seem headed for inevitable disaster. Since they do

not recognize their own self-indulgence, the characters often seem shallow and totally

manipulated by circumstances or by their own passionPlot seems little more than a

mere chain of events, while motives are either non-existent or obviously forced.54

As typical examples of farce, consider the Marx Brothers films, including the geopolitical Duck

Soup, as well as much of the work of Charlie Chaplin. Bentley points out, in fact, that Chaplins

film farces, such as his wartime story, The Great Dictator, are for the most part taken up with

48 Booth, p. 152.49Sren Kierkegaard, Farce Is Far More Serious, 14 Yale French Studies, 1954, p. 4.50 Bentley, 1958, p. xix.51 Bentley, 1964, p. 255.52 Bentley, 1964, p. 296. However, according to Bentley (p. 243), farce offers the interaction of violenceand something else, which means that violence is not the essence of farce.53 Andrea G. Labinger, The cruciform farce in Latin America: two plays, in Redmond, p. 219.54 J. Paul Marcoux, Georges Feydeau and the serious farce, in Redmond, p. 131.


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violent pursuit and violent combat. Fantasy multiples movements and blows by a thousand.55

As these films illustrate, farce can feature absurd physical acts of violence or verbal threats,

even during horrific times of war.

Literary theorists widely reference Bentleys comic catharsis thesis to explain the

importance of this violence in farce. The critic claimed that farce offers a special opportunity

for release of pent-up desires perhaps of aggression. The audience members enjoy the

privilege of being totally passive while on stage our most treasured unmentionable wishes are

fulfilled before our eyes by the most violently active human beings that ever sprang from the

human imagination.56 In another essay, Bentley has argued that the violent release is

comparable to the sudden relieving hiss of steam through a safety valve.57

In sum, a farce is a fast-paced and outrageous story featuring characters who freely

employ hyperbole and make nonsensical claims about their situation. Protagonists and

antagonists can often be described as reckless fools or devious knaves, though the regular

instances of mistaken identity may blur the distinction for members of the audience. Frequently,

the threat of physical violence or aggression looms over the story.

III. The Buildup to the Iraq War as Farce

During the buildup to war, former UNSCOM biological weapons inspector Richard

Spertzel argued that the ongoing weapons inspections in Iraq were a sham and made for farce.

Inspectors were only visiting the facilities that Iraq wanted them to see and scientists were not

interviewed for information. Of course inspectors could not find weapons, he argued, as these

kinds of inspections only help proliferant states like Iraq maintain plausible deniability.58 Most

other contemporary observers would likely have said that the most overtly farcical elements of

the early Iraq war were provided at the regular media briefings of the man known informally as

Baghdad Bob." Iraq's Information Minister Mohammed Saeed Al-Sahhaf, also called comical

Ali by the world press, made all sorts of outrageous statements about the opening stages of the

war, perhaps most famously claiming for the assembled cameras and microphones that

Baghdad was safe even as American troops could be seen on television entering the city:

55 Bentley, 1958, p. xii.56 Bentley, 1964, p. 229.57 Bentley, 1958, p. xiii.58 Richard Spertzel, No Smoking Gun; Farce revealed, National Review Online, January 13, 2003.http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/205498/no-smoking-gun/richard-spertzel


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As information minister, he was the regime's mouthpiece, called on to give an upbeat

assessment of events at the same time the world's media showed the noose tightening

around Baghdad. His daily televised briefings caused amusement and confusion to

journalists and audiences across the world because of his forthright and often skewed

view of the conflict.59

However, the evidence presented in this section reveals that the seven month American buildup

to the Iraq war can also be viewed as farce.60 The movement towards war was fast-paced and

the main characters repeatedly made hyperbolic claims that in retrospect seem foolish, skewed,

and perhaps nonsensical. Obviously, the threat of aggressive violence loomed over the story as

it developed. Looking back, analysts could reasonably argue that the entire plot was a strange

case of mistaken identity. Saddam Husseins Iraq was erroneously linked to the 9/11 attackers,

while Pakistan, in contrast, may have been far more deserving of US preemptive war threats.

As then-White House chief of staff Andrew Card told the New York Times, the Bush

administration in September 2002 began a concerted marketing campaign to sell its Iraq

policy.61 Iraq had been soundly defeated in the 1991 Persian Gulf War, then disarmed by

weapons inspectors and impoverished by more than 10 years of strong international economic

sanctions. Moreover, the U.S. was the worlds only superpower and was much stronger than

Iraq by essentially any measure. Thus, it could have proved challenging to demonstrate that

Iraq was a menacing threat to the U.S. that must be addressed quickly. The National Security

Strategy of the United States, released by the White House in September 2002, made a strong

contribution by reframing the debate around the 9/11 attacks and suggesting the need to act

promptly against the kind of threat Iraq allegedly posed. The document acknowledged that the

U.S. enjoys a position of unparalleled military strength and great economic and political

59 BBC, Profile: Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf, 27 June 2003.http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2927031.stm. For examples of al-Sahhafs statements, see WeLove the Iraqi Information Minister, http://www.welovetheiraqiinformationminister.com/60 Many observers would now view another early 2003 wartime event as farcical. On May 1, President

Bush landed in the co-pilots seat of a Viking jet on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier.He was photographed wearing a naval flight suit and claimed that he had helped fly the plane. Hourslater, he appeared in a business suit and declared that major combat operations in Iraq have ended. Atthe time, he was standing under a large banner that read simply, Mission Accomplished. CNN,Commander in Chief Lands on USS Lincoln, May 2, 2003.http://articles.cnn.com/2003-05-01/politics/bush.carrier.landing_1_bush-speech-observation-deck-flight-deck?_s=PM:ALLPOLITICS.61 Elisabeth Bumiller, Bush Aides Set Strategy to Sell Policy on Iraq, New York Times, September 7, 2002.http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/07/us/traces-of-terror-the-strategy-bush-aides-set-strategy-to-sell-policy-on-iraq.html.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2927031.stmhttp://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2927031.stmhttp://articles.cnn.com/2003-05-01/politics/bush.carrier.landing_1_bush-speech-observation-deck-flight-deck?_s=PM:ALLPOLITICShttp://articles.cnn.com/2003-05-01/politics/bush.carrier.landing_1_bush-speech-observation-deck-flight-deck?_s=PM:ALLPOLITICShttp://articles.cnn.com/2003-05-01/politics/bush.carrier.landing_1_bush-speech-observation-deck-flight-deck?_s=PM:ALLPOLITICShttp://articles.cnn.com/2003-05-01/politics/bush.carrier.landing_1_bush-speech-observation-deck-flight-deck?_s=PM:ALLPOLITICShttp://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/07/us/traces-of-terror-the-strategy-bush-aides-set-strategy-to-sell-policy-on-iraq.htmlhttp://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/07/us/traces-of-terror-the-strategy-bush-aides-set-strategy-to-sell-policy-on-iraq.htmlhttp://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/07/us/traces-of-terror-the-strategy-bush-aides-set-strategy-to-sell-policy-on-iraq.htmlhttp://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/07/us/traces-of-terror-the-strategy-bush-aides-set-strategy-to-sell-policy-on-iraq.htmlhttp://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/07/us/traces-of-terror-the-strategy-bush-aides-set-strategy-to-sell-policy-on-iraq.htmlhttp://articles.cnn.com/2003-05-01/politics/bush.carrier.landing_1_bush-speech-observation-deck-flight-deck?_s=PM:ALLPOLITICShttp://articles.cnn.com/2003-05-01/politics/bush.carrier.landing_1_bush-speech-observation-deck-flight-deck?_s=PM:ALLPOLITICShttp://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2927031.stm


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influence. However, it avowed that The events of September 11, 2001, taught us that weak

states, like Afghanistan, can pose as great a danger to our national interests as strong

states.America is now threatened less by conquering states than we are by failing ones. The

NSS therefore declared that the US would begin taking proactive counterproliferation

measures, even if that meant preemptive options would be used. The United States can no

longer solely rely on a reactive posture as we have in the past. The inability to deter a potential

attacker, the immediacy of todays threats, and the magnitude of potential harm that could be

caused by our adversaries choice of weapons, do not permit that option. We cannot let our

enemies strike first. Bluntly, the document embraced an aggressive strategy, stating that the

best defense is a good offense.62

The farcical application of this policy to Iraq was arguably best reflected in the certain

language employed by administration officials to describe a threat from Saddam Husseins

regime that did not exist at the time. On August 26, 2002, Vice President Dick Cheney jump-

started the marketing campaign when he delivered an important speech to the Veterans of

Foreign Wars. The address offered bold declarations that reflected great and unwarranted

certainty about the supposed threat from Iraq. Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam

Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them to use

against our friends, against our allies, and against us. Worse, Cheney added, we now know

that Saddam has resumed his efforts to acquire nuclear weapons. . . . Many of us are convinced

that Saddam will acquire nuclear weapons fairly soon.63 This comment preceded by about five

weeks the intelligence communitys production of a new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE)

that ostensibly reflected the latest information about Iraq and would later be referenced to

justify the public claims about the risks. Soon, whatever doubt the administration was willing to

acknowledge was dismissed by reference to potential horrific images of destruction. National

Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice made worldwide headlines when she uttered these words

in an interview with CNN on September 8, 2002: The problem here is that there will always be

62 White House, National Security Strategy of the United States, September 2002. http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/nsc/nss/2002/. The greater the threat, the greater is the risk of inaction andthe more compelling the case for taking anticipatory action to defend ourselves, even if uncertaintyremains as to the time and place of the enemys attack. To forestall or prevent such hostile acts by ouradversaries, the United States will, if necessary, act preemptively.63 Richard Cheney, Vice President Speaks at VFW 1034d National Convention, 26 August 2002, . Cheney notedthat the information was obtained from defectors.
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some uncertainty about how quickly he [Saddam Hussein] can acquire nuclear weapons. But

we dont want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud. 64 Again, Dr. Rices comments

preceded the production of the NIE by many weeks. President Bush used the same imagery in

his October 7, 2002, speech in Cincinnati, Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the

final proofthe smoking gunthat could come in the form of a mushroom cloud. We cannotstand by and do nothing while dangers gather.65

Again and again, the administration strongly implied that the worst-case fears about

Iraq were related to very real and immediate threats. The President himself declared in mid-

September: Should his [Saddam Husseins] regime acquire fissile material, it would be able to

build a nuclear weapon within a year.66 This was perhaps literally true, but the assessment

made no mention of the difficulty a state like Iraq would have in acquiring sufficient fissile

material. In Cincinnati, Bush used the word urgent several times to describe the nature of the

threat from Iraq and the obligation the risk placed on the US to act: Understanding the

threats of our time, knowing the designs and deceptions of the Iraqi regime, we have every

reason to assume the worst, and we have an urgent duty to prevent the worst from occurring.67

In a November 23, 2002, radio broadcast, Bush said Iraq posed a unique and urgent threat.68

By that late fall date, the military had apparently fashioned a war plan, later dubbed shock and

awe, and was preparing to deploy tens of thousands of personnel to the Persian Gulf region in

order to be able to implement it.69 The threat of overwhelming violence clearly loomed over the

Iraq discussion.

The marketing campaign to sell war featured multiple key presidential and vice

presidential speeches that were bolstered by advisors appearing on prominent television news

programs and in other high profile venues. Thus, the argument for war continued at a harried

64 Condoleezza Rice, quoted in Interview with Condoleezza Rice, CNN Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer, 8September 2002, CNN transcript #090800CN.V47,.65 George W. Bush, Address to the Nation on Iraq, Cincinnati, Ohio, October 7, 2002, Weekly Compilation

of Presidential Documents 38 (2002): 1718.66 George W. Bush, The Presidents Radio Address, September 14, 2002, Weekly Compilation of PresidentDocuments 38 (2002): 1546.67 Bush, October 7, 2002.68 Bush, President Recaps Historic Week in Domestic and Foreign Affairs, Radio Address of thePresident to the Nation, November 23, 2002.http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2002/11/20021123.html.69 Thomas E. Ricks, War Plan for Iraq Is Ready, Say Officials, Washington Post, November 20, 2002, p.A1.http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A33459-2002Nov9.html.
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pace and never really let up. In January, after international weapons inspectors were at work in

Iraq, Press Secretary Ari Fleischer told the assembled media, We know for a fact that there are

weapons there.70 In his decisive and widely publicized February 2003 presentation to the

United Nations Security Council, Secretary of State Colin Powell declared, We know that

Saddam Hussein is determined to keep his weapons of mass destruction, is determined to make

more.71 Just days before the war was launched in March, on the Sunday morning NBC

television program Meet the Press, Vice President Cheney informed journalist Tim Russert

that Saddam Hussein has been absolutely devoted to trying to acquire nuclear weapons. And

we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons.72 Altogether, these and many other

similar statements created the very strong and yet false impression that Iraq had an active and

dangerous weapons program, including a nuclear one that was precariously close to success.

Based on the information they received from the administration, the US Congress was

goaded into voting prior to the 2002 midterm elections to authorize the use of force against Iraq

on the prospect that diplomacy and weapons inspections would fail. The decisive Senate vote

was 77-23 and the House tally was 296-133. The United Nations Security Council likewise voted

unanimously (15-0) in favor of Resolution 1441 to require Iraqi reporting about alleged WMD,

as well as the return of UN inspectors. Though the US sought an enforcement provision in this

resolution, other states refused to agree to such a measure in advance of the inspections and it

was not included. By the turn of the calendar in 2003, inspectors were on-site in Iraq, but the US

was busily preparing a final onslaught at the UN in the form of the now infamous presentation

about WMD by Secretary Powell. After failing diplomatically to gain another UNSC resolution,

President Bush declared that the US and its coalition partners had lost all patience with the Iraqi

regime. In that March 17, 2003, speech, Bush continued to make absolute assertions about the

threat Iraq allegedly posed: Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no

doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons

70 Office of the Press Secretary, Press Briefing by Ari Fleischer, January 9, 2003. http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2003/01/20030109-8.html.71 UN News Centre, Powell presents US case to Security Council of Iraq's failure to disarm, 5 February2003,http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=6079&Cr=iraq&Cr1=inspect.72 Richard Cheney, quoted in Vice President Dick Cheney Discusses a Possible War with Iraq,Meet thePress, 16 March 2003, LexisNexis news transcript database, . In responseto the IAEAs failure to find evidence of an Iraq nuclear weapons program, Cheney declared flatly, Ithink Mr. ElBaradei frankly is wrong.
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ever devised.Today, no nation can possibly claim that Iraq has disarmed.73 Bush provided

Iraq with a 48 hour ultimatum to eject Saddam Hussein and his two sons. This threat was

rejected and the war began on March 19, 2003.

As is common in a farce, the buildup to the Iraq war appeared to involve a case of

mistaken identity. As has already been documented, the Bush administration portrayed Iraq as

a state in possession of weapons of mass destruction perhaps even a nuclear-armed state,

which is a very small subset of states. Perhaps even worse, given the recent 9/11 attacks on the

US, the administration attempted to tie Iraq to al-Qaeda. In February 2002, Bob Woodward of

the Washington Post quoted President Bush as saying on September 17, 2001, I believe Iraq was

involved [in the 9/11 attacks], but Im not going to strike them now.74 In the January 2002 State

of the Union address, Bush identified Iraq, Iran, and North Korea as states posing a grave and

growing danger because of their pursuit of weapons of mass destruction. Furthermore, Bush

said that these states, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the

peace of the world.75 The day after delivering the speech, Bush went further: He [Saddam

Hussein] is a danger not only to countries in the region but, as I explained last night, because of

his al Qaeda connections, because of his history, he is a danger to Americans.76 Throughout the

pre-war marketing campaign, Bush often linked Iraq and the al-Qaeda terrorists that

perpetrated the 9/11 attacks. The danger, he argued, is that they work in concert. The

danger is, is that al Qaeda becomes an extension of Saddams madness and his hatred and his

capacity to extend weapons of mass destruction around the world. Both of them need to be

dealt with. . . . [Y]ou cant distinguish between al Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the

war on terror.77 On September 28, the New York Times reported Defense Secretary Donald

Rumsfelds assertion that the US had bulletproof evidence of links between Iraq and al-

73 Bush, President Says Saddam Hussein Must Leave Iraq Within 48 Hours, March 17, 2003.http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2003/03/20030317-7.html.74 Bob Woodward and Dan Balz, Combating Terrorism: It Starts Today, The Washington Post, 1

February 2002, p. A1. Bush then apparently said, I dont have the evidence at this point.75 George W. Bush, Address Before a Joint Session of the Congress on the State of the Union, January 29,2002, Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents 38 (2002): 133-39.76 CNN, Bush: Iraq, al Qaeda linked, January 29, 2003.http://articles.cnn.com/2003-01-29/politics/sprj.irq.bush.iraq_1_qaeda-mohammed-aldouri-declassified-intelligence?_s=PM:ALLPOLITICS.77 Bush, quoted in United States, White House Office of the Press Secretary, Remarks Prior toDiscussions With President Alvaro Uribe of Columbia and an Exchange With Reporters, September 272002, Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents 38 (2002), p. 1619.
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Qaeda.78 In his Cincinnati speech in October, Bush claimed that Saddam Husseins regime had

sponsored international terrorists in the past and Iraq and al Qaeda have had high-level

contacts that go back a decade. In the same breath, he asserted that al-Qaeda leaders had fled

Afghanistan for Iraq and that Iraq has trained al Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons

and deadly gases.79 He added that Iraq and al-Qaeda viewed the U.S. as a common enemy.

Arguably, another farcical act in this period concerned the US-Pakistan relationship.

President Bush declared simply in fall 2001 that Pakistan is a strong ally.80 However,giventhe way the U.S. defined threats after the 9/11 attacks, Pakistan might well have been perceived

as an enemy from the start of the war on terror. Pakistan had for years supported the Taliban in

Afghanistan and at least indirectly had ties to al Qaeda via its support for Muslim insurgency in

Kashmir. Many analysts thought that Pakistan was connected to transnational terrorism. The

State Departments Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism, which issued the annual

Patterns of Global Terrorism, was clearly concerned about Pakistans links to terrorists even

before the 9/11 attacks. The report released in April 2001 noted the following:

If the United States deems a country to repeatedly provide support for acts of

international terrorism, the US Government is required by law to add it to the list [of

state sponsors of terrorism]. In South Asia, the United States has been increasingly

concerned about reports of Pakistani support to terrorist groups and elements active in

Kashmir, as well as Pakistani support, especially military support, to the Taliban, which

continues to harbor terrorist groups, including al-Qaida, the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, al-

Gama'a al-Islamiyya, and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan.81

Additionally, the 2000 Report of the National Commission on Terrorism (NCT), which was

created by congressional legislation, found that Pakistan provides safehaven, transit, and

moral, political, and diplomatic support to several groups engaged in terrorism. The NCT

78 Eric Schmitt, Rumsfeld says US Has Bulletproof Evidence of Iraqs Links to Al Qaeda, New YorkTimes, September 28, 2002. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/28/world/threats-responses-intelligence-rumsfeld-says-us-has-bulletproof-evidence-iraq-s.html79 Bush, October 7, 2002, p. 1717.80 Office of the Press Secretary, Remarks by the President and President Musharraf of Pakistan Presidentof Pakistan Reaffirms Commitment to Fight Terrorism, November 10, 2001. Available athttp://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2001/11/20011110-6.html.81 U.S. Department of State, Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism, April 30, 2001.
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Report even recommended that Pakistan be considered a target for U.S. economic sanctions

because it was not cooperating fully on counterterrorism.82

Pakistan on 9/11 also maintained dubious relations with the Taliban regime in

Afghanistan and reportedly to al Qaedas Muslim insurgency efforts. In fact, when the attacks

occurred in 2001, Pakistan was one of only three governments to recognize the Taliban regime

in Afghanistan. It was also the last state to withdraw the status that autumn.83 It is widely

acknowledged by analysts and journalists that Pakistan, particularly its military and

intelligence agency, sponsored the Talibans rise to power in Afghanistan. A Special Report by

the United States Institute of Peace in 1998 explained that the Taliban movement got a

significant boost from the Pakistani intelligence agency, ISI [Inter-Service Intelligence], which

reportedly provided extensive organizational, logistical, and material support to the Taliban

militia.84 Ahmad Shah Massoud, the former Defense Minister of Afghanistan who was

assassinated on September 9, 2001, told The New York Times that his anti-Taliban forces were

having difficulties defeating the Taliban partly because they were supported by 2,500 regulars

from Pakistan's military.85 Perhaps most problematically, Pakistans ISI has long been

suspected of working indirectly with al Qaeda throughout the 1990s and more directly with

Islamic militants fighting in Kashmir against India.86

Moreover, Pakistan was a state clearly armed with the most dangerous weapon of mass

destruction. Perhaps more than any other proliferant, Pakistan also seemed like the nuclear-

armed state most likely to share its capabilities with dubious international actors. Pakistan

82 Report of the National Commission on Terrorism, Countering The Changing Threat Of InternationalTerrorism (June 2000), pp. 24, 25. Available at http://www.gpo.gov/nct/nct9.pdf83 CNN, Pakistan closes Taliban embassy, November 22, 2001. Available athttp://archives.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/asiapcf/south/11/22/gen.taliban.embassy/html. Saudi Arabiaand the United Arab Emirates also recognized the Taliban regime on 9/11, but withdrew ties inSeptember 2001.84 United States Institute of Peace (USIP), Special Report: The Taliban and Afghanistan: Implications forRegional Security and Options for International Action, 1998. Available at

http://web.archive.org/web/20011107141441/www.usip.org/oc/sr/sr_afghan.html.85 Barry Bearak, Cornered Afghan Foes Hope Winter Will Slow the Taliban, The New York Times,November 6, 2000. Available athttp://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C01E3DB1239F935A35752C1A9669C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all86 James Risen and Judith Miller, Pakistani Intelligence Had Links to Al Qaeda, U.S. Officials Say, TheNew York Times, October 29, 2001. Available at:http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/29/international/asia/29PROB.html?ex=1223697600&en=9dcc2011f1bbcee7&ei=5070.


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detonated five nuclear bombs in 1998 and in the words of Paul Leventhal of the Nuclear Control

Institute, became the Typhoid Mary of proliferation.87 Its chief atomic scientist, A.Q. Khan,

was directing the most dangerous proliferation network in the world. He apparently distributed

nuclear information or technology to five states that the U.S. viewed as sponsors of terrorism

and allegedly even offered to provide a nuclear bomb design to Saddam Hussein. Khan was not

arrested until 2004 and the definitive evidence of his guilt apparently did not appear until

October 2003 when the U.S. and its allies seized a freighter headed for Libya. When challenged

with the evidence aboard the vessel, Libya agreed to disclose and abandon its nuclear program,

apparently in hopes of losing its rogue status. However, the U.S. and other intelligence agencies

had been monitoring Khans international travel literally for decades and the CIA certainly in

2001 feared that he had developed a proliferation network. Soon after the 9/11 attacks, the U.S.

communicated some of its concerns to the Musharraf government and publicly expressed

worries that Pakistani nuclear scientists had met with members of al-Qaeda.88

Some members of the U.S. security bureaucracy viewed Pakistan as a dangerous rogue

state in 2001 prior to the 9/11 attacks. This was perhaps made most clear in May 2001 within

the first months of office for members of the new Bush administration when State Department

envoy Richard Armitage, visiting India at the time, hinted that the U.S. viewed Pakistan as a

rogue states. This was a designation for outlaw or challenger states widely used in the 1990s

by the Bill Clinton administration that continued to appear in speeches by Bush officials. In

December 2001, for instance, President Bush declared that Rogue states are clearly the most

likely sources of chemical and biological and nuclear weapons for terrorists.89 Likewise, the

2006 U.S. National Security Strategy warns about threats from rogue states armed with missiles

and WMD. It notes that nuclear weapons hold special appeal to rogue states and terrorists.90

According to the Indian newspaper covering his 2001 visit, Armitage named the following

rogue states: Libya, Iraq, Iran, North Korea and other countries in your neighbourhood.

87 MSNBCs Buchanan & Press Interview of Paul Leventhal, Nuclear Control Institute, May 8, 2003.

Available at http://www.nci.org/03NCI/05/buchanan-press-transcript.htm.88 William J. Broad and David E. Sanger, The Bomb Merchant: Chasing Dr. Khans Network, New YorkTimes, December 26, 2004. Available athttp://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CE7DE1F30F935A15751C1A9629C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all89 Office of the Press Secretary, President Speaks on War Effort to Citadel Cadets, December 11, 2001.Available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/12/20011211-6.html.90 White House, National Security Strategy of the United States of America, March 2006. pp. 18-9. Available athttp://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/nsc/nss/2006/.


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Pressed to elaborate, he said we have questions about Pakistan which are well known and of

which you are equally aware.91

The 2008 Republican presidential candidate, Senator John McCain, prominently asserted

in a September debate with Barack Obama that Pakistan was a failed state in 1999 when General

Musharraf came to power.92 Moreover, this was not the first time McCain had levied this

charge. On a previous occasion the Senator also asserted that General Musharraf had saved

Pakistan from its failed status. In December 2007, McCain was campaigning in Iowa and

reportedly said, Prior to Musharraf, Pakistan was a failed state. He continued, They had

corrupt governments and they would rotate back and forth and there was corruption, and

Musharraf basically restored order.93 Based on her travels throughout Pakistan in 2001,

veteran New Yorkerjournalist Mary Anne Weaver wrote that after the 1980s, when it was the

conduit for American assistant to the mujahedeen in Afghanistan, Pakisan had been

transformed into one of the most frightening places on earth. She speculated in her 2002 book

that failure to reform Pakistan could lead either military or religious hard-liners to take over the

country. Under these scenarios, Pakistan will become a theocracy like Iran, or the country will

be faced with complete chaos and fall apart. Pakistan could well become the worlds newest

failed state a failed state with nuclear weapons.94 While these scenarios are worrisome and

suggest that Pakistan was in trouble in 2001, Weaver does not write that Pakistan was literally a

failed state at that time. Though other analysts felt quite differently about Pakistans stability

91 C. Raja Mohan, Bush proposals aimed at rogue states: Armitage, The Hindu, May 12, 2001. Availableat http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/2001/05/12/stories/01120001.htm.92 McCain added: Everybody who was around then, and had been there, and knew about it knew that itwas a failed state. For a transcript of the event, see CNN, Transcript of first presidential debate,September 26, 2008 (updated October 14, 2008). Available athttp://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/26/debate.mississippi.transcript/.93 Associated Press, Pakistan's crisis puts new focus on candidates' foreign policy skills,Minneapolis StarTribune, December 28, 2007. Available at http://www.startribune.com/world/12904501.html. TheAmerican ambassador to Pakistan in 1999, William Milan, was quoted by a journalist-blogger as writing,

Pakistan was not a failed state as we normally define such states. I am on record as stating publicly that,having come to Pakistan from Liberia a year before the takeover, I had a pretty good idea of what failedstates look like, and it was not one. See Matthew Yglesias, Former Ambassador to Pakistan Milam,Think Progress Yglesias Blog, September 30, 2008. Available athttp://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2008/09/former_ambassador_to_pakistan_milam_i_had_a_pretty_good_idea_of_what_failed_states_look_like_and_it_was_not_one.php. See also Paul Richter and

Julian E. Barnes, Fact-checking the debate, The Los Angeles Times, September 27, 2008. Available athttp://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-factcheck27-2008sep27,0,5241908.story.94 Mary Anne Weaver, Pakistan; In the Shadow of Jihad and Afghanistan (Macmillan, 2002), p. 10.


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and status in 2001, the U.S. surely could have viewed it as dangerously weak given the periodic

propensity of democracy to give way to military coup.

IV. Conclusion

In retrospect, the buildup to the Iraq war could reasonably be interpreted as a farce. The

action was relatively fast-paced and the threat of aggressive violence clearly loomed as the Bush

administration pushed the US and many other states towards launching a war it framed as

unavoidable and justified. Indeed, one could interpret the push to war against Iraq in terms of

Bentleys comic catharsis thesis. The US population seemingly had a pent-up vengeful lust for

aggression after the 9/11 attacks and the demonization of Iraq was a convenient means to

relieve that pressure. Top-level US government officials certainly helped focus political energy

as they showed very little doubt when making frightening claims about the status of alleged

Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and links to transnational terrorists. These assertions, as will

be discussed in more detail below, turned out to be outlandishly ridiculous. Moreover, the

entire enterprise could be interpreted as an embarrassing instance of mistaken identity. Not

only was Saddam Husseins secular Iraqi regime falsely linked to the 9/11 al-Qaeda jihadists,

but also Pakistan was at the same time deemed a vital ally in the war on terror. This was despite

the fact that nuclear-armed Pakistan had nurtured the Taliban in Afghanistan and encouraged

Muslim jihadists in its struggles with India over Kashmir.Can scholars and other observers of international affairs recognize, highlight, and react

to a foreign policy farce when they see it? Some realists became prominent critics of the

impending war, but they mostly doubted the significance of Iraq weapons of mass destruction

for US security. They argued that Iraq could be contained or deterred and would likely not

recklessly transfer any WMD to terrorists.95 Likewise, the French and German governments

primarily argued that war should be a last resort. They favored weapons inspections to attempt

to disarm Iraq and did not seriously challenge the idea that Iraq had these weapons. These

critics did not argue that the administrations entire set of claims about Iraq WMD threats were

outrageous, though some realists did argue that the war would distract the US from its fight

against al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. At the time of the buildup to war, in fact, very few analysts

argued that Iraq absolutely did not have weapons of mass destruction. After all, the regime had

95 See Schmidt and Williams, 2008.


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managed to develop and use chemical weapons against Iran and its own Kurdish population. It

certainly seemed plausible that Iraq could have repeated this past success. Among members of

the foreign policy elite, it was commonly presumed that Iraq had or could readily have WMD.

David Kay, head of the Iraq Survey Group testified to the Senate in January 2004, we were all

wrong about the alleged weapons of mass destruction.96 He repeated this point multiple times

for emphasis, but noted that even governments opposed to the war had also been wrong,

including France and Germany.97

Then again, as former intelligence analyst and National Security Council staffer Kenneth

M. Pollack has argued, Iraqs alleged nuclear program was the real linchpin of the Bush

Administrations case for an invasion.98 Indeed, a recent scholarly study found that many

members of Congress gave the nuclear threat as the main or one of the main reasons for their

votes supporting the war resolution in October 2002.99 Could a third-party observer have

known that the Bush administrations claims about the Iraq nuclear program were farcical?

Former US marine and UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter perhaps came closest to

challenging the Bush administrations public claims, though he too seemed to be working

primarily to avoid war and sustain an inspections regime:

I have never given Iraq a clean bill of health! Never! Never! I've said that no one has

backed up any allegations that Iraq has reconstituted WMD capability with anything

that remotely resembles substantive fact. To say that Saddam's doing it is in total

disregard to the fact that if he gets caught he's a dead man and he knows it. Deterrence

96 CNN, Transcript: David Kay at Senate hearing, January 28, 2004. http://articles.cnn.com/2004-01-28/politics/kay.transcript_1_iraq-survey-group-wmd-weapons-inspector?_s=PM:ALLPOLITICS97 In the end, the pro-war governments had the most egg on their faces. By summer 2003, officials in theBritish government were retreating from claims made in a so-called dodgy dossier prepared earlier that

year about the threat from Iraq WMD. Foreign Secretary Jack Straw called it a complete Horlicks,which is British slang for a total mess. See George Jones, Campbell: Iraq dossier was dodgy,TheTelegraph (UK), 26 June 2003.http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/1434049/Campbell-Iraq-dossier-was-dodgy.html.98 Kenneth M. Pollack, Spies, Lies, and Weapons: What Went Wrong, The Atlantic Monthly,

January/February 2004, p. 81.99 Chaim Kaufman, Threat Inflation and the Failure of the Marketplace of Ideas: The Selling of the IraqWar, 29 International Securit,y Summer 2004, p. 31.
http://articles.cnn.com/2004-01-28/politics/kay.transcript_1_iraq-survey-group-wmd-weapons-inspector?_s=PM:ALLPOLITICShttp://articles.cnn.com/2004-01-28/politics/kay.transcript_1_iraq-survey-group-wmd-weapons-inspector?_s=PM:ALLPOLITICShttp://articles.cnn.com/2004-01-28/politics/kay.transcript_1_iraq-survey-group-wmd-weapons-inspector?_s=PM:ALLPOLITICShttp://articles.cnn.com/2004-01-28/politics/kay.transcript_1_iraq-survey-group-wmd-weapons-inspector?_s=PM:ALLPOLITICShttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/1434049/Campbell-Iraq-dossier-was-dodgy.htmlhttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/1434049/Campbell-Iraq-dossier-was-dodgy.htmlhttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/1434049/Campbell-Iraq-dossier-was-dodgy.htmlhttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/1434049/Campbell-Iraq-dossier-was-dodgy.htmlhttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/1434049/Campbell-Iraq-dossier-was-dodgy.htmlhttp://articles.cnn.com/2004-01-28/politics/kay.transcript_1_iraq-survey-group-wmd-weapons-inspector?_s=PM:ALLPOLITICShttp://articles.cnn.com/2004-01-28/politics/kay.transcript_1_iraq-survey-group-wmd-weapons-inspector?_s=PM:ALLPOLITICS


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has been adequate in the absence of inspectors but this is not a situation that can succeed

in the long term. In the long term you have to get inspectors back in.100

Joseph Cirincione of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace declared more decisively

in August, 2002: "Iraq almost certainly does not have nuclear weapons....There is no evidence

that Iraq has a nuclear weapon or will soon have one." Cirincione cited open intelligence from

the US finding that Iraq unconstrained would need several years to produce enough material

for a nuclear weapon.101 British academic Glen Rangwala likewise used open intelligence

sources to declare fairly decisively in advance of the war that Iraq did not have a nuclear

program. In September, he wrote this with MP Alan Simpson, There is no case for a war on

Iraq. It has not threatened to attack the US or Europe. It is not connected to al-Qa'ida. There is

no evidence that it has new weapons of mass destruction, or that it possesses the means of

delivering them.102

After the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 1441, international nuclear

weapons inspectors operated relatively freely in pre-war Iraq and visited over 140 Iraqi sites

looking for signs of nuclear activity. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors

also conducted interviews with Iraqi scientists and other personnel of interest and reviewed a

significant amount of written documentation related to Iraqs nuclear program that was

provided by the regime. Thus, it is very significant that before the Iraq war was launched in

mid-March, the IAEA had found no evidence of a nuclear weapons program in Iraq. In January

2003, agency director Mohamed ElBaradei told the United Nations Security Council, We have

to date found no evidence that Iraq has revived its nuclear weapon programme since the

elimination of the program in the 1990s.103 By March 7, ElBaradei was able to further cement

this finding: After three months of intrusive inspections, we have to date found no evidence or

plausible indication of the revival of a nuclear weapon program in Iraq.104 Ultimately,

100 Massimo Calabresi, Scott Ritter In His Own Words, Time, September 14, 2002.

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,351165,00.html.101 Joseph Cirincione, Iraq's WMD Arsenal: Deadly But Limited, 5 Carnegie Proliferation Brief, #11, 2002.http://www.carnegieendowment.org/publications/index.cfm?fa=view&id=1050102 Alan Simplson and Glen Rangwala, The Dishonest Case for War on Iraq, Iraq Watch, September 16,2002. http://www.iraqwatch.org/perspectives/rangwala-091602.htm103 Mohamed ElBaradei, The Status of Nuclear Inspections in Iraq, 27 January 2003,.104 Mohammed ElBaradei, The Status of Nuclear Inspections In Iraq: An Update, 7 March 2003,.
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,351165,00.htmlhttp://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,351165,00.htmlhttp://www.carnegieendowment.org/publications/index.cfm?fa=view&id=1050http://www.carnegieendowment.org/publications/index.cfm?fa=view&id=1050http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/Statements/2003/ebsp2003n003.shtmlhttp://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/Statements/2003/ebsp2003n006.shtmlhttp://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/Statements/2003/ebsp2003n006.shtmlhttp://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/Statements/2003/ebsp2003n003.shtmlhttp://www.carnegieendowment.org/publications/index.cfm?fa=view&id=1050http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,351165,00.html


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everyone learned that these reports were accurate as US inspections of occupied Iraq likewise

found no significant WMD efforts or programs.

The assertions about links to al-Qaeda may have been more difficult to challenge prior to

the war. However, the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States

(known popularly as the 9-11 Commission) somewhat decisively dismissed the links between

Iraq and al-Qaeda in their 2004 report. The Commission did acknowledge some relatively minor

meetings between representatives of Iraq and al Qaeda. We have seen no evidence that these

or the earlier contacts ever developed into a collaborative operational relationship. Nor have we

seen evidence indicating that Iraq cooperated with al Qaeda in developing or carrying out any

attacks against the United States.105 Commission spokesperson Al Felzenberg was even more

sweeping when talking to the media that June when the report was released: "We found no

evidence of joint operations or joint work or common operations between al Qaeda and Saddam

Hussein's government, and that's beyond 9/11.106

105 National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, The 9/11 Commission Report, 2004, p.66.http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/report/911Report.pdf.106 See Dana Milbank, 9/11 Panel's Findings Vault Bush Credibility To Campaign Forefront, WashingtonPost, June 20, 2004, p. A1. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A54702-2004Jun19.html
http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/report/911Report.pdfhttp://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/report/911Report.pdfhttp://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/report/911Report.pdfhttp://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/report/911Report.pdf

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