Could Bush Be Right Cont'd: On Ends, Means, Costs and Benefits

On Saturday, taking off from and Op-Ed piece by David Brooks, I wrote a post observing that (much to my chagrin) there were tantalizing signs that Bush might actually be right when he claims that the overthrow of Saddam and the efforts to build democracy in Iraq would trigger a liberalization of other Arab governments. I also noted that if these hints proved to have substance, then the invasion itself might well have been worth the costs.

At dinner that evening, I got into a discussion of these same isses with some friends who have even more trouble than I do giving Bush "credit" for anything. One question I was asked repeatedly was whether I was saying that "the ends justify the means?" The question was troublesome, and I admit to pretty much ducking it at the time. But it has stuck in my mind, and I feel compelled to try and answer it. After further (and more sober) consideration, I think the answer is a firm . . . "Maybe." I think a fairer statement of my argument is this: Every change in the status quo involves some costs, frequently in the form of human suffering. But, in some cases, the benefits of the change, to future generations if not to the present ones, are worth the costs entailed in achieiving that change. Perhaps this is the same thing as arguing that the ends sometimes do justify the means. But, to me at least, there are important nuances that are lost in that common indictment of action.

Take a simple example. Suppose a group of terrorists is holding some hostages. Few would disagree that the goal of freeing the hostgaes would be worth the "costs" involved in killing the terrorists, at least if there were no other less violent alternative. But, what if the only availible and effective means of freeing the hostages in any reasonable period of time involved risks to the hostages themselves? And, even more difficult, what if it involved risks to third parties? I think most people would agree that, if the only effective means for freeing the hostages involved risks to the the hostgaes themselevs and even to innocent third parties, the end of freeing the hostages is sufficiently important to justify using those means despite the potential suffering that may flow from that decision.

Obviously, any person charged with effecting a change has a moral obligation to assure that the means chosen is the least costly of the effective means for achieving that end. Thus, use of deadly force would not be warranted so long as there remained some reasonable hope that the goal could be achieved by negotiation. Moreover, there are probably some "means" that are simply too "costly" to consider using in pursuit even of a very valuable goal. For example, the goal of liberating hostages would probably not justify siezing the families of the terrorists and torturing them one by one until the terrorists surrendered.

But, beyond these extremes, the decision of whether to pursue a particular course of action cannot be answered by resort a claim that ends do not justify means. As the hastage example illustartes, some ends do justify the use of some means, even if innocnt people may suffer as a consequence. Thus, deciding particular cases -- like Iraq -- involves a consideration of four sequential questions:

(1) Is the goal itself worth achieving. That is, if a particular change could be effected without any costs at all, would the owrld be better off. If the answer to this question is "No", then considering costs is pointless.

(2) Will a given "means" be effective in achieving the goal. If not, then again, consideration of costs associayted with this means is pointless.

(3) Are there other effective means that would be less "costly". If so, those means should obviously be preferred. But if not, then the choice comes down to:

(4) Are the costsassociated with the means "worth" the benefits that will flow from achieving the goal.

The first and last of these questions are pure value judgments and can be debated as such. The second and third are question of fact, but they can never be answered with complete confidence until after the fact. As a result, these questions do not provide answers to the question of whether a particular means was justified in light of a particular end. However, they do provide a framework for thinking about those issues.

In the case of Iraq, the goal is (or at least is now claimed to be) to achieve a near-term reduction in the threat Islamic fundamentalisms poses to the West by accelerating political liberalization of Arab governments. Few would argue that reducing the threat of Islamic fundmentalism is a worthwhile goal. And, most would agree, I think, that liberalization would tend to reduce that threat. Thus, most would agree, I think, that the goals are worth achieving so long as the costs are no excessive. Anyway, let's assume we have consensus on that point. If we need to debate the premises, we can do so later.

So, we have a goal that we agree is worth pursuing, at least if the means used do not involve significant costs. The next question is "Was the invasion of Iraq an effective means by which to pursue this goal. Bush claims it is. My sense originally was that it clearly was not; indeed, I believed it was actually counterproductive. In fact, this has long been my primary argument against the war. But, given recent developments, I now have to concede that Bush might actually be right. The jury is still veryy much out on this question, and if Bush is not right then the invasion will clearly be the unmitigated mistake we have all thought it was at least since the myth of WMDs was exploded. But, if he is right, then we who have opposed the war have some additional thinking to do if we are to maintain that opposition on any basis other than pure spite. Specifally, to condemn the war, we have to be able to either point to another means that would achieve the same goals at a lower cost, or we have to argue that the benefits of achieving the goals were not worth the costs involved.

On the first of these questions, I do not think one can point to diplomacy as a "less costly but equally effective" means. True, diplomacy is less costly than war. It is also true that negotiation, engagement, incentives, disincentives and other tools of diplomacy (together with what we Americans tend to think of as the historic inevitability of liberal democracy) might well have eventually resulted in Arab liberalization at a far lower human cost than resulted from military action. But that argument involves an implict rejection of a part of the original goal. Diplomacy might welll have worked, but it unquestionably would have taken years, even decades. The goal, here is to significantly accelerate this process in pursuit of a near term reduction in the threat posed by Islamic terrorism. It strikes me that military intervention was probably the only effective means to achieve that goal.

But, was military intervention in Iraq necessary? At the time that decision was made, we had already overthrown the Taliban and were in the process of trying to build a more liberal regime in Afghanistan. Why wasn't that enough? Why did pursuit of liberalization require two examples. It is here that I think the defense of the invasion of Iraq is weakest. (For a more detailed exposition of why I think this, see my critique of a William Safire Op-Ed piece back in Decemeber).

But let's set that point aside for a moment and get to what I think was the real issue behind my friends' ends-versus-means questions: even assuming that pursuit of liberalization in the Arab world was a worthwhile goal and even assuming that an invasion of Iraq was the only effective means available for pursuing that goal, were the benefits that would flow from achieiving that goal worth the costs that invasion imposed on the people of Iraq and on America itself? I presume from their question that my friends believe they were not. I am considerably less certain about that.

First, let's look at the issue from an entirely selfish point of view. I believe that reducing the threat terrorism poses to America and to the developed world as a whole is, by far, the Nation's single most important imperative. For that reason, I am a whole-hearted supporter of the invasion of Afghanistan despite the suffering it caused to the Afghan people and, to a much lesser extent, to the American people. Also, I believe that political liberalization of Arab governments is ultimately a condition precedent to reducing that the threat of Islamic fundamentalism. Thus, if I were convinced that, like the invasion of Afghanistan, the invasion of Iraq were the lowest cost effective means of achieving that end in the near term, I would be in support of that war as well, depite the suffering that it imposed on the Iraquis and the addittonal suffering it imposed on Americans.

But, the benefits of liberalization do not end there. Liberalization unquestionably has benefits for the Iraquis themsleves. For those living today, the balance between the costs and benefits may be a very close one. But if perspective is broadened to include future generations of Iraquis as well as present and future generations of citizens of other Arab countries, then I don't think the is pretty clear. As horrific as the suffering in Iraq has has been and will continue to be, if the result is a stable, relative free Iraq, and a growing liberalization throughout the Arab world, I believe the suffering will have been "worth it" even we ignore the benefits to American interests and security (which we should not, by the way).

In short, the issue for me comes down to this: First, will the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan prove to have been effective in promoting liberalization in those countires and in the rest of the world? Second, was it necessary to those ends to invade Iraq as well as Afghanistan. If the answer to both of these question is "Yes", then I believe the invasions will ultimately be found to have been worth their costs.

Sooner or later, we will be able to answer the first of these questions. Probably we will never be able to answer the second. And for that reason, I will never be entirely comfortable with the decision to invade Iraq, even if it does result in the liberalization Bush claims it will.