Jonah's (foreign policy) dilemma

An interesting article, entitled "Jonah's Dilemma"-- by Michael Oren and Mark Gerson from the WSJ on foreign policy through the lens of Yom Kippur... (hat tip: Rick Parker)

They open with the biblical and religious/cultural context...

This year, as on every Yom Kippur, Jews throughout the world will recite the Book of Jonah, one of the Hebrew Bible's shortest and most enigmatic texts. Jonah is the only Israelite prophet to preach to Gentiles, and the only prophet who clearly hates his job. And yet Jews read the book on their holiest day of the year because of its message of atonement and forgiveness. But Jonah also conveys crucial lessons for all Americans as they grapple with crises in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East and yearn for far-sighted leadership.

"Go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it," God commands Jonah, explaining that the Assyrians must repent for their sins or face divinely-unleashed destruction. The task seems straightforward, yet Jonah balks. He tries to flee, first to sea and later to the desert. If Nineveh heeds his warnings and is spared, its citizens will later question whether the city was really ever in danger and assail Jonah for forcing them to make needless sacrifices. But if Nineveh ignores his exhortations and is destroyed, then Jonah has failed as a prophet. Either way he loses -- that's the paradox of prophecy. And so he bolts, only to discover that God will not let him out of that bind. Jonah must be swallowed by a big fish before begrudgingly accepting his mission.

From there, they proceed to the foreign policy application. First, to World War II...

Jonah's quandary is routinely encountered by national leaders, especially during crises. Winston Churchill, for example, prophetically warned of the Nazi threat in the 1930s, but if he had convinced his countrymen to strike Germany pre-emptively, would he have been hailed for preventing World War II or condemned for initiating an unnecessary conflict? As president in 1945, Harry Truman predicted that Japan would never surrender and that a quarter of a million GIs would be killed invading it. And so he obliterated Hiroshima and Nagasaki, only to be vilified by many future historians. But what if the atomic bombs were never dropped and the Battle for Japan claimed countless casualties -- would history have judged Truman more leniently?

And then, to more recent applications...

Recent presidents, in particular, have struggled with such dilemmas while wrestling with the question of terror. Jimmy Carter failed to retaliate for the takeover the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, Ronald Reagan pulled the U.S. Marines out of Beirut in 1983 after Islamist bombers destroyed their headquarters, and Bill Clinton remained passive in the face of successive al Qaeda attacks. And yet, had these presidents gone to war, would Americans today credit them with averting a 9/11-type attack or would they have been denounced for overreacting? If American leaders had stood firmly earlier in Iran, Lebanon or Afghanistan, would U.S. troops today be battling in Iraq?

But the analogy fails-- or at least, suffers tremendously-- here. In contrast to World War II, in each of these three cases, we had been intervening significantly in the foreign affairs of others-- for decades in Iran (what a sad story!), in Lebanon on behalf of Israel, and in the Persian Gulf (with troops levels moving from 100's pre-1990 to 1000's between 1992-1997 to 10,000's in 1998 and afterwards)-- before we were attacked (in response).

President Bush presents a striking example here. After 9/11, he cautioned that the United States would again be attacked unless it acted pre-emptively in Iraq. But while there is no way of knowing whether terrorists would have struck America if President Bush had refrained from invading Iraq, many Americans now denounce the president for initiating an avoidable, unwinnable war. This is the tragedy of leadership. Policy makers must decide between costly actions and inaction, the price of which, though potentially higher, will ultimately remain unknown -- a truly Jonah-like dilemma.

Oren and Gerson are correct as far as they go. But they don't wrestle with a third possibility: how Al Queda might have responded (and will respond) if we withdraw troops from the region. Is Al Queda more like Hitler and Japan in WWII (they're going to keep coming at us no matter what)-- or more like Iran or Lebanon (they're fighting what they perceive to be an imperialistic threat)?

I plan to blog at length on Robert Pape's book soon (Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism). But for now, it will have to suffice to say that the latter hypothesis is at least reasonable, if not compelling...