Anti-Climacus

BACKWARDS INDUCTION ON IRAQ: Let's see if I can do this with no graphs.

So there's some behavior, which we can all agree is pretty undesirable whatever your goals are for Iraq, that's been going on lately. Now the thesis has been floated by some (OGIW in particular) that the motivations of the mass of people don't really matter in terms of what we should be doing about this situation--it's the behavior alone that matters. Here's why it doesn't work:

there are four options, essentially, available to the US/UK: overwhelm the Iraqis with military force, increase the intensity of the 'hearts and minds' campaign, continue taking out insurgents when possible on a catch-as-catch-can basis, or leave Iraq altogether. The problem with relying on the behavior alone is that the behavior can entail any one of the above to be the right policy option, depending on whether you want to crush all resistence, lower the number of people available for attacks, cause minimal damage or, you know, not worry about it anymore. But more troublesome, relying on the behavior alone doesn't give you any indication of whether your intended effect will take place, or what the other possible consequences of a policy decision could be.

If you go backwards a step and look at what dispositions might produce the behavior we're seeing, you start to get a better idea of what the policies should be: if the people largely side with the insurgents but only because they assume the insurgents will win, a large show of force might be warranted. If people support us but are worried we're going to pull out too soon, a hearts and minds campaign might embolden Iraqi democrats. If people by and large don't support the insurgents, then solving problems as they come up will be a better solution. In each case, what the understanding of the underlying psychology allows is for us to make a decision where the consequences of that decision are going to be relatively more obvious than they would be otherwise.