Remember Iraq?

(Sorry, no sources below — I have a day job, but I wanted to type this up while I was thinking of it.  I’ll cut my lunch break short later.)

No, I don’t mean the current situation in Iraq.  I’m thinking about the situation prior to the invasion in 2003.

The UN’s approach to containing Saddam and his store of chemical weapons (because, remember, everyone believed he had them, not just Bush, and it was later determined that Saddam actively attempted to reinforce that belief to project power towards his neighbors) was sanctions.  And many people now say, “the sanctions worked just fine, so we clearly didn’t need to have an invasion,” but, if memory serves me right, the sanctions weren’t working — not in a way that was a long-term solution.

Remember?

“Peace groups” were telling us about the hardships that poor, suffering Iraqi children faced and protesting for an end to the sanctions.  We had humanitarian exceptions to the sanctions, but knew that Saddam was cheating and the “poor children” weren’t seeing the benefit, and these “peace groups” were very vocal that these humanitarian modifications weren’t sufficient.

At the same time, France, in particular, but other countries, too, were eager to begin doing business with Iraq, and had already put into place contracts for business deals to be effective as soon as sanctions were lifted.

What would have happened, had the invasion not happened?   How long would the West have continued to reject the calls for loosened sanctions?

I raise this because the situation in Gaza is similar.

The latest updates are that Gaza has made the specific demand that it’ll keep sending rockets to Israel, and fighters via tunnels, until the naval blockade is lifted, and, at the same time, the US is putting pressure on Israel via the ban on commercial flights to Tel Aviv (don’t tell me that’s not political).

Of course, it’s preposterous to think that if Israel lifts the blockade, Hamas is going to use their access to the sea to bring in fruits and veggies and medical equipment, schoolbooks, maybe components for building up their manufacturing capacity, etc.  We know that Hamas, which has spent untold fortunes not on the betterment of its people but on the building up of its military capacity, particularly its extensive network of tunnels, will set about to using its new access to the sea to import even more arms.

But that just points to the fact that the status quo ante is unsustainable.  I’m still in favor of my “Give Gaza to Egypt” approach, but, failing that, maybe we send in UN peacekeepers, for the long term.  Yes, I know, there are issues there, too, particularly with corruption and ineffectiveness (are they still in Bosnia, by the way?), but maybe they can recruit from those set of Middle-Eastern countries which are anti-Muslim Brotherhood (which effectively means bringing Egypt soldiers in as mercenaries, if need be).  Of course, they’d need to govern in a pretty hands-on manner rather than turning a blind eye to weapons-smuggling.

And this is contingent on the bigger question, to which I haven’t seen a satisfactory, believable answer:  what do Gazans want?  Are they generally on board with the Hamas agenda of “attacking Israel takes priority over the welfare of our people” or is there a “silent majority” that would they be perfectly happy living in peace next to Israel?