Interview with Tom Donnelly, American Enterprise Institute / Project for the New American Century

August 2nd, 2004
Transcription by Volunteer Citizen Journalist Craig DiLouie

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: All right so why don’t you go ahead and introduce yourself and what you do here.
TOM DONNELLY: My name is Tom Donnelly. This is the American Enterprise Institute, where I’m a Resident Fellow in Defense and National Security Studies.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Okay -- And so if you take a step back and look at the time period from August 2002 leading up to March 19, 2003 -- How would you evaluate both the performance of the print and television news?
DONNELLY: Look -- I think they did about what you would expect them to do. And the media’s involvement -- or the press’s involvement in Iraq issues goes back well before that. So you’re not beginning with a blank slate at that initial point. But look, I mean -- The media relies primarily on government sources when it comes to matters of war. And doesn’t tend to cover the war from the ground up -- except for when the war’s actually going on. I would say one of the things that is most questionable, however, was the coverage from inside Iraq -- both during that period and for many years prior to that period -- just because of the way the Iraqi government restricted access and sort of negotiated with -- particularly with the television networks. A lot of the coverage that came out of Iraq was probably misleading and yet incomplete.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Okay... When I’m asking a question, I may ask you to rephrase it since I’m not going to be including my questions...
DONNELLY: Yeah, Okay.
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: So what is your view of the United States’ foreign policy towards Iraq during this time period as well?
DONNELLY: Well, I was a supporter of the war. I remain a strong supporter of the war. I think we’re winning. We’ve made it somewhat harder than it has to be. But I think this is a hugely important moment -- not only for the United States and Iraq -- but throughout the region. And I’m particularly supportive of it because it’ll bring freedom to a part of the planet that doesn’t have a lot of it to begin with.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: And so when you look at the mechanism under which -- the legal case -- do you see this as an act of pre-emptive self-defense?
DONNELLY: No, I don’t. I think --
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: I’m sorry --
DONNELLY: I do not think that the Iraq War is a very good test -- either legally, morally or politically -- of the case for pre-emption. The strongest case -- certainly legally -- was that it was a continuation of the war that was already ongoing that began in 1991 -- extended through the 1990s -- Marked by things like: the Iraqi attempt to assassinate former President Bush -- the Administration and the conflicts that took place in conducting the no-fly zones -- and so on and so forth. So I would tend to see this -- again not just a matter as a matter of narrow -- the narrow legal case for war, but certainly, more broadly, and more profoundly, as a war that has been continuing for some -- for more than a decade.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: And so when you look at the international legal case, do you believe that it was a violation of the case-fire agreement and therefore -- ?
DONNELLY: Well, I think there are a number of legal arguments that could be advanced. First of all, there’s the narrow question of the -- of Saddam’s compliance with previous UN resolutions. Secondly, there’s an inherent way in which -- the way he violated those -- particularly attacking American pilots or attacking American citizens would be regarded as an act of war under any definition. But -- So you -- There’s a variety of choices to pick from when presenting the international legal case for war. But I would say that the broader moral case was that -- He was, first of all, a hugely repressive tyrant who had fomented violence -- not only against his own Iraqi fellow citizens -- but had essentially tried to attack virtually every other government on any one of his borders. Which is not, strictly speaking, in the traditional sense, a case of pre-emption -- But again, more an extenuation -- or a continuation of a state of war that had existed previously.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: So did you see Iraq as a threat to the United States?
DONNELLY: Not as an immediate threat in the sense in that they were about to invade the United States or launch a strike in the United States. It’s not something that they had the capacity to do. However, they were continuing to target American pilots -- shoot at them -- again, for a period of more than a decade -- a clear act of war. There had also been -- as we discussed earlier -- the violation of -- or the failure to comply with the UN resolutions enforced and passed after the first Gulf War, and the ones that continued through the course of that decade. Those included incursions into both the Kurdish zone in Iraq and into southern Iraq, and included the continuing repression of the Shi’a majority in Iraq -- throughout Iraq -- And also continued in ways outside of Iraq that very strongly suggested that Iraq’s interest in pursuing ties with terrorist organizations continued unabated. These were interests that kind of came and went, but certainly increased periodically through to the 1990s.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: There seems to be an issue of -- After the military intervention ensued, there seemed to be a shift to the humanitarian intervention focus as being a big proportion of that. However, do you think they should have included that as part of their legal case?
DONNELLY: Well – Again, I would say they certainly -- Or if ‘they’ means the Bush Administration and the President in particular -- From the start, he made a comprehensive case for going to war that included -- I would not say the humanitarian -- it wasn’t a question of humanitarianism per se, but it was a question certainly of applying American political principles to international affairs, which strikes me as quite appropriate. It would be acting in concert with our most fundamental political beliefs. So there were -- There were three elements, really, in the Administration’s rationale from the start: The liberation argument, if you will -- The larger national security argument -- And that this was a war that had been continuing, and this is a government that had -- you know, had conducted itself as an enemy for an extended period of time. And then there was the question of weapons of mass destruction, which was -- Again, despite what we’ve learned since then, certainly a large part of the case for going to war -- and actually, I would say a pretty reasonable one, too. And we can sift through the historical evidence to decide which was the most important one. But when we do so, we ought to also evaluate the decision in that context to go to the United Nations. In other words, when you made your case before the United Nations, you chose to not assert your legal rights based on past UN resolutions, but to seek a new resolution where the liberation arguments and the national security arguments -- arguments that weren’t inherently going to appeal to the United Nations audience. So I would say that the decision to go to the UN in the context of late 2002, sort of skewed the arguments -- [Interruption]
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: So start from "Going to the UN"
DONNELLY: Right-- The process of going to the United Nations sort of distorted the comprehensive case that the Bush Administration wanted to make. And put undue weight on the WMD arguments -- in part because that really the only issue that the UN was either competent to deal with or was politically interested in dealing with.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: When I look at this timeframe it seems like -- After the authorization was passed in October, there seemed to be viewing the United Nations as merely a political -- as opposed to a legal issue -- via the mainstream media. It was a matter of, "We know we’re going to war. It’s a matter of ‘When? -- Not If.’" And it’s more a matter of using the UN as a military -- ?
DONNELLY: Well look -- War coverage is a subset of political coverage, so it’s kind of natural that the press should emphasize the politics of the situation more than the legality. And I also think there was a broader sense that the question of legality was already sort of fundamentally answered in -- going into the late 2002 UN debate because of the previous resolutions. I think the Administration was reasonably effective in presenting its case that -- just strictly as a matter of international law -- that it was on pretty good ground even before that process began. And again, I think it’s just the natural -- When war does seem imminent as an event, I think it’s more natural to focus on the political maneuverings prior to the war. And the spotlight naturally shifts from questions of legality to just questions of politics and how the campaign might be conducted -- military issues.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: When you say, ‘It’s pretty well set.’ -- There seemed to be a huge debate from France, almost every other country, and from including within the legal international scholarly community.
DONNELLY: Well -- There were divergent opinions in the scholarly community. That’s I think a matter of record. And I think also that the way the -- And, you know -- history, I think, sort of bears this out that -- There was no argument that was going to be politically convincing to the French. They would grasp at any straw to try to prevent the war from happening. So they advanced a contrary legal point of view. They argued contrary political and security points of view as well. You know -- I don’t think the French were -- it was possible to convince the French on any of these grounds -- be it legal, moral, political, military.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: So you, in other words, are pinning the blame almost squarely on France?
DONNELLY: No, no -- I’m just trying to analyze why the French behaved the way they did. I think they made a strategic and political decision that they oppose the invasion of Iraq. And they were willing to turn to any policy tools necessary -- or any argumentative tools -- to try to sway opinion to their side. It seems perfectly -- nothing wrong in their methods. I just think they made a wrong decision. But they were, you know -- They were trying to persuade nations in the United Nations -- trying to win votes in the United Nations -- so they quite naturally used a whole host of arguments to try to buttress their point of view.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: And when you look at countries like Turkey, who turned down billions of dollars -- Mexico, who’s our ally -- Chile, who has potential trade agreements -- How do you explain why they sided with the French and not the United States?
DONNELLY: Well, they’re -- First of all, they’re sovereign governments and quite able to make up their own minds. And they had a -- I mean, in each case the calculus was very different, I’m sure. But at the end of the day, they just disagreed with the decision to go to war -- again for a variety of reasons. I -- Again, I would be hard pressed to say in each case what the decisive argument was. I think in almost none of the cases was the legal argument especially decisive. I think this was a political calculation based on each country’s own assessment of its own interests in the particular situation.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: It seems to me when I look at the legal case, though -- when I look at both sides and try to adjudicate the facts -- that the legal case by the United States doesn’t really hold up.
DONNELLY: Why would you say that?
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Because a United Nations Security Council resolution is different than a bilateral treaty signed by two sovereign governments. It was a Chapter 7 resolution that was imposed on Iraq, therefore, the United Nations Security Council is the sovereign authority.
DONNELLY: That is a questionable interpretation of international law. And at the same time, there are the previously existing UN resolutions of which Iraq was found to be in material breach. And certainly Resolution 1441, which carried explicitly with it the threat of -- you know, they didn’t use the word explicitly -- but was intended and interpreted -- I think -- by all -- or certainly advanced by Colin Powell to include -- I forget the exact language -- But it was clearly the consequences of failure to comply with that resolution were going to result in military action. Although it is true that the French tried to walk away from that interpretation much to Secretary Powell’s great anger. So there shouldn’t have been any misunderstanding about -- at the very least, even if you wiped the previous resolutions off the books -- about what the United States intended in advancing and submitting Resolution 1441. So I don’t think there was any possible misinterpretation of what American intent was. And the American interpretation of what the consequences would be from Resolution 1441, which was unanimously accepted by the Security Council. So again, it seems to me that that’s a pretty strong basis in international law and within the confines of the United Nations justifying subsequent military action.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: But John Negroponte said that there’s "No hidden triggers" and "No automaticity" in this resolution. And there was a general consensus that this was going to be, quote, "a two-stage process."
DONNELLY: But that’s exactly what there wasn’t.
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: I’m sorry, what--?
DONNELLY: No. No. -- I mean, there was no consensus that there was going to be an explicit second vote authorizing war. There was going to be -- You know, there was a debate at the time about this -- about whether this was going to be -- or what the triggering mechanism was going to be. And it was always the very clear position that the United States government, that no second -- which was hardly a second, but more like a fifteenth resolution -- was going to be necessary if Iraq was seen to be in non-compliance with the UN resolution.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: When you take a step back and you look at international law as a body -- Do you see international law as helping or hurting the security of the United States?
DONNELLY: Well for the most apart, it’s definitely an aid --
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: I’m sorry, what is--?
DONNELLY: Sorry. Look. International law has almost always been an aid to the United States. ‘Almost’ is a big loophole, and in many cases the interpretation of international law -- going back to say the quasi-war with France -- has been a hurdle for American security. The problem is not with those nations who comply with international law. The difficulty is to try to get those states and those non-states who don’t accept or comply with international law to abide by these rules -- Iraq being a very good case in point. Iraq’s unwillingness to comply with more than a dozen UN resolutions was part of a reason we ended up continuing the war against Iraq. If Iraq had been a responsible citizen from an international legal perspective, we probably wouldn’t be where we are today.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: When you look at the normative standard of international law, usually there’s a resolution that says you can use "all necessary means." And when you’re enforcing resolutions, usually there’s a weighing of the proportionality of the military action versus what the actual resolution is saying. And when you look at the implicit versus explicit resolutions and the explicit boundaries that was put on by 686 -- which was the resolution before 687 -- when you combine that with the explicit penalty of sanctions for not complying with disarmament obligations -- It seems to me -- from the international lawyers that I’ve talked to -- that when you look at all these things and take into consideration -- that this is operating outside of the normative standards of the United Nations.
DONNELLY: Well, I can’t speak for the lawyers to whom you spoke. I’m aware of that interpretation of the situation. But look, you’ve got to look at this as a cumulative set of offenses as well. It’s not as though the legality -- or certainly the morality for going to war against Iraq necessarily rests on any one of the resolutions. Again, there have been -- I think 1441 -- correct me if I’m wrong -- was the fourteenth resolution attempting to proscribe Iraq’s international behavior. And the probability of compliance on any one of these things was pretty hard to argue for -- certainly by 2002. We had a track record of "international scofflaw-ism", if you will, on the part of Iraq. And its ignorance -- or its refusal to comply with these resolutions and -- Not simply its behavior as detailed in UN resolutions -- but its past behavior with regard -- and its willingness to go to war with Iran, with Kuwait -- to play "hanky panky" with terrorist organizations of one kind or another, and in different forms over the course of time -- painted a picture of a recidivist criminal -- to extend the legal metaphor. So international law that lacks any enforcement mechanism makes a mockery of the law. I mean, and it certainly makes a moral travesty of the law. A set of international laws that serve to keep dictators like Saddam Hussein in power makes you ask questions about the legal system. The purpose of law is not self-reinforcing, but to help conduct international political life in a decent and in a moral way. So these may be shortcomings of international law if they serve to protect governments like Saddam’s.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: It seems that the United Nations Security Council as a body has the right to enforce the resolutions. How can you argue that the United States unilaterally has the right to explicitly -- without ever explicitly saying -- ?
DONNELLY: The UN Security Council and the General Assembly has never enforced a resolution on its own. It has turned to sovereign nations to provide the means of enforcement. Again, having a law-making body -- a so-called law-making body -- that has no means of enforcement -- or to divorce law making from any practical application of justice in international life. Even if the United Nations had voted explicitly to go to war against Iraq, it would have been up to the United States and the Coalition to make it so. So it’s like having a domestic legal system without any police force to enforce the laws -- or a set of security institutions to execute the will of the international community. The United Nations has never had the means to enforce its own writ.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Well, I guess that an analogy would be -- If it’s a federal law, and you have a state trooper trying to enforce a federal law -- This is the United Nations Security Council who has passed these resolutions. That jurisdiction, according to Article 2, Paragraph 4, is underneath the United Nations. It was never explicitly given to the United States to enforce these resolutions. Permission was never explicitly given to do that.
DONNELLY: Iraq was found in material breach of a variety of resolutions that had -- that in the resolutions had consequences attached -- you mentioned the sanctions. And it was clearly an understanding -- even if we’re talking about the debate on Resolution 1441 -- that this was a process -- I mean, that’s why there was such a controversy at the United Nations, because this was seen as part of a UN authorization for a war to remove Saddam from power.
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Now when you --
DONNELLY: And look, the legal case is certainly secondary to the moral case. -- I mean, you know -- Again, I think a more fundamental point is a legal system -- an international legal system that would protect tyrants like Saddam -- You know, a legal system that is functional the way that we would like to see it.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: The problem that I see is that the legal case that was given was -- there seemed to be a lot of flaws with it. Even with the evidence that was being put forth was being discredited by El Baradei and Hans Blix -- they weren’t finding anything. And then -- So when you look at the motivations -- it puts into question the lack of transparency of the motivations.
DONNELLY: Whose motivations? I mean -- Look, the remarks by El Baradei and Hans Blix -- And they have said subsequently that they wanted to absent themselves as much from the decision not to be the occasion for a decision to go to war. They did not view that as their -- quite rightly, as technocrats, if you will, arms control experts -- or allegedly so -- They did not want to make what was essentially a political decision. They did not want to be seen to compel sovereign governments one way or the other, which I think was quite appropriate. Because at the end of the day, the decision to go to war resides with the nation-state. And these are matters of -- you know, to be decided by sovereign governments.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: And that is -- I agree, but at the same time, if you look at the language of 1441, the language was saying that only IAEA and UMOVIC could submit a report, such that would --
DONNELLY: First of all, I mean, that would say that the only -- that 1441 was going to be the only set of rules that was going to be applied to Iraq when it came to going to war or not. And I don’t think anybody would accept that was going to be the only part of the calculus or the only vehicle -- that that would be the sort of "Yes-or-No" triggering mechanism. Even those who wanted a second resolution didn’t see 1441 as dis-positive as a matter of international law. So either way you argue the case, the governments -- separately -- reserved for themselves the right -- the decision to go to war or not go to war. The question was whether it was going to be a matter of an explicit UN resolution or it could be conducted on the basis of UN resolutions past as interpreted by the sovereign governments.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: And I think when you look -- There seemed to be in early 2002 regime change being the primary motivation, at least rhetorically. And then it switched to weapons of mass destruction, and then it switched to humanitarian -- There seemed to be a shifting over those different time periods -- And that begs the question of "Is there a shift of true motivations?"
DONNELLY: I would say that, you know -- We sort of were working our way through what regime change actually meant and why regime change as opposed to containment -- the previous policy -- was to be preferred in these circumstances. And again, I think it was a cumulative effect of the three fundamental elements in the Bush argument -- components that received differing emphases at different times. So the case, broadly speaking, was always a case for regime change, and the alternative to regime change was continued containment of the regime. And the fear of renewed and current weapons of mass destruction was part of the argument for regime change. The broader sort of security or geopolitical argument was the second element in that. And then the liberation argument, as I would call it, was the third -- and certainly, in my mind, always the most compelling of the three.
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: And so --
DONNELLY: -- But they’re all kind of a subset of regime change.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: So but why wasn’t regime change ever brought up to the UN?
DONNELLY: Oh, I think it was. If you read the September speech to the UN --
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: I’m sorry -- What?
DONNELLY: The regime change was always a component -- in certainly in the President’s presentations and the Administration’s presentations to the UN. And in particular, the September 12 address to the General Assembly. As I said earlier, the UN is poorly structured to deal with cases that are directly argued on an American national security interest. And equally poorly structured to deal with the question of liberation -- although -- or the illegitimacy of sort of failing governments -- although Kofi Annan has tried in recent years -- And there was an effort in response to the crises in the 1990s in the Balkans and in Africa to try to steer the UN in this direction. But certainly at this point, the one part of the case that the UN was sort of structurally prepared to deal with was the weapons of mass destruction argument. And so as I said, by going to the UN it sort of diverted the attention more heavily towards the WMD argument, and away from the other two elements. But in the President’s rhetoric and in his speeches -- particularly as part of the American domestic political debate -- those three elements were present, I would say, throughout this entire period. And certainly very explicitly mentioned by the President in every one of his major speeches.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Right -- His speeches -- But I think there’s a distinction between the rhetoric of a speech versus the legal case. And the international lawyers that I’ve talked to say there’s no [crosstalk] international legal precedent for regime change -- changing the sovereign government of a nation -- you can’t do that under international law.
DONNELLY: Look, I am not an international lawyer so -- but even if that’s true -- I would say that underscores a shortcoming of international law. Americans believe that legitimacy of a government flows from the consent of the governed. And whatever you can say about Saddam’s government in Iraq -- it hardly received legitimate consent of the governered -- being the Iraqi people. So it is possible to have a regime that may have been legal by international standards, but at the same time morally and politically illegitimate. So this may underscore the need to reshape international law in ways that reflect individual political rights above national sovereignty.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: So what I hear is that -- If a law doesn’t suit our national interest, we can just selectively not follow it if there’s no sovereign authority to enforce it?
DONNELLY: No, I don’t think that’s what I said at all. I said that there are shortcomings in international law -- that there is a different legal basis for the Iraq War -- And that the Iraq War was conducted on a different legal basis -- or a legal basis that pre-existed resolution 1441, and was buttressed by Resolution 1441. And that the purpose of international law is not merely to sustain itself -- it cannot be immutable. There are things that are now outlawed according to international standards that once were quite accepted. So international law is not revealed faith. It’s an attempt to structure and to enforce a just political order.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: If we take a step back and we look at arms control agreements -- like the nuclear non-proliferation treaty or other arms control agreements -- What is your general viewpoint towards these agreements?
DONNELLY: They’re --
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: I’m sorry --
DONNELLY: Arms control treaties and other international treaties or -- I mean, if the question is, "Are these useful—" [Interruption] Look, international treaties and arms control agreements, if the question is, "Are they useful tools of American national security?" the answer is clearly yes. But again, they’re tools -- they’re not the purpose of American national security. The goal of American national security is to make Americans safe, and make the world safe for American principles. So they can be useful tools under certain circumstances. There are inherent problems with arms control treaties. There are inherent problems with all tools of national security. I’m neither in favor of nor ipso facto opposed to arms control treaties or international agreements.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: So should we -- as a country, the United States -- be striving to implement all the provisions of a nuclear non-proliferation treaty?
DONNELLY: As long as we are --
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: I’m sorry --
DONNELLY: Well look, as long as we are signatories to a treaty, we should try to fulfill our treaty obligations. You’d have to say that as a matter of reality the United States is not the most dangerous proliferator in the world. And the problem is, unfortunately, with those countries who either have withdrawn from the treaty or don’t observe the treaty to which they’re a signatory and have essentially announced their intentions to break out of the treaty. It may be at some point that the NPT is no longer a particularly effective tool. You know, there may be elements of it that we would want to modify -- or no arms control treaty is forever. The question, you know -- The primary test of the treaty is a utilitarian one: "Is it serving the purpose for which it was written?" And more fundamentally, "Is it a useful -- making a useful contribution to American national security?"

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: But why -- It is true that we’re not proliferating -- But by not disarming our own nuclear weapons, it seems to set a tone for other people to not -- You know, it’s a "carrot-and-stick" type of -- You know, the carrot was –
DONNELLY: That’s -- Those are quite separate issues. Proliferation and our own armaments are two sides of two different coins, you might say. Again, the test of both: of our own defense program and our own -- and the treaties that we sign – "Do they seem to enhance our security?" Why would you extend that simply to nuclear weapons and not to conventional weapons? The mere fact that we possess any weapons at all -- you could say by that argument -- is a justification for others arming themselves. Look, I think that fundamentally confuses the purpose of the United States in the world. I’m comfortable with a well-armed and a nuclear-armed United States. -- The United States is working for very different purposes in the world in say North Korea or Iraq.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Right, but when you see the United States take an action under the name of non-proliferation to a country that we know does not have any nuclear weapons -- Does that not encourage countries like North Korea or Iran, who do have nuclear weapons, to see that as a deterrent?
DONNELLY: For Iran and North Korea to see that as a deterrent of themselves?
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Deterrent of -- preventing the United States from invading. One of the reasons why -- North Korea or Iran could say, "Well, we’re safe because we have nuclear weapons."
DONNELLY: Well, I think that’s -- Yeah, but it’s not adherence or non-compliance with a treaty that brings North Korea or Iran to make those decisions. North Korea and Iran fear the United States because they understand that there is a fundamental political argument there, and the United States possesses great military power. And they’re our enemies. And from their point of view, it seems rather logical that they would fear the United States, and they believe that by obtaining nuclear weapons, they will deter us.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: I guess -- What do you see as the role for the United States and our military to kind of ensure security -- both within the United States and around the world?
DONNELLY: Well, I mean, that’s hard to boil down to anything less than another hour’s worth of an interview. But look, I mean, the most -- The United States military has -- and the national security institutions have a variety of things that we’re trying to achieve. Most immediately, our own physical security. But also we’re trying preserve, mercifully, a relatively peaceful and increasingly liberal world order. You know, Europe is generally at peace now, largely due to American actions there over the past century. The same is true of East Asia. We no longer fear the Japanese Empire, for example. So -- Today’s world is a remarkably peaceful and free one -- And we hope to maintain that, preserve it, and where possible expand it. There are still countries, elements, groups around the world who are dissatisfied with the way the world is, who don’t have the same political beliefs that we do. And are willing to do violent things to try to either attack the United States or prevent our political, economic, cultural influence from expanding around the world.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: If you look at the threats facing the United States from both now and in the future -- Do you see terrorism as being the biggest threat? Or do you see the rise of totalitarian states to be the next superpower to be potentially even a bigger threat?
DONNELLY: Well, I think these things are interwoven --
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: I’m sorry, what?
DONNELLY: That -- I would say actually that there are three dangers to the generally benign liberal order of the current moment. First is very clearly terrorist groups -- But it’s impossible to separate out the phenomenon of terrorism from the general political collapse in the Middle East. Terrorism is a response to illegitimate governance throughout the region. And then we have to be concerned about what direction China is going to take. China is becoming a much wealthier nation. They’ve expressed their own sort of dissatisfaction with certain elements of the world as they find it today. And the question is -- I mean, also at the same time, the American-led global order, if I can just use that shorthand, has been the framework for China’s modernization. So the question is "How to integrate China in ways that protect our values and protect our interests and yet maintain the peace?" So -- And keeping those three elements in proper balance and also preventing -- say the attempt to liberalize and democratize the Middle East from becoming an occasion for a larger great power struggle -- are certainly things that I would be concerned about.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: When you look at the current status, the United States is the largest military and economic superpower -- Can you speak to that, and why is that important to preserve?
DONNELLY: Well, I mean, it is a fact -- The fact of America as a superpower is sort of undeniable to friend and foe alike. And it is the framework in which the current -- again, generally peaceful and liberal international order has come into being. It wasn’t the Europeans themselves who sat down around a table and decided to stop going to war against one another. It was because Germany was defeated -- and the Soviet Union collapsed at the close of the Cold War -- and it wasn’t Imperial Japan that reconsidered its desired to recreate an East Asia prosperity sphere. It was American actions in the world that have proven themselves to be the most reliable agent for both human freedom and a more stable world. So absent any other mechanism to preserve both peace and prosperity -- and to advance the cause of freedom -- for the time being, it’s essentially up to the United States to provide the leadership to maintain that world.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Can you speak -- kind of on a philosophical level -- the forward strategy of our defense, and how -- as opposed to being centralized within the United States -- How a forward strategy can actually -- ?
DONNELLY: Well, this is particularly true in the case of terrorism -- but is more generally true -- that it’s much better to fight over there than to fight on our own streets. I mean September 11th certainly should underscore that -- that given the opportunity, there are people out there who will attack Americans in their homeland -- in their cities. And certainly, even prior to September 11th, there were a lot of people who were willing to attack and kill Americans around the world. Just speaking personally, one of the most formative experiences for me was to visit the Kobar Towers complex after the bombing there -- I was working at the Congress at the time. And that was a pretty vivid testimony to what people were willing to do to Americans abroad. So -- Look, if we intend -- if we value the world we live in today, then it is essential for Americans to try to maintain the peace, to expand human freedom, and to preserve the -- again, I’m repeating myself, but the -- what I would regard as the relatively stable, relatively peaceful, and by historical standards, remarkably free world that we live in.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: When you look at strategies to do that -- let’s take regime change just as an example -- Why wouldn’t the United States take a tactic of indicting Saddam Hussein for war crimes, and using the international legal structure to try to put pressure on the regime, to put a taboo -- Why didn’t the United States try that?
DONNELLY: Well, look, I mean -- Trying people for war crimes tends to be something that happens after the war. That was certainly true after WWII. It was true after the Balkans Wars. We were only able to indict and to bring to justice -- although the trial is still ongoing -- Slobodan Milosevic, after he had been actually voted out of office by the people of Serbia. So indicting sitting state leaders A.) is just practically difficult to do -- probably impossible to do through the United Nations -- or to get the United Nations sanction to do that. So it is left to the world to come up with a practical, effective enforcement mechanism. You know, if the world intends to live by a decent set of legal or moral standards, it must also face up to the enforcement requirements that come with those principles. It is one thing to protest injustice around the world, quite a different thing to bring people who do injustice to reckoning.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: But when you look at -- this is a separate issue -- But if you look at the international legal structure of the United Nations, it’s not set up to have a sovereign enforcing authority. So it’s up to the individual states to independently follow that.
DONNELLY: That is exactly my point. The United Nations -- and even the broader structure of international law, say the International Criminal Court -- is a legal system without an enforcement mechanism. To me that’s not simply amoral, but immoral. To desire the ends without willing the means is the height of moral irresponsibility. If you’re serious about your legal or moral principles, then there are obligations that you have in order to -- not simply to make a statement, but to do practical things in order to make the world a more just place.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Going back to indicting for war crimes -- If you look at Charles Taylor of Liberia, he was somebody who was indicted, and then -- So then, why not do it? -- There’s a precedent
DONNELLY: Well look, I mean -- He was on his way out of power anyway. He -- Charles Taylor hung on way too long, and his fate -- at this point, you’d have to say -- is up in the air. Again, to figure out that Charles Taylor’s regime was an illegitimate and violent one was not something that necessarily required a legal procedure to make happen. And it wasn’t really the legal procedure that forced him to give up power anyway. It was -- that was essentially a political process. Luckily, it didn’t involve a full-scale invasion. But if it had come to that, again, dictators tend not to step down so peacefully. If we look at the situation in Sudan today for example, that’s not a humanitarian crisis in the sense of being a hurricane or a natural disaster -- that’s a result of policies enforced by Khartoum. And anybody who thinks that that genuine humanitarian crisis -- that crisis of humanity -- is going to be solved in some other way than by bringing political pressure to bear on the Sudanese regime -- again, I think is to divorce ends from means in a way that’s pernicious.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: But when you look at the mechanism for exerting political pressure -- that first step is usually putting a taboo of a war indictment? So why not even try -- ?
DONNELLY: But again, we can -- If you forecast any likely outcome -- say in Sudan -- that’s not going to happen --
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: No -- I’m not talking about Iraq -- In Iraq --
DONNELLY: But, But -- Sudan is a good case because it’s speculative at this point. And because the world faces choices about what might be done about this. No -- You know, by all reckonings, the crisis in Darfur is the most immediate and pressing humanitarian crisis on the planet. It comes not even before the peace treaty is signed, in the case of the civil war in southern Sudan. Now what is the world going to do about that? To indict the regime -- or the leaders of the regime -- can’t be done through the United Nations. You can’t even get a Security Council resolution through the United Nations because of Chinese and other objections to that, because entirely for political reasons. So there is no international mechanism that’s available to solve the problem. Does that mean the problem goes away? Or does the problem remain? If this problem is going to be addressed, it’s going to be addressed by political action by sovereign governments who are willing to take the steps necessary to stop it. And such was the case in Iraq. There was no legal mechanism -- and certainly no obvious legal mechanism -- either through UN sanctions or any of the other tools available to the UN, which at this point -- or at that point -- was going to -- which any credible person could think was going to remain effective. The talk at the time was all about smart sanctions, which meant lesser sanctions than what existed previously. Saddam had manipulated the sanctions regime to impoverish his own people -- yet preserve himself in power. There was no chance that Saddam was going to be indicted by an international tribunal sanctioned by the United Nations because it would have been vetoed by probably a handful of members of the Security Council. So what were the practical alternatives? You either have to live in a world where regimes like this survive -- and even thrive. Or the civilized nations of the world -- if I can use that term without being, you know, thought a wacko -- or people who do want to see justice done in the world are willing to take the steps necessary to enforce -- You know, it seems to me to be a very clear case of justice done.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: And when you take a step back and look at what we now know of the infrastructure of the weapons of mass destruction -- It seemed to be that inspectors seemed to do a pretty good job of dismantling it. And so when you look at why we went to war -- and I say, "Why did the United States go to war with Iraq?" -- What would your response be?
DONNELLY: Again, I would say that the other two elements of the argument are the ones that have -- meaning, the liberation argument, and the broader national security argument -- are the ones that have proved to have been more durable. But look, there’s no question that Saddam had -- had used weapons of mass destruction. The United Nations found after the first Gulf War that his nuclear program was farther advanced than we thought. If you catch a murderer when he’s reloading his gun or is out of ammunition, you’re just lucky. And it’s not a basis for justice or strategy to turn your head while a man with a previous track record of a guy like Saddam -- with a clear capacity to reacquire these programs, and the means to finance them -- is ignored and allowed to require such weapons. We see in the case of Iran where the mere threat of the acquisition of nuclear weapons entirely distorts the way the rest of the world deals with a similarly repressive regime -- likewise in North Korea. So again, if we got Saddam when he happened to be out of ammo, and we didn’t know it, that’s just simply luck. -- And a good thing.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Some people on -- may look at some of the Administration figures who were in policy positions -- they see affiliations to Project to American -- Project --
DONNELLY: -- Project for the New American Century --
ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Project for the New American Century. From your sense, and in being involved with this, do you see if there was any influence in any of these planning papers?
***
DONNELLY: Well, look -- As a former deputy executive director of the project, I would like to think that we were hugely persuasive -- But it’s not so. In my mind, this is a case of -- It’s like the perfect storm for somebody in the think-tank world. And being sort of at the right place with the right ideas at the right time. So certainly if there was any influence, it was entirely indirect. And it was because the Project and like-minded institutions advanced ideas that the American public found persuasive. The Bush Administration couldn’t have been regarded as of-like-mind to the Project -- or other so-called neo-conservative types prior to September 11th. But after September 11th, there was a willingness to view the world differently. Again, just happened to be on-hand with what proved to be a persuasive set of ideas at a time that the American political dialogue was looking for such things.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: But do you think that -- Do you see part of the Project for New American Century’s goals to remake the Middle East? And also do you see -- This also has to do with protecting the security of Israel?
DONNELLY: I would say it’s only secondarily -- or tertiarily driven by any concerns over Israel -- my own -- to speak for myself. My personal view is that the Israel-Palestinian conflict is of far lesser strategic importance than generally believed by many people in the United States. And if I could fix one problem in the Middle East, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict wouldn’t be that problem. I’m far more concerned about Saudi Arabia, about Egypt, about Iran, about Pakistan, than I am about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. So I think the Israeli connection is a pretty bogus one. And I certainly look at this in terms of my interpretation of what American interests and principles are.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Is it in the American interests to prevent totalitarian states from acquiring the oil reserves in Iraq?
DONNELLY: Well yeah, I would say so. Look, there has been a totalitarian government in Iraq that enriched itself with the proceeds of its oil industry. And it used those oil proceeds to build a big army, and to invade its neighbors, and to provide a big threat to regional stability, to American interests, and on and on and on. The problem has been -- for too long -- and I quote the September 11th Commission -- that too many of our relationships in the region have been solely about oil. And we have learned much to our great sorrow what else has been going on in that region for all these many years. And at this point, we’re trying to play catch-up to bring a better set of governments -- and a more liberal set of governments -- and one hopes a more democratic set of governments to a region that suffers from a lack of democracy -- a democracy deficit.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: Okay... When you look at the bases -- the military bases -- Do you see that as also part of the motivation -- to have military bases within Iraq?
DONNELLY: Well look, even if we’re totally successful in quelling the insurgency in Iraq -- Iraq will continue to live in a dangerous neighborhood. It’s a region where American military presence has been constantly on the rise since 1979. It’s an area of great strategic importance to the world -- not only to the United States. Why would we want to withdraw from a region that we’ve invested a huge amount of treasure -- and now an unfortunate amount of blood? We don’t want to abandon an experiment in Iraqi or Arab democracy to the tender mercies of the states that surround it -- and to the continuing insurgency at some level -- the terrorism attacks that will continue whether we’re there or not. Terrorists are now targeting Iraqis primarily and contractors of other nationalities. So the terrorists -- not simply do they have a beef with us, but they have a beef with the Iraqis and they have a beef with the whole idea of A.) A Shi’a-domintated government and B.) A democratic government in Baghdad. So I am under no illusions that American national interests, security interests and certainly our political principles are pretty fully engaged in Iraq, and will be for years and years to come. The whole purpose of the exercise is to make it safe for us, and to make it safe for our principles.

ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT: And I think the issue is a lack of transparency. Some people think that was our primary motivation was to have that presence there.
DONNELLY: It would be nice to say that we had a plan before we got into this. I mean, I really think that even now we’re still kind of making it up as we go along. This happened because of the events of September 11th, which transformed the way people looked at things. But again, it awoke us from a pleasant dream -- about what we thought the world would be like -- to face a world that was very different and was very dangerous. So we haven’t got anything but the most macro-level strategy. The President has said I want to transform the Middle East. I want to liberalize and democratize the Middle East. Translating that into a practical policy basis -- a day-by-day set of guidelines for any government -- of any Administration -- setting priorities -- What’s important today doesn’t seem to have the same importance as it did yesterday. And things that were important before September 11th seem less important now. So we’re still very much in a formative stage, and thanks to our democratic process, there is a fair amount of transparency about this. [END OF TAPE]