I agree with this completely. Opportunity cost is such a basic concept that seems to be lost on even the most sophisticated analysis’ of this war. One other, hugely important opportunity cost to consider is in relation to our military/diplomatic resources and worldwide political capital needed to effect them. Clearly Iraq drained these on all fronts. People forget that we had massive worldwide support for our actions in Afghanistan. Attacking Iraq diverted our efforts there and (i) hindered our ability to finish of Al Queda and (ii) hindered our ability to rebuild Afghanistan into a model Islamic country. More importantly, attacking Iraq prevented us from focusing on the true source of international terrorism and WMD threat…IRAN. If we had turned our and the world’s attention on Iran early on, we would have found a terrorist supporting regime bent on stockpiling WMDs. Instead, we have let that real threat grow and perhaps even strengthened it by attacking an entirely contained Iraq.

â€You’ve no doubt heard of the Stiglitz-Bilmes study putting the real cost for the Iraq war at over one trillion dollars.†Well, I am sorry to report that I missed Stiglitz-Bilmes, until I read your article. Thanks as always, whether we count our â€opportunity costs†or not, they are as real as gravity. Life is a zero sum game. IMO the resources we â€invested†in nation building in Iraq were committed out of sequence. Job1 for the U.S. was bringing Osama to justice. IMO Bush/Cheney/neocons thought the â€catastrophic success†in Iraq would be easier (and look better on TeeVee) than pictures of caves. We Democrats have failed to prevent Bush and his chickenhawks from inaccurately hyping themselves as â€tough on terror.†Where is Osama? He is the one that committed 1st degree murder upon our civilians? Nothing emboldens terrorists more than the fact that Osama â€got away with it.†You want to deter terrorists, arrest or kill Osama.

Another alternative that I advocated throughout the 2004 campaign (and am glad to see Gov Schwarzenegger pick up) is using the money wasted on the war to rebuild our infrastructure. This would also have created good jobs here at home that would have revitalized our economy and given us something tangible in return that would increase productivity. And who knows, if levees had been on the list it might have saved lives too.

It could have been packaged as improving our security–port security, transportation security, security of our water supplies (especially here in California), and of course increased safety in case of weather-related disasters. Coupled with an increase in first responders, it would have made us so much safer and better prepared than Iraq. It seemed to me like a no-brainer, but Kerry never really picked it up.

In fairness, since the Bush people never foresaw the insurgency, they must have assumed (and in fact we know they assumed) that the war would be over in less than a year with few US casualties and Iraqi oil would pay for the reconstruction. Their failure to foresee what actually happened in the face of so many predictions of just those results is further evidence of they incompetence, not an excuse for what happened, however.

I may be misreading you, but suggesting we went to war for security — even energy security or economic security — seems unnecessarily naive at this point. There is a case to be made that investing in alternative energy would have been at least a 10-20 year commitment, with no assurance of usable results, while securing mideast oil was expected to be quicker (we’ll see) and foolproof (we underestimated the fool).

In short I can imagine someone making an intelligent argument for invading Iraq as energy and economic policy — I wouldn’t agree, but I can understand that argument. But, it seems naive to suggest that this argument was made in the halls of power, or that a reasoned analysis took place.

Nedweenie took the words out of my keyboard, above, saying â€Besides, they & their pals wouldn’t have made any money if we didn’t invade Iraq.†That, and personal grievances against Hussein, I think were all the debate that took place. To discuss this as an opportunity cost implies there was opportunity for spending the money as you suggest. Under Bush, I just don’t see that that was ever possible.

And if we talk about the opportunity cost of having elected Bush, economic security may be just the tail end of the beast.

~pockets

Those purposes are roughly based on what Karen Kwiatkowski describes as the reasons mentioned inside the halls of power (OSP) for the war. It also accords with the leaked oil development map of Iraq from Cheney’s top secret energy task force.

I don’t doubt revenge for daddy and self-enrichment was part of the reason. But honestly, they did go to war, also, to solve some long-term vulnerabilities in the hegemonic position of the US. You can’t be the most powerful country in the world without control over energy. That was true in WWI, in WWII, and is still true today. Problem is, that ties us to the Middle East and some unsavory allies in ways we really ought not to be tied.

Oh, sorry.

You’re right. BushCo, the Administration in which ExxonMobil and Halliburton have a majority stake, did not consider the alternatives. In fact, no one did. At least no one in power.

I remember making such arguments, even talking about weighing the likelihood of sectarian violence against the other possibilities. But no one has elected me President, nor are they likely to have an opportunity to do so.

I think the alternative energy development taskforce exists already within the oilmegapoly. Bush-son, was ductile. There was a prefabricated warplan for a different purpose in 1991, morphed throughout the no-fly interbellum, but sufficiently serviceable to invoke for flypaper, putting the frustrated anarchists into conflict in their own terrain; the nationbuilding categorically declared by newly elected Bush-son repugnant was only rhetorically so for debating vs. Kerry purposes, and a nationbuilt would serve the oilmegapoly purposes you suggest, EW. Russia’s rejoined Gazprom monopoly is playing havoc in Ukraine this week for similar reasons; and Turkey is a logistical presence; look at the EU membership debate Byzantine which occurred over this past year. A lot of oil still courses through Anatolia. Let’s keep sight of your yearlong effort to prototype neocon thinking, as the minority Bush-2 first term relied greatly on the n-c’s stepfather his V-P, Cheney; and with the dawning second term the N-Cs got their appointees. There is a lot of stragegy in the conflict besides keeping the Republican Party in office by rallying ’round the flag, which is a traditional Democratic Party ditty; credit the oilmegapolists with the insight that the spot market and Kenny-Boy’s client industry could sock away capital from $3.00/gallon gas. The savings give them leverage going into the future. They want to be the same outfit that sells you your hydrogen fuel cell vehicle.

Where are the threads in this tale: payback to Iraq for losing its tethers to the US. I appreciate your link to the Columbia research document, which I will read. I guess I think local on this: as Red Adair put out Kuwait well fires in 1991 marine biologists lamented loss of pristine coastal water conditions; and as Hussein filled in wetlands, professors in the US went on NPR to plan for restoration.
The way I viewed the Social Security hype last year by Bush-2’s sales reps was it was their trapdoor accounting method to tap funds for Iraq instead of enduring the risk of congress’s power of the purse. Only problem was the first blush retrenchment effect following 28k modem internet spread netted in a readjustment in NASDAQ, so even moderate economists realized the SocSec private account paradigm crashed with tech stocks and would be a nonissue throughout the second term of Bush-2.
Brad De Long has a new blog, and is into economics; you might check it out; got to study now.

Dead on the heavy funk. Another bookmarked TNH post.