PSYCHOLOGICALLY INCORRECT:
ERRING ON THE SIDE OF DANGER
Diane Perlman, PhD
Richard Rubenstein, PhD

Psychotherapists are bound by an ethical code known as "duty to warn." When someone poses a danger, we are legally required to take steps to prevent harm. That code now requires us to go on public record to warn of the inevitable catastrophic consequences of US-led invasion of Iraq.

As psychologists and experts in causes and prevention of conflict, terrorism, and violence, we are usually in a better position than the lay public to recognize potential for explosive behavior before it boils over. In such cases we have a professional responsibility not to remain silent, lest we become complicit in some preventable disaster.

Just as loyal experts warned NASA about O-rings and heat shield tiles, we now publicly warn our government about vastly greater dangers that will be unleashed by war. Previous warnings have gone unheeded, yet these dangers can only be prevented now, before the shoe drops and an attack is ordered.

Actions which provoke global tensions, and fuel cycles of fear, hatred, rage and revenge, are likely to explode in ways that will horrify us later. Not only our deployed troops and innocent Iraqi civilians, but we at home, will be endangered by this war, whose consequences include new terrorism here.

We have good cause to be terrified. There is a broad consensus of expert opinions that catastrophic consequences are inevitable if we continue to escalate the violence. But experts also agree they are avoidable if we change course.

As practitioners in tension reduction, violence prevention, and conflcit transformation, we know of viable alternatives to war. We reject notions of "acceptable risks," "acceptable deaths," and "necessary war" as psychologically illiterate and baseless. This language of inevitablility, being forced into a war we don't want, seduces people into accepting the worst case scenario. War is likely to spiral out of control, causing problems far worse than those it claims to solve. Using violence to prevent violence is irrational, especially in an age of terrorism, asymmetrical warfare and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

The airwaves are saturated with dangerous false assumptions about the nature of conflict and our enemies, made by pundits speaking far outside of their areas of expertise. Among the familiar myths they propound:

• You have to stand up to a bully or you invite worse attacks; war now will prevent more violence later;
• War may provoke some terrorist reprisals, but they will be "manageable." The benefits of the war outweigh any terrorist risks;
• Al Qaida will attack us whether we invade or not, so we might as well invade;
• We have exhausted all other alternatives; war is our only choice.

On all counts, clinical observation demonstrates the opposite:

• Americans have been offered unrealistic fantasies of destroying Saddam and "liberating" Iraq quickly and cleanly. War will provoke widespread violence quickly, including a chain reaction of terrorist reprisals, prompting new recruits and motivations for renewed attacks. We will be perceived as the bullies.
• Such cycles of violence are anything but manageable. They create what Dr. Robert Jay Lifton calls "an atrocity producing situation," setting precedents for "preemptive strikes" to be imitated by others, inviting global anarchy. Invasion won't prevent proliferation or use of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction; it will provoke them. Both UK intelligence source and US security experts including former US President Carter predict that Saddam Hussein will only use his WMDs if provoked by an invasion, which only makes psychological sense.
• Terrorists are likely waiting for a US invasion to signal more terrorist attacks. Analysis of cycles of violence reveals a pattern and ethic of reciprocity. If we attack Muslims, they retaliate. Bin Laden's words, "So let America increase the pace of this conflict or decrease it, and we will respond in kind." are psychologically credible and plausible.
• There are many options between the extremes of invasion and inaction. Professionals have many strategies for preventing future violence. Escalating violence only propels cycles of retaliation. Establishing communication transforms them. Multilateral discussions with Iraq over a wide range of issues, using proven conflict transformation approaches, is psychologically sound. Continued inspections should be embedded in a context of effective strategies of tension reduction and violence prevention.

The 62% of Americans who favor war were not asked in polls if they also favored provoking terrorist attacks at home, or whether they would be in favor of trying clinically proven non-violent conflict resolution approaches as an alternative. This, too sends up warning flags: media and policy discourse about the war, like the polls themselves, risk being superficial, misleading because they ignore the most basic lessons of psychology regarding predictable human behavior which we continue to ignore our gravest peril.

Diane Perlman, PhD,
Solomon Asch Center for the Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict, University of Pennsylvania, contributor to The Psychology of Terrorism.

Richard Rubenstein, PhD,
Institue for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, George Mason University, author Alchemists of Revolution: Terrorism in the Modern World