Are the Iraqis like our Founding Fathers
December 12th, 2005 – 7:18 PM by Eric BlackGood morning, fellow seekers of wisdom and truth.
In Philadelphia Monday, President Bush (Here’s the text off the White House website) portrayed Thursday’s elections as the culmination of the creation of a sovereign, elected, full-term Iraqi government. (Here’s a brief timeline of the steps along this path).
As in the previous two speeches that constitute Bush’s answer to Iraq war critics, the president was more willing than he used to be to acknowledge past mistakes in the U.S. management of post-Saddam Iraq. And he continued his recent, much more accurate description of the elements of the insurgency, contrary to his earlier habit of describing them all as terrorists.
While acknowledging that “this week’s elections won’t be perfect, and a successful vote is not the end of the process” Bush did make the fairly grand prediction that “the year 2005 will be recorded as a turning point in the history of Iraq, the history of the Middle East, and the history of freedom.”
Similarities between Philadelphia 1776 and Baghdad 2005?
Speaking in Philadelphia, Bush went to some lengths to compare Iraq now with the United States during the period from the Declaration of Independence (signed in Philly, 1776) to the ratification of the Constitution (drafted in Philly, 1787.)
Historical analogies are always tricky. What do you think of that one?
Defining victory
Bush repeated the definition of what will constitute victory in Iraq: “Victory will be achieved when the terrorists and Saddamists can no longer threaten Iraq’s democracy, when the Iraqi security forces can provide for the safety of their own citizens, and when Iraq is not a safe haven for terrorists to plot new attacks against our nation.”
For those wondering whether Bush might be planning to declare victory and start the withdrawal after Thursday, or at least in time for the 2006 midterm elections, his language Monday hinted otherwise: “Oh, I know some fear the possibility that Iraq could break apart and fall into a civil war. I don’t believe these fears are justified. They’re not justified so long as we do not abandon the Iraqi people in their hour of need.”
He repeated the formulation that: “As the Iraqi security forces stand up, coalition forces can stand down. And when victory is achieved, our troops will then return home with the honor they have earned.”
Does that mean all the troops?
For those wondering whether Bush is willing to make a commitment that the U.S. does not seek long-term military bases in Iraq, Bush disclosed that, while the U.S. formerly had about 90 bases in Iraq, “we’ve closed about 40 — or turned over — closed or turned over 40 of those bases to the Iraqis. In other words, our profile is beginning to move back as the Iraqis get trained up.”
And he said: “We are working to build capable and effective Iraqi security forces, so they can take the lead in the fight, and eventually take responsibility for the safety and security of their citizens without major foreign assistance.”
Hmm. That third-to-last word, “major” assistance. And that talk of lowering our profile. Might that leave an opening for long-term U.S. bases?
Michael Rubin thinks that’s the plan. See my interview with him.
Rubin said that the idea of getting the U.S. military completely out of Iraq is only important to the American left, but that Iraqis don’t really object to long-term U.S. bases, if they are outside the Iraqi cities.
Some of the neo-cons made clear years ago that getting bases in Iraq was part of what would make toppling Saddam worth it for the U.S. Do you agree that having long-term U.S. military bases in Iraq is at least part of what would make the war worth it? Do you believe that was part of the administration’s reasoning from the beginning?
68 Responses to "Are the Iraqis like our Founding Fathers"
If the French had kept their army in America after the battle of Yorkton and sent over a entire bureaucracy to help us “transistion to independence” then you’d be able to say that America in 1787 was the same as Iraq in 2005.
What Iraq is more similar to (albeit not exactly) is Algiers and other African/Asian colonies who wanted their independence from Eurpoean colonial powers.
In terms of the military situation, the president has a point. As in 1776, a “superior” fighting force of well-trained, experienced professionals is attempting to stamp out a ragtag group of rebels with sparse leadership who receive help from other countries and are motivated by the understanding that they do not have to defeat the opposing forces, they merely have to keep struggling until the invaders and their leaders decide the fight is not worth the trouble and cost, and go home.
However, there are two key differences that naturally the president doesn’t address in his remarks. First, the highly educated gentlemen in Philadelphia initiated the break with England, and were not trying to overcome fundamental religious differences to find some sense of independence at the barrel of a gun. Second, Bush seems to imply that we all knew the Iraq undertaking was going to be a long, difficult struggle, as the American Revolution was. The problem is that this whole enterprise was sold to the American people as a quick release of a willing people from a cruel dictator, in which our troops would be “greeted as liberators,” and now it seems more clear to everyone that this will not be the case.
In the previous string I commented that for me, W’s major clear error and sign of non-seriousness was the way he either downplayed or simply ignored the obvious danger of some intense Sunni resistance.
But there’s a corollary to that, which is that the basic formulation of being “welcomed as liberators,” when filtered through reality, was not 100% mistaken. Among the reactions there was a good supply of relief and welcome, obviously among the Kurds and even among the Shiites, which taken together as we all know are the vast majority.
In fact, I even believe it was not missing among the Sunnis, though it was more tentative.
Had the situation not deteriorated, that relief would have solidified. I’m not sure what that means, but it can pay to remember, because it relates to a chance of stability now.
The continued meaning is that the vast majority of Iraqis do not want whatever it is the “insurgents” are offering, whether it’s chaos, civil war, or Islamic fundamentalism.
That basic reality in the population differentiates this situation from Viet Nam and from a comparison of the insurgency with American revolutionaries, strength-wise I mean.
The danger that the situation is deteriorating into tribal clan-dom is real, I guess, although I wonder if people who push that idea really know it to be true or simply assume it, aided and abetted by news coverage seeking evidence for it but not much seeking evidence the other way.
Ms. Walen’s point about the futility of expecting Iraqis to get past fundamental religious differences seems in part kind of sad to me; and also at odds to some extent with the anti-war side’s insistence that Iraq was a completely secular state before the war. (A bit of a cheap shot there.)
Granted, looking to do so at the behest of the US and “at the barrel of a gun” is a consideration. But is that really how they see it? How do they see what’s going on? And do they pay any attention at all to the progressive reaction outside Iraq, like the emboldened democracy movements in Lebanon and Syria and Egypt? Do they see themselves at all as regional leaders in a movement that transcends whatever it was the US thought it was trying to accomplish? And does any of that possibility actually excite the European and American left, or would they rather see the whole thing collapse into chaos to make their point very clear? And to avoud the spread of American hegemony, that catch-all disease like the common cold for which there is no cure?
Based on some Iraqi blogs, there seem to be some who think that way. They seem heroic to me, to get to the original question.
It’s only 2005, but convicted grifter Ahmad Chalabi, working on behalf of his friends in Teheran, has already pulled off the scam of the century.
First off, he convinces both Israel’s Likud Party and their neocon spiritual twins in America — namely Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Richard Perle and the other leading lights of the Bush neocon coterie, the people who went on to found PNAC, the Project for the New American Century — that instead of needing the secularist dictator Saddam to fend off Iran’s mullahs and their dreams of exporting their brand of Islamic revolution (that’s why Reagan and the first Bush gave him the stuff he needed to gas his own people, then looked the other way while he proceeded to do just that), they could topple Saddam and install a régime that was much friendlier to Israel, at very little expense in blood or treasure.
Both the US and Israeli conservatives — the self-styled “Vulcans” — fell for this lock, stock and barrel. Because what REALLY happened is that the Iranian-friendly Chalabi got Iran’s most powerful enemy to get bogged down invading and occupying Iran’s bitterest enemy, thus removing both enemies as credible threats to Iran, whilst weakening the internal security of Israel, Iran’s second-most-powerful enemy. Furthermore, post-Saddam Iraq is now being run by, and will continue to be run by, people who are far friendlier with Iran than America or Israel: exactly the result those of us in the reality-based community had predicted all along.
By the way:
Check out Riverbend’s blog. (http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/2005_12_01_riverbendblog_archive.html#113380516125491394) She’s an Iraqi computer programmer who had a job in Baghdad before the war. Now she can’t even go outside without having a brother tag along, for fear of the mullah-run religious enforcers.
In the 1960s, women could walk in miniskirts in downtown Baghdad without fear of harrassment from anyone, be they rapists, religious fanatics or both. Even under Saddam, who made concession after concession to the mullahs, they go go to university and get guaranteed jobs on graduating. Now, women born under the new government of Iranian-friendly mullahs will be lucky to be allowed to read.
Tamara –
Just an observation: usually, when I deal with someone who grants herself membership in the “reality-based community,” it turns out I am in possession of ideas and facts that have simply never occurred to him/her. It can be embarrssing for all concerned. Although somewhat enjoyable for me, too, since it tends to undercut the inference that I spend my time wandering in some kind of unreal haze, bumping into things.
I always want to ask them: how much of a serious study have you made of the best arguments for the war, as opposed to a serious study of the filtered versions of the worst arguments?
Anyway, from what I’ve read, pinning the blame for this on Chalabi is simplistic. I think the reason it happened was a confluece of a whole bunch of strains of thought, including ones that came out of the Clinton administration, that it was a necessity.
(I also believe, for what it’s worth, that Chalabi was indicted – on bank fraud I believe – in Syria was it? Jordan? I’m not sure – and there’s never been a trial. I think I have that right. Maybe it’s just my reality.)
That said, your concerns about the Iranian and fundamentalist strains in the government are real. It seems very likely W didn’t take that into account; although I have to say I don’t remember an overhwelming number of warnings on this precise issue from the reality-based comunity; mostly I remember a flood of warnings of all possible dire outcomes, with “chaos” being a catch-all and the one I foresaw, too: must have accidentally bumped into some reality there.
As I mentioned in the other string, it may well still be an open question as to where the fundamentalist thing is headed, and I’ve read reports saying that the Shiites of Iraq are not thrilled with the Iranian version of an Islamic Republic that may be possible, at least in the south.
I do salute you for the hard work you’re doing convincing all Americans that we must work together to make sure it doesn’t head in the worst possible direction, for the Iraqis’ sake and especially for the women there, as it might if we withdrew the troops too quickly. If you believe their fates would be better served by a quick withdrawal, I’d be open to the argument. I would certainly love to believe it.
I did note your mentioning “concession after concession to the mullahs” made by Hussein: and I thought well hold on just a second there, I thought Hussein was resolutely and stalwartly secular. Is it possible it was more complex than that? is it possible we should have taken seriously the Popular Islamic Conferences he hosted all through the 90′s, the ones described by a reporter from Newsweek thusly: “If that wasn’t an al Qaeda in training, it sure was Hussein’s version of it”? (I believe it was Newsweek.)
In your first post you make mention of how we were fooled into thinking we didn’t need Hussein as a buffer against radical Islam. Is that your position, that we should have seen him that way? Because you also seem to mock it; and it deserves to be mocked; and it was essentially the French position on how to deal with Iraq: treat him as a partner. (Speaking of blood for oil.)
Which, as I understand it, is a category of behavior on the part of the west feeding Islamic rage.
My bottom line on the whole situation is that it presented a dilemma with no good options.
In that regard I always want to ask reality-based peope: what exactly, obviously, should lwe have done? Not going back to 1919 or the 1960′s, but given what we were confronted with now? Simply let Hussein & Sons rejoin the international community? I do seriously think that’s the implication of a lot of the anti-war arguments.
Foment unrest or civil war but from the outside, avoiding actual responsibility? That might have been smarter but also includes a hint of cravenness, possibly.
I listened to Bush’s Philadelphia speech with interest, as it’s the first time I’ve heard the man express any in-depth analysis of the situation in Iraq and the difficulties we face there, or acknowledge that there might be lessons to be drawn from history.
Still, the analogy with American history doesn’t hold water. There is as yet no sign of an Iraqi Washington, Franklin, or Jefferson. America didn’t have its independence foisted on it at the whim of an outside power. And while the American colonists had their share of religious and cultural strife, the colonists by and large came to the New World in search of religious freedom and a fresh start — no comparison whatsoever can be drawn to Iraq, home of the world’s oldest civilizations and the very birthplace of Shi’a Islam.
What I’d really like to know is how those who supported the war when it was a “cakewalk” which would “pay for itself” are reacting to the President’s vision of a decade of strife and chaos (and, presumably, US casualties) before Iraq settles into constitutional democracy. I’m sure I’m not the only one who would have appreciated this sort of frank acknowledgement of the struggle ahead *before* going to war, rather than halfway through.
Funny. This exact analogy bothered me so much that I wrote about it at length yesterday. Many others have hit upon the same flaws. To wit:
Iraq is not a colony. It is not a collection of thirteen colonies. The evil tyrant Saddam Hussein did not live in a castle an ocean away. It’s one thing to revolt against a monarch on the other side of the world, but a different thing altogether to have done that in his own country. People fled England to come to the colonies to find a “new life” for themselves. Think the British people could have overthrown George in England? Think they could have overthrown the entire British monarchy and established their own democracy? Of course not. It didn’t happen. The French managed it do it in 1789, illustrating how much different it is to actually accomplish a revolution from within, as opposed to severing the ties that bind
The Iraqi people did not rise up against their oppressor. The preeminent global superpower stood on a world stage and said that Saddam Hussein was stockpiling weapons of mass destruction, and that in order to best serve her national interests, and to protect her borders from future terrorist attacks, she must effect regime change in a distant land.
“No nation in history has made the transition to a free society without facing challenges, setbacks, and false starts.” Of course not. No one is suggesting otherwise. However, it might also be argued that no nation in history has been pushed into a “revolution” by another sovereign nation. There may have been cases where seeds were planted. Ben Franklin, certainly, learned a great deal from the French, who were more than happy to stick a dagger or two into Britain’s side. But the French didn’t instigate our revolution. Three years after our fight for independence was over, the French army didn’t vastly outnumber our own — on our own soil, no less. The French military didn’t establish a “Green Zone” in Philadelphia as their base of operations, striking out periodically against an unruly and increasingly restless native population.
Any challenges that were faced by our own infant nation were met with responses from George Washington, or Thomas Jefferson, or Benjamin Franklin, or any number of American leaders. Men and women who staked their claim for independence, who thought about the government they wanted to form, who fought to make it happen. Independence isn’t handed to you on a platter. You don’t ask for independence, or hope for it, you assert it. You take action.
I agree, of course, that W made a hash of the case and helped get us into a weird and perhaps tragic situation. Although I feel compelled to add that he was confronted from the beginning on this with a war opposition that refused to acknowledge the dilemma; and I’d add that the anti-war left tends to insist he made the case as they protray it in their caricatures of the case, never acknowledging that it was a very complex situation and that W and crew actually made a more honest attempt to portray the complexity than they are given credit for. (And fell down badly on WMD certainty.)
But there was a stronger case that could have been made and was in fact made in many places by other people. I believe it behooves everyone to try to understand the actual dilemma and the actual best reasons we went in as we all try to figure out what to do now.
Because we’re there, and the pro-war or non-anti-war people are not going to sit up and say you’re right, we’re either fascists or fools. They believe what they believe, many of them, for strong reasons that by and large rarely get acknowleged – in for example the Star-Trib’s editorial pages.
As for the question, yes, there are some obvious points as to why this situation is dissimilar to the American revolution. That we did it ourselves, it wasn’t foisted on us. Got it. It kinda seems to me the question is, okay, aside from that: is there any spiritual similarity?
Check this out:
http://iraqthemodel.blogspot.com/
Down the side are some links, including “ITM friends.”
There are those who would say we shouldn’t take these people seriously.
I confess that I find it almost impossible to listen to President Bush speak or follow his line of illogical logic. Even if we occupied Iraq for 100 years, losing many American lives in those 100 years, we would not establish a democracy there. While we had a certain obligation to do something about Saddam Hussein (and long before 9/11) because we created him, it is an illusion to think that you can take a culture and a religion that is thousands of years old and change it in a few years or even 100 years. What I find so frustrating is how paper thin Bush’s arguments have been and how so many Americans take it in at face value. There have been military personnel who have even said it: we are establishing bases over there for our own purposes, the biggest of which is oil. It is even more appalling that the President should compare himself to our founding fathers. None of what is happening in Iraq relates at all to that time period in America, nor does Bush even come close to the intellectual leaders of that time–in fact he is the court jester of our history as it now stands. Change must come from within. We cannot change the Iraqi people, we cannot force democracy on them or on the Middle East. It has to be wanted by the very people themselves. Did we learn nothing by our involvement in Vietnam? In the meantime, it is Christmas and Americans are going about it as though a war is not going on. The President’s speech is another fogging technique to blur his real intentions. He won’t give a deadline because he doesn’t want one. He doesn’t want to pull out the protection of his corporate cash pipeline and power maintain power of the resource of oil in Iraq. It might also be he can’t give a deadline because he doesn’t know what the hell he is doing. This has been going on the entire time he has been in office. It still stuns me that he continues to lie to the American public and is never held accountable. This administration’s evils are brushed under the rug–Karl who?
Ironically, Hurricane Katrina exposed the fact that America needs rebuilding and not because a hurricane caused the damage. We have severe poverty in America, we have a corrupt judicial system, we have a corrupt political system on both sides, we have poor funding for education and health care, and we no longer produce products but buy them from China and elsewhere–hence no jobs for Americans. Our civil rights are literally being demolished, and the Constitution has been violated or compromised several times over. We cannot help other countries until we, as a people, take back the power that the founding fathers intended. Power OF the people. We can be proud as Americans and still be accountable for the wrongs we have committed to other countries. But we have to take that position now. To allow President Bush to go any further on this path of destruction is to invoke the adage, “the chickens came home to roost.” I don’t think there is an American alive who wants another 9/11. So we have to face our wrongs as a nation, look inward to our nation’s needs and correct those before we dictate what democracy is to other countries. We have lost much of it here (and I’m not talking about the freedom to shop).
We did not create Saddam Hussein. He created himself. We were present, as we were present everywhere.
I beg to differ respectfully. We enlisted Saddam’s help in opposition to Iran, we channeled funds to Saddam, we helped him build his dictatorship and then we cried foul when he turned around and bit the hand that fed him. We also allied ourselves with Osma Bin Laden in the opposition towards the then Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan and that same pattern came about. We have a long history of creating insurgencies in other countries and of promoting leaders in those countries who initially show pro-American interests. We aren’t merely present everywhere. We make sure our interests, which certainly could be described as imperial, are always protected, even if it is to the detriment of another nation’s long term peace and prosperity. So yes, we do help to form dictatorships. But claiming that Saddam was harboring weapons of destruction and harboring terrorists was a fallacy that allowed Bush to get into Iraq. We should have, in league with the United Nations, done something about Hussein a long time ago when he grew from a compliant baby dictator to a monster. And I’m not talking about ridiculous economic sanctions. That only strengthened Hussein in that he profited from the black market immensely. When he was gassing the Kurds, nothing was done. That is a reason to go to war, to stop a genocide.
Paul Schersten –
You have quite a command of the English language, but I searched it in vain for anything in that reply of yours — beside a wittily-worded broad-brush smear zinger about those of us who knew that invading Iraq was not going to be the flowers-and-candy” cakewalk that convicted embezzler (http://www.prospect.org/print/V13/21/dreyfuss-r.html) Ahmad Chalabi promised — without factual backup on your part — to show that anything I said was wrong.
The reality-based community of people who opposed the unprovoked, terrorist-breeding, and badly-undermanned invasion of Iraq include such folk as Eric Shinseki (http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2003-06-02-white-usat_x.htm), Brent Scowcroft (http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110002133), and Thomas White (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/invasion/interviews/white.html). You may recognize these names. Two of them were very-high-ranking Pentagon officials under George W. Bush, until they dared to question the Rumsfeld-Cheney PNAC Platoon’s desire to invade Iraq.
The big irony of Saddam and his crimes is that he was enabled in large part by Ronald Reagan, who on the advice of Donald Rumsfeld started propping him up in the early 1980s. Note well that the crimes for which Saddam is being tried in front of Ahmad Chalabi’s nephew Salem (http://www.agenceglobal.com/Article.asp?Id=128), are some relatively minor ones that took place just before Rumsfeld went to Baghdad to shake Saddam’s hand (http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/) and offer him weapons to use against Iran as well as “his own people”, the Kurds (http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0802-01.htm). For all the conservatives’ hollering about Saddam’s use of poison gas in 1988, you’d think they’d be wondering why he isn’t being charged with that. But then, the conservatives don’t like to admit that Reagan and the first Bush helped Saddam in any way.
The PNAC Platoon thought that they would get back, through the occupation of Iraq, all those bases the US lost when the Shah of Iran fell to the mullahs a quarter of a century ago. They’re going to be very surprised when they find out that Iraq’s new leaders have no intention of letting that happen. (And if the Kurds set up their own state in the north — the promise of which being the main reason they’re the US’ only real allies in the area — don’t expect Turkey to sit still for that.)
Was President Bush fully aware of the implication of his comparison of contemporary Iraq with the American experience under the Articles of Confederation (1777 to 1789)? Like the Articles of Confederation, the Iraqi constitution focuses on limiting national authority to expressly delegated powers. In many respects, however, the Iraqi central government is more constricted than the first American national government.
First, the Iraqi Constitution states that in the area of shared responsibilities (i.e. government actions not identified as expressly delegated to the national government) regional/provincial legislation takes precedence over the legislation of the central government.
Second, the Iraqi Constitution permits provinces on their own initiative, to combine with other provinces to form semi-autonomous regions. The Articles of Confederation specifically forbad the 13 American states from forming such agreements because regional groupings were a potential threat to national unityâ€â€as was demonstrated in 1861.
The Iraqi semi-autonomous regions are modeled on the existing Kurdish region, which is composed of three provinces and the expectation of adding a fourth before 2007. The regions are given control over their own internal security, over the management of new oil fields, and may be represented by regional diplomats in Iraqi embassies around the world.
The Constitution prohibits Baghdad, with its four million citizens, from joining a regional association. But what about the remaining 14 provinces? Will they remain free standing entities? Or, as has been suggested by leading Shiite politicians, will 6 or more provinces with Shiite majorities create a region including Basra and the surrounding oil fields? If Sunnis are to be enticed to participate in politics, they must have the assurance that the regionalization of Iraq won’t result in their isolation in the resource-limited western provinces. (It is equally difficult to visualize Baghdad, a major metropolis, without a supporting hinterland.) At the moment, no compromise on the issue of regionalism seems possible except to place a limit of 4 provinces per region.
But it might be argued that Thursday’s national elections offer a way forward and a possible framework for repairing Iraq’s fragmented society. Some commentators anticipate that a popularly elected government will be able to act decisively against the insurgents. But these parliamentary elections will give Iraq its third different prime minister in 12 monthsâ€â€as well as the third different Interior Minister and Minister of Defense, etc. It is inevitable that another period of confusing transition will follow.
In addition the system of proportional representation, which insures that any individual or party that garners a minimum of 50,000 or so votes from across all of Iraq will win a seat, will increase the challenge of creating a unified and stable government.
This fragmentation of the vote will be welcomed by those analysts who want to prevent the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA) – the coalition of Shiite religious parties –from gaining a majority. They anticipate that the internal fragmentation of the Shiite alliance will permit Iyad Allawi or even Ahmed Chalabi to become prime minister. However this is wishful thinking. The UIA will almost certainly be the largest party, even if it will have to seek coalition partners to gain the support of the majority of Parliament. The Iraqi president is bound by the new Constitution to select the leader of the largest party to form the new government. To block the UIA from being a part of a governing coalition would risk a serious Shiite backlash and political instability.
Finally we are told by other commentators that the success of this election will be measured by the number of Sunnis who turn out to vote. But the Sunnis constitute only 20 to 25% of the population. No matter how many Sunnis participate, Sunni parties can win only 50 to 60 of the 275 seats. (And even if there is a low turnout, proportional representation will give the Sunni parties at least 40 seats.)
The issue is not the number of Sunnis who vote, but whether the Kurds and Shiites are willing to compromise, amend the Constitution, and re-engage the Sunni population. The Kurds have shown no willingness to temper their claim to regional autonomy; they desire to be free from direct rule by all Arabs –Sunni or Shiite. Perhaps the Shiite leadership will see the wisdom of using their majority position to accommodate the Sunni. But so far the Shiites have been focused on resolving their own intra-communal differences, exercising a national political role that they see as rightfully theirsâ€â€and preventing the re-emergence, in any guise, of Baathist rule.
In the world of statistics there is a concept called “left out variables.” I think you’re leaving out all the variables that don’t point to American mendacity. That’s essentially what the left does. In this case, for instance, you’re leaving out all the internal variables that would produce a leader like Hussein, all aside from what the USA may or may not do or have done.
In general, a main variable the left leaves out in its historical critique is the context of the perceived need to contain the Soviets, which I suspect you consider trivial or a fraud.
The more general left-out variable is the simple impossibility of doing right all the time for a superpower, or even doing wisely in a strategic sense. There’s never been a major power that didn’t screw up, either in a moral sense or strategic sense.
Are you aware of Wolfowitz’s history as an advisor who bore some responsibility for convincing Reagan that America should step away from the strategy of supporting a guy like Ferdinand Marcos, and quit trying to stop revolutions that want to happen? (Obviously that was an imperfect change.)
Are you aware it’s very easy to see the French posture vis-a-vis Iraq as being exactly what you’re criticizing America for always doing?
Perhaps we should have done something when he was gassing the Kurds, as you say. We didn’t. That leaves us with the 2002/03 situation, with a man who had proven hmself more than capable of doing something like gassing the Kurds, after more than 10 years of defying multiple UN sanctions and after twice being revealed to have more WMD capability than we had suspected: before the first Gulf War, and in the mid-1990′s. So it was the only moral thing now to simply leave him be? It’s just 100% obvious and crystal clear?
Your dismissal of the WMD case against Saddam is disingenuous, as I suspect you really know.
You may not know that the lack of connections between Saddam and international terror is not as set in stone as has become accepted. Go to National Review online, do an author search for Andrew McCarthy, and go from there,if you care. One major context to keep in mind: everyone always says, Hussein would never give weapons to terrorists unles he felt threatened in his survivial. You know what? After 9-11, Hussein feeling threatened by us in an existential sense was a given. That was a bi-partisan consensus, which would onyl have strengthened if we hadn’t done this war. We were enemies, and 9-11 kicked that reality onto a higher plane in the eyes of leaders of both parties.
By the way, the support of Hussein and Islamic fighters against the Soviets in Afghanistan were policies that started in the Carter administration, incidentally. The point isn’t to criticize Carter. The point is even for a guy wearing morality on his sleeve, it was hard to behave, by your lights.
That previous too-long comment was in response to M. Ellis. Just to clarify.
The current Iraqi leadership is in no way like our Founding Fathers. Ahmed Chalabi and Iyad Allawi are proteges (if not puppets) of the US.
(Paul Schersten will want to read this): Our big blunder in Iraq was in failing to remember the lessons of our own revolution. Like Iraq, there were deep sectarian divisions within the US, some states being Catholic and others Protestant. The bonds pf trust that held together the original Confederacy long enough so that we could form a real nation were forged in war.
In Iraq, we are trying to hand people a modern democracy fully formed. That approach is never fated to succeed.
Ironically, Robert K. Brown, the Iraqi people did rise against Saddam after the first Gulf War. George H. W. Bush, having incited that rebellion, betrayed them. Many southern Iraqis and Kurds paid with their lives. That’s part of the history we bring to Iraq.
Paul Scherstein is incorrect in stating that the US did not create Saddam. He was installed in his first senior position by the CIA. See the following UPI story:
http://www.upi.com/inc/view.php?StoryID=20030410-070214-6557r
Scherstein is also unaware that (a) the US (and European nations) sold the chemical weapons precursors to Saddam so he could gas his own people and (b) that Steven Pelletiere, a CIA analyst, has stated that he believes that the deaths in Halabja were caused by the Iranians. Perhaps Scherstein should stop worrying so much about ideology and start reading publications other than National Review? There really is interesting reporting going on. We blog lots of it.
________________________
As for the future, Iraq has been massively destroyed. Seymour Hersh reported that *two million* bombs have been dropped on Iraq just by the Marine air wing! The likelihood of internal war (I don’t use the term “civil war” because that would imply that Iraqis are primarily fighting each other; rather, Sunnis are assassinating collaborators and US-created death squads are kidnapping, torturing, and murdering suspected Sunni-sympathizers) is rising.
But much more dangerous is regional conflict. Unfortunately, George Bush is itching to start other wars. That would almost certainly cause an uprising in the Arab/Muslim world, with allies like Turkey and Saudi Arabia falling to radicals.
Mr. Utwater II –
I’m not sure where you get the idea that all I read is National Review. In my experience, as I may have said, it’s far more common for those on the rabid anti-war side to be utterly unaware of the best arguments on the other side than vice-versa.
Your attitude about National Review, though, and implication that anyone who reads it is somehow a blind captive to “ideology” reveals one basic problem with American politics today: left-side fear of conservatism, disdain for conservatism, hatred of conservatism.
My own background, by the way, is apostate lefty. Door-knocker for Wellstone. I’m one of the angry-at-the-left lefties personified by blogs lke http://www.rogerlsimon.com, althouse.blogspot.com, http://neo-neocon.blogspot.com/ and others.
One thing they share: skepticism on the left’s instincts that the US is the only actor on the international stage that acts in its own interests; and that there are hardly any other actors whose moral failings need to be taken into account.
I think I’ve made clear that W probably got us into this without a real cealr idea how hard it was going to be or what was going to happen. My basic point is that our motives for doing so were not as clearly venal or insane or indefensible as the anti-war left insists; and that a process of figuring out what to do now would benefit enormously from at least allowing that as a possibility.
The anti-war left condemns and condemsn and condemns, in my experience, without ever seriously tryig to understand those who disagree with them. Doesn’t strike me as a very wise or dare I say pacifist approach to political discourse. Seems kind of preemptive to me.
Quick details:
I’m aware of the things you assume I’m unaware of. It’s nearly impossible not to be aware of the facts the anti-war left brandishes these days. Where we frequently differ is on interpretation of those facts.
For instance, the fact that we had a hand of soem sort in installing Hussein does not equate to the US “creating” what he became, nor does it mean we bear full responsibility for that. Although I would agree that it may mean we had some responsibility for attempting to ensure that the Hussein & Sons regime did not continue indefinitely.
Finally: It’s “Schersten.” The double misspelling motivates me to remind you.
Paul,
Yes there are many variables. We would need weeks of discussion and much writing to cover all of them and even then, it would be tough. I am well aware of France’s history in regards to supporting revolutions and getting their hands dirty. Nearly all European countries have dirty hands in this regard. I said in my first thread that we had to do something about Saddam Hussein–he was our problem in so many ways and we did inflict him on the Iraqi people. In your last thread you are suggesting that I believe we should have left him alone? No I never suggested that. But we did not have to go to a full scale war to remove him. And I know this from a recently retired special forces officer who is extremely upset about this war. There were other ways to go about this, without playing cowboy and kicking the U.N. We haven’t liberated Iraq. We have simply liberated Iraqi of one dictator and caused the deaths of countless civilian lives. I am not hoisting the blame just at the Republicans’ feet although they take the lions’s share. Our political system is steeped in corruption. Even a moral man like Carter got caught up in the immense power struggle that is Washington. But to get back to the question of whether Bush can compare himself to the founding fathers is nonsense. Charles Utwater II is exactly right in that regard. The situation is not the same at all.
Oh, the theory that Iranians were behind the deaths at Halabja : I’ve seen that mentioned elsewhere. Jude Wanniski was a proponent of it. I haven’t investigated it much, I have to say, though I also haven’t seen it picked up much by the usual places that would; I don;t think Juan Cole has followed the lead, for example, and it seems he might. The fact that one CIA analyst believes it may not quite constitute proof.
M. Ellis –
Thanks for the good response. I’ll reiterate here something I said above: My basic point is that our motives for starting this war were not as clearly venal or insane or indefensible as the anti-war left insists; and that a process of figuring out what to do now would benefit enormously from at least allowing that as a possibility.
In short, if would be beneficial if that portion of the country enraged at W would somehow separate that anger from an honest analysis of the situation we faced then, in 2002 and 2003, and face now.
You may be right that we should have gone about this another way; but I think you’d acknowledge that all of those other ways would also have inflicted turmoil and pain on the Iraqis, and also probably would have meant (realistically) a continuation of some kind of sanctions regime. Looked at coldly, in short, those other methods might well have meant more deaths for the Iraqis over the longer term that the method we chose. No guarantees on that; no guarantees on anything. It was a dilemma. A seeming refusal to face the fact of the dilemma is what removed much of the anti-war left from having an impact on the prewar debate, and what makes it hard to take their arguments seriously now.
Did Bush compare himself to the founding fathers, or the Iraqis?
I’m going to leave this board be for a while now, much to the relief of all.
It’s been such a relief to have this opportunity to break through what has been a near Iron Curtain at the editorial depatment when it comes to presenting the non-anti-war perspective; I’m like a half-grown St. Bernard, leapign and romping and thrilled to have a new friend.
Paul,
Before you leave–and I have to leave it as well for work calls–there is the culture of war that doesn’t get addressed enough. I had 5 uncles in WWII and a brother in Vietnam. In regards to the latter I have a fair amount of research and knowledge under my belt concerning the mistakes of that war. War is an absolutely last option to resolve any conflict. We essentially placed ourselves in the middle of a civil war in Vietnam that was none of our business but the threat of communism gaining a strong hold was what terrified many American politicians. The Vietnamese made it clear for years they didn’t want us there to liberate them. We are in that same situation in Iraqi. Les Campell has stated that we should let the new government get in and get settled and then negotiate the withdrawal timetable with them. That was the exact same thinking during Vietnam and what a mess that turned out to be.
If we truly wanted to be a moral nation, then we would work towards a practice of foreign policy that did not operate so covertly. But that would take a major, major ideological change in this country and I doubt it will happen in my lifetime.
We are dealing with a history that goes back beyond WWI and the Armenian genocide. If you boil this whole thing down, you can see, as many scholars have said, that it is a war over resources. Land, oil, and military bases–it is not about democracy. Although it would require a transition, it would behoove America to drop its reliance on oil and move onto solar energy and other renewable resources that we can create here at home–and indeed our technology on solar energy is very advance. It would pull the rug out from underneath the oil barons of the Middle East (and the oil barons in this country). Unfortuantely as my one brother said, we would then have wars over who owned the sun.
Wars conducted under suspicious and almost nefarious reasons are often a fog to keep people occupied so that they do not think about the crises at home (we have a major water crisis) or about the domestic freedoms being abolished. Charity begins at home. When you push yourself into someone else’s family fight, you risk getting an arm chopped off (metaphorically). You’ve lost your arm but the family fight still goes on. Again, we aren’t paying attention to the unrest, the poverty and all the other social ills we are facing here at home. We can spend money to bomb and then claim to rebuild Iraqi when we should be looking at our own foundations that are crumbling. It is so easy to argue war if it hasn’t touched you personally. When it comes to your door, the perspective becomes radically different.
Nice and thoughtful; I don’t really disagree with the substance of such deep left thoughts about the country, I just have lost my insistence that our failure so far to transfrom in the sense you indicate means we are indefensible or somehow uniquely evil. On specifics, there are responses I’ll leave to others.
I’ll take under advisement the implication of your last paragraph that I am a fool who does not see the nefarious plan being foisted on me to hide problems from me. You may be right. I talk a lot but I’m really not that bright, sadly.
Paul,
You are not a fool and I never meant to imply that. I would not wish my family’s experience of having loved ones fighting in a war on anyone–or the battle for benefits to aid those soldiers who return so terribly damaged. You have the right to your opinion and I respect that.
I do agree–we are not uniquely evil as a country. But to accept our wrongs and try to make them right would be a step in the right direction if we continue to claim superior morality. A friend of mine from Britain pointed out that we are still a young country in terms of our democracy and our government. We are in the process of democracy ourselves–we haven’t arrived at a definite conclusion on that ideology. Our founding fathers neglected to include women and people of color in their statement on equality, or rather practice it. And we have had to grow beyond that.
Mr. Schersten says, I’m not sure where you get the idea that all I read is National Review. ”
From your posts, Mr. Schersten. Heavy emphasis on ideology, a deficit of links, and a recommendation that readers should find out about alleged links between Saddam and al Qaida from Andrew McCarthy at National Review. The constant railing against “the left” gets tedious, as does labeling people you disagree with as “disingenuous” and implying they are dishonest. Many conservatives were against the war. Many more have come out against it since the occupation.
>>My own background, by the way, is apostate lefty. >One thing they ["apostate lefty"s] share: skepticism on the left’s instincts that the US is the only actor on the international stage that acts in its own interests; and that there are hardly any other actors whose moral failings need to be taken into account.>I’m aware of the things you assume I’m unaware of….For instance, the fact that we had a hand of soem sort in installing Hussein does not equate to the US “creatingâ€? what he became, nor does it mean we bear full responsibility for that. >Finally: It’s “Schersten.â€?
You may be right, it does get tedious. I apologize. It’s my Topic, unfortunately: how the natural-born dissenters in the country seem to have lost the ability to see flaws in their own beliefs.
And now, seriously, a la Bilbo, I must be going. Goodbye!
Goodbye, Paul.
As for me, I have had a brilliant post apparently completely bloggered by the Strib’s software.
I am not going to re-write it.
Briefly, what I wrote is that:
(1) I don’t care what anyone’s ideology is. I care whether their ideas and information are correct or not. I am troubled by the level of dishonesty and corruption at high levels in today’s Republican Party.
(2) I have never heard anyone on the left say that other nations are morally superior to the US. What they say is that we Americans are responsible for what the US does in a way we are not responsible for what foreigners do. I have heard a great deal of concern about American national interest on the left and very little on the right.
(3) I pointed out that the US’s role in placing Saddam in power and keeping him there was significant. I asked how much previous dishonesty by our government regarding Saddam we should accept before starting to question our government’s present actions.
Let’s hope this post doesn’t end up as butchered as the previous attempt.
It is “nice” to finally see President Bush admit fault for going to war in Iraq on “faulty intelligence”.
My issue isn’t that the information was faulty. Rather, I truly believe this faulty information was “manufactured” by the White House for the purpose of going to war. This troubles me because I want to know the true reasons for manufacturing the information and ultimately going to war.
Trying to anticipate the results/effects of the current election or a potential withdrawal mean nothing until we have full disclosure on the White House’ true intentions.
Does the White House believe we can control Iraq and its oil supply for the forseeable future? Is the White House growing weary of its relationship with Saudi Arabia since 911 and thus need an Iraqi presence? Did the White House invade Hussein’s Iraq because they couldn’t capture Bin Laden?
I have grown tired of the years of political spin played out by the current administration regarding Iraq. I don’t trust anything they say and I won’t believe them if they say our troops are coming home soon.
What faulty intelligence? Bush cherry picked intelligence and fabricated the reasons to go to war. The mention of yellow in his state of the union address contained statements that the CIA said on 3 occasions prior to the speech was not confirmable and should not be in the speech. Congress Dems and GOP members delegated their responsiblity under the constitution and let Bush and his NEOCONS take us to war like the Germans let Hitler take the Christian Germans to war.
Those of you that think the President didn’t lie simply have your heads buried in the sand. Apathy is the best way to lose your freedom and if you think your freedom is not in danger you deserve to lose it like Jose Padilla. Jose who is a US citizen was jailed for nearly 4 years without being charged or allowed to see a lawyer or his family.
The bumper sticker that says “Freedom isn’t free” is right. Free people must participate in their government or accept the lost of that freedom. You don’t have to spend trillions of dollars and kill thousands of people for freedom. Just take time to participate by chellenging the government to uphold the strict letter of the Constituion. Demand Congress fullfill thier obligations and not delegate it to a single person like the President via the Patriot Act.
Bush the President who brags about not reading books is not competent to compare our war of Independence to our invasion and occupation of a soverign nation. France did not occupy our country. France came to OUR war and provided assistence. When our war was over the French went back to France.
The election in Iraq is simply a point in their history and will not lead to a democracy that will spread to the rest of the region. Iraq will become just another Iran which from our perspective is worst than Saddam. Saddam kept the terrorist out of his country because he didn’t trust the terrorist or the religious fundementalist.
$500 Billion (half a trillion) sure would have bought alot of security for our country.
Bush is a simple war criminal who could be impeached and tried for that by Congress and/or a Nurmberg like court. Bush has violated at least 4 articles of our consitution and numerous international treaties that the US has signed and agreed too.
The one thing you can count on from Bush and Chenney is lies and spin on just about any topic that screws the average American. How many times have they spun something for months and we later find that it never happened or they never followed through on a promise.
My prediction for the next lie is the troop withdrawals from Iraq. If the election in Iraq goes well Bush will declare victory again and start to draw down the troops. Something terrible will happen to the troops left to occupy Iraq and we will be told we have to defend our brave soldiers and triple the number of troops. Since our military is streched so far we will have to start up the draft to provide enough sacrificial lambs. Bush has had nearly 5 years to earn our Trust and he will never convince me that he is trust worthy.
Amen to that. I wish I would see outrage in people. They got so worked up over Clinton’s sex scandal. This country is obsessed with sex–controlling it, the image of it, and all the implications of it. It was stupid of Clinton but hardly as bad as what the Bush administration has done. Harcuss is right. He has done criminals things and the people can’t seem to get worked up about it. In fact, Bush makes Nixon look almost glowing. But the Democrats in Congress and the Senate gave the President the power and for that they should get a good wack. The Sun Magazine has an excellent article by Jim Hightower (the issue before this recent one) in which he picks apart why Kerry failed and why the Republicans have so much power. It is horrifying to watch the U.S. go through this. We have a family friend who was imprisoned in Cezchoslovakia (sp?) in the 1950 and escape from prison. She has said that she is relivingin this country what her country went through. They didn’t pay any attention to what was going on and one day they woke up and their lives were taken over–all of their freedoms, everything. She said that happens when people don’t pay attention to what their government is doing and not acting on it. We don’t have a government, we have a major corporation utalizing all of its marketing abilities to create constant fear and apathy in people .
Thanks for the comments. I’ve added a new interview above, with Vin Weber and published a fresh post, on the subject of whether the U.S. really favors democracy in Iraq. I invite your comments on that thread.
I’m new to this medium, and I’m enjoying it, thanks to you all. Anybody have suggestions for making this blog better.
Years ago, Mahatma Gandhi felt that to use force to liberate and civilize nations and their citizens is an act of barbarism. At the end of such journey, it becomes difficult to separate who is civilized and who the civilizer is.One can see this emerging challenge as we listen, watch , hear and read the various fractions discuss this coming “Victory” .It is painful to talk about Victory when we have forgotten how to use the principles of non-violence to advance the cause of humankind.
Your discussions via this medium is a very good start on this dialogue. Thanks.
Tamara B –
Just noticed your response to me, if you’re still around.
On Chalabi: I stand semi-corrected; he was tried in absentia in Jordan and convicted, although even the American Prospect seems to give some hefty respect to the possibility that the the whole thing was a political episode.
On why Hussein’s trial doesn’t include the Kurdish chemical attack episode: interesting point. If there is some political reason for it in the way you imply, we’d probably disagree on the larger meaning of the embarrassment that may lie behind it.
We’ve all heard that the first Bush admin had some kind of hand in either looking the other way or even facilitating the attack in the sense of providing technology or weapons to Iraq. I don’t know enough about the case to know how true it is; I know enough about our history to consider it feasible. And of course the heavier the involvement the greater the potential embarrassment.
You would probaly see it as proof of our constant perfidy and therefore evidence that this latest adventure is simply more of the same. I would profer that what’s going on now just may represent our most dramatic step away from more of the same; and that France’s preferred solution to the 2002-03 dilemma is what actually represented more of that sort of same.
As I pointed our here or elsewhere, or maybe it was another blog altogether: our courting of Iraq to counter Iran was a policy that originated in the Carter administration. What that means would start a logn discussion. I think it says something about the inherent moral complexity and confusion of being the most powerful superpower in history acting in the real world. I guess you’d inject the idea that our being that sort of superpower is our basic Original Sin.
[...] Do you believe that was part of the administration’s reasoning from the beginning? Click here to read the comments and add your own [...]
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