Spoiling a Nice Conversation
Post-Thanksgiving we were having our usual leftish comfort chat about our incompetent administration, when talk turned to Iraq. And I heard myself say something like:
"We attacked their country, removed their leader, disbanded their army and dismantled their civil institutions. Don't you think it's immoral to leave before we've repaired the damage we caused? Don't we have some responsibility here? You can't wreck a country and then walk away just because the consequences are inconvenient for you. I'm sorry we're taking casualties, but we're the ones who decided to have a war.
"And by the way, it would be kind of dumb, given our nation's dependence on foreign oil, to remove our armed forces from the most strategically important region of the world, especially when Iran appears intent on developing nuclear weapons?"
Is it cold in here or is just me?
posted by Anonymous at 7:48 AM
5 Comments:
Who's up for a turkey sammich?
The Viceroy's very amusing aside aside, I've been thinking about this; the thoroughly depressing conclusion I'm coming to is that the United States is simply not competent to continue to conduct this war and also build peace in Iraq- the conclusion that I think Democratic hawks like Muthra and Norm Dicks have recently come to.
Your points are well taken. And any other recent administration back to Ford might have pulled it off, primarily by NOT destroying the international relations ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY to conduct this war that can lead toward stability rather than away from it.
But this administration has broken national and international trust, at every level, demonstrated spectacular incompetence, at every level, has weakened the Armed Services unforgivably, and has injected corruption into every level of decision making.
That't aside from their lying manipulations and school-boy imperialism that got us into it in the first place.
They are not suddenly going to sprout sense organs. So the question comes down to another bit of war's sickening calculus: can THIS PARTICULAR U.S. war-making body make decisions that trade more lives of US soliders and civilians in such a way that Iraq will become a stable parlimentary government? And urgently, is our presence - not our ideal presence, this presense - a help or a hindrence to stability?
Barring a major political shake-up, I think not.
Very close - I would only add that further sacrifice is also actually not worth it because our staggering incompetence would waste these lives.
I suggested this before: if Bush and Cheney resign or were to be removed, if we asked forgiveness from the world community, if we took concrete actions to root out the wholesale corruption that's blossomed since they took over, and were able to demonstrate honest resolve, we might be able to win this war. Otherwise, we will lose this war, and it will be a question of how and when and how many people will be killed.
Okay, X., if you believe we need to stay in Iraq, then you have to answer two questions: 1) under what circumstances should we leave Iraq, and 2) how long do we wait for these circumstances to come about? How many lives have to be lost?
But, as for the argument that there is a strategic advantage to having our troops there: I just don't see it. What? are we going to invade Iran because they'll get nukes? Brilliant.
Consider me bitterly fooled. I supported the war; I believed that Hussein, a brutal tyrant who supported terrorism needed ousting, had WMDs, and was going to use them. I believed the Iraqis would welcome us as liberators, and they did, for about three hours. I believed the United Nations was asleep at the switch and was allowing a bad situation to become perilously worse. I trusted Tony Blair although I didn't trust Bush.
The thing is, we won the war, ousted the tyrant and removed his teeth. Iraq is wobbling toward a system of representative government and the trial of Hussein, if the lawyers stop getting slaughtered, will be a boost to Iraq's civil institutions and national unity--mostly. We aren’t fighting a war against an army now, we’re acting as super cops. It is absolutely time for a phased withdrawal.
I hope that if we announce we're leaving before we are asked to go, the insurgents will lose steam. Large parts of Iraq are relatively calm now. The horrible risk is that Iraq will fail. Fail to increase internal stability, fail to develop an inclusive political apparatus, or succeed only in growing another despot.
However, they cannot succeed if our troops are still there. Our presence nurtures the insurgency even as we try to defeat it. Democracy is a messy business that cannot be given or imposed. It has to be grown. It took MacArthur five years in peaceful Japan to hand the keys over. It is clear that Iraq is not post-war Japan and Jay Garner and Paul Bremer were decidedly not MacArthur.
We cannot stay until the last insurgent dies. We have removed Hussein, given Iraqis the vote, removed sanctions, provided enormous amounts of money, and trained soldiers and police, sort of.
The sad fact is the US will not eat crow, ask for help, or even get rid of Donald Dumbsfeld, although we should do all three. When we leave, either things will get better in Iraq, and we can all celebrate, or they will get worse and maybe then we can do what we should have done from the beginning: build real international support and call in the United Nations and the Arab League.
Perhaps our national and international trust was broken when we entered into a "pre-emptive" war. The Sea Lord is right, however, that we could have pulled that off but failed to do so. We will get a second chance only if we give Iraq its first chance.
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