Trajan Invades Mesopotamia and Also Finds No Weapons of Mass Destruction

Short Counterpunch article on the Roman emperor Trajan's invasion of Iraq-Iran in the second century, with an important reminder from 14th century Arab historian Ibn Khaldun not to judge by analogy and comparison. At least not when you would be wrong.

Religious-based terrorism became the order of the day, if we’re to believe the third century Greek historian Dio Cassius, who records (no doubt with some exaggeration) that Jewish rebels killed 220,000 in Cyrene and 240,000 on Cyprus. Rome, having invaded Mesopotamia, was unable to contain the fighting to that one front. The war exacerbated simmering anti-Roman resentments, fanned religious fanaticism and intolerance, and produced terror as far away as Northern Africa. But with great effort Trajan’s forces suppressed the several Jewish revolts, although some fighting continued about a year after the emperor’s death. (As a result of this episode, according to Dio, Jews were expelled from Cyprus entirely.)

Trajan had not gone in to the war intending to provoke rebellions or terrorism. His ostensible reason was to punish Parthia for political interference in the kingdom of Armenia, which Rome considered part of its sphere of influence. But Dio Cassius called this a “pretext” and declared that Trajan simply wanted “to win renown.” Julian Bennett in his recent biography of Trajan agrees with this assessment (Trajan, Optimus Princeps: A Life and Times, 1997)....

....I draw no analogies here. The current empire is mired in Iraq, drawn there by an emperor using a pretext to win renown, producing by his invasion widespread outrage conditioned by religious fanaticism. The empire’s troops face what the Romans faced in Mesopotamia---in Gibbon’s words, the legionnaires were “fainting with heat and thirst, could neither hope for victory if they preserved their ranks, nor break their ranks without exposing themselves to the most immanent danger. In this situation they were gradually encompassed by the encompassing numbers, harassed by the rapid evolutions, and destroyed by the arrows of the barbarian cavalry.

Is if fair for Prof. Leupp to call us an empire? Certainly, we are a dominating economic empire, with a laudable liberal political culture. The United States, the orginator of the modern democratic revolution, is breaking up the Post-War consensus on liberal democracy, pushing for more and more limits on democratic control of economies. That we can still change direction is to our credit - but the opportunity will not last forever. I suppose empires are as empires do; of, course, as the article concludes, George W. Bush is no Trajan; as I feared, he is avoiding doing anything necessary, say, oh I don't know, taking Rumsfeld's head and sticking on a pike, to either win the war with competent leadership or withdraw and save American lives; BOTH eroding our military power AND our ability to inspire democratic change.

I said at the start of this disaster that you can't win the even the right war for the wrong reasons - bad reasons drive bad decisions, which produce bad results. From it's actions, it's pretty clear that a genuine belief in democracy - and the broad international cooperation absolutetly necessary to acheive peace and democracy anywhere at all - is not of any interest to them. Their failure was built into their decision-making long before a shot was fired.