Since the beginning of the Iraq war you have been receiving the advice from an assortment of generals. You have made repeated visits to the Pentagon, as well as secret sojourns to Iraq for advice from the General Staff. I am sure when you were flown out to the deck of the Aircraft Carrier Abraham Lincoln some years back you were told by the Joint Chiefs of Staff that our “mission” in Iraq “was accomplished”.
Mr. President, are you at all aware of the fact that an incredible number of people who are well informed and very knowledgeable about the Middle East have suggested that our problem in Iraq is not military but political? That as long as the various tribal and religious groups cannot come to some agreement as to what their country should look like, we can win military victories till the cows come home and it won’t make a hill of beans difference to the ongoing war between these groups?
Now Mr. President, with all due respect, you have been traveling in the wrong direction to get yourself some help with the Iraq problem. I suggest you visit some folks on Massachusetts Avenue in Washington DC who have had it right about the situation in Iraq from the beginning. Very early on in the war Jessica Matthews, the President of the Carnegie Endowment for Peace, was being interviewed on television about the Iraq war. She firmly suggested back then that the war was a very bad idea. She explained that the long standing hatred and bitterness between the religious and nationalist factions, some of which go back for centuries, will not be resolved by any military intervention. When asked what we should do, she said to get out because our presence will just make things worse. When you think about it, it becomes crystal clear that this lady knew what she was talking about. She understood the social and political complexity of the situation. Wouldn’t she be an interesting advisor in our present dilemma?
Now Mr. President, there’s somebody who had it right from the gitgo. Would it not be prudent and wise to listen to people who have a deep understanding of the political, religious and tribal conflicts, instead of Generals who know about making traditional war but don’t appear to know beans about the long history of tribal animosities? The Carnegie Endowment has a large staff of knowledgeable people who just might be able to help us figure out how to get out of there by doing the least amount of harm. Besides all that, a trip over to Massachusetts Avenue would save the taxpayers a lot of money compared to whisking you over to Iraq in the middle of the night with all that Secret Service paraphernalia that has to accompany you. Please do think about it, Mr. President. It just might save the lives of a few more of our dear young men.
As always “thanks Kate”. NHWY. Love, Roberto
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Hi, guys. I got ticked off at the most recent round of Iraq doings in DC (the Patreus report--by the way, I've heard him in person and he is VERY good). So, as I do when I'm troubled about something I write about it to kind of organize my thoughts. I sent this to The NYT a couple of weeks ago and got a rare response from the Op Ed page editor who said they couldn't use it but keep trying. Now, maybe I'll go elsewhere with this, depending on what readers here say... Baze
IRAQ, AGAIN. BUT WAIT! THERE’S MORE. AND IT'S WORSE!
By Basil J. Whiting
With the President’s speech, and the likely Congressional deadlock in response, we have completed the most recent public examination of the situation in Iraq. There are, however, some things we’ve stopped talking about but should bear in mind, as well as important additional considerations that deserve to be debated.
How we got into Iraq
We got into Iraq under pretenses that were false—Iraq’s alleged possession of Weap-ons of Mass Destruction. The Bush Administration cooked – or deceived itself on – the intelligence about WMDs; and it deceived, or certainly misled, the country and the world on the danger posed by Saddam. There were no WMDs.
When this became clear, the rationale for the war then shifted to making Iraq a democ-racy that would be a positive role model to the Middle East, a worthy goal embraced by The Times’ Thomas Friedman and others.
Throughout these early stages, we now know that the Bush Administration, blinded by ideology and arrogance, ignored or rejected the advice of experts on WMD or the Mid-dle East. Instead, the Administration blindly proceeded, predicting we’d be welcomed with flowers as liberators and would quickly help Iraqi leaders write a Western style Constitution and hold elections, allowing us to then go home. In hindsight that should have been foresight, there was little chance of this happening quickly
How we mismanaged the war
At the war’s outset, the Bush Administration peremptorily rejected the wise estimate of the then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff that 330,000 troops would be needed to hold and bring order to Iraq. Events have shown that the Administration’s plan to ad-minister the occupation was inadequate, misconceived, and demonstrably ignorant of the history and sociopolitical realities of Iraq.
The Administration then compounded its errors by de-Baathifying the Iraqi government, depriving it of its leaders and its ability to function effectively. Further, it dismantled the Iraqi army, putting thousands of unemployed, armed, angry men on the streets instead of using them to control the streets. The result: rioting and looting. In this disorder, power quickly gravitated to the Mosques, the only other major power centers. Increas-ingly violent revenge crimes, ethnic cleansing, and a de facto, sectarian civil war inevi-tably followed, while the impotent elected government stalemated.
Such a litany of lethal errors, ignorance, naiveté, and hubris by this Administration has seldom been experienced by the American people and will surely earn it a black mark in history.
But, as we said at the outset, there’s more, and it’s worse.
What we really blundered into
What we ignorantly and arrogantly blundered into, and compounded by our errors, is the challenge of building the institutions of a civil society, of the rule of law, and of self-government in a nation that has never had much of this. Further, we must do this while suppressing a deadly insurrection, quelling a civil war with ancient ethnic and religious roots, and defeating the Jihadists of Al Qaeda and others who have flooded into the country. And, finally, do so after destroying much of the infrastructure of the country and having lost much of the middle class, who have been killed or fled.
As this became clear, scholars, journalists, and others have reminded us that history in the last century shows that defeating insurrections with popular roots takes a decade or more and a lot more troops than we can supply. Moreover, the history of colonialism and of some formerly Communist societies indicates that the construction of a vibrant civil society can take decades.
What the Bush Administration thus blundered into is nation building, which right-wing ideologues have long scorned. The ironies here would be exquisite were the conse-quences not so damaging. Getting out of this mess soon is to truncate what is an in-herently longer process than our national patience can tolerate.
I suspect we’d all be better off if we acknowledge explicitly that the Administration igno-rantly opened a Pandora’s box. Our choices now are to accept the responsibility of car-rying on to a much longer-term and still uncertain outcome than anyone has much ad-mitted or discussed—or, to find a way of leaving somewhat sooner that mitigates the likelihood of further internal violence and regional instability. A third choice of bringing the soldiers home quickly would meet the desires of many Americans, but is most likely to result in internal horrors and regional conflicts that could escalate (whether it would “force the Iraqi politicians to make the compromises they must” is a big “if”). There are no best answers to this.
More, still
How the world, and probably history, too, now sees America is deeply disquieting. The world’s lone reigning superpower blunders ignorantly and arrogantly into a quagmire whose nature it does not understand, that it does not have the military resources or the political will to resolve over the long run, and that it does not know how to extricate itself from in the short run without likely horrendous consequences. And, along the way, it takes actions that deeply compromise its stated values and Constitutional protections. Much of the world thus concludes that the U.S. cannot be trusted to lead and act wisely, to adhere to the values it professes, to seek to work cooperatively and respectfully with other nations, or, importantly, to have the stomach for staying the course on things it ini-tiates. All this has forfeited the good will and support that the world accorded us in the wake of 9/11.
Perhaps most disquieting and hardly discussed by anyone is that the world is an in-creasingly dangerous place where advanced capitalist democracies as represented by NATO or OECD need desperately to figure out how to deal with the challenges posed by failed and otherwise dangerous states. These are states with little or no central gov-ernment, states fragmenting under ethnic tensions, states run by vicious dictators, mili-tary elites, conflicting warlords, selfish and corrupt economic oligarchies, or theocratic holy men (Afghanistan, Somalia, Sudan, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Yugoslavia, much of the Arab world, much of sub-Saharan Africa, some spin-offs of the old Soviet Union, etc.)
Time was when the “advanced world” of stable, capitalist democracies could leave such failed and troubled societies to fester on their own, deploring their humanitarian mis-deeds but doing little else about them. But no more. Failed societies can breed and export dangerous fanaticisms whose adherents attack advanced nations. Or they reach for nuclear weapons, increasing the danger of terrorists obtaining such weaponry. More benignly, many such societies have natural resources the world needs; so orderly eco-nomic relations must be sustained.
The U.S. and its friends strive to keep a lid on all this and to confront and resolve spe-cific challenges as they emerge (Yugoslavia is a promising example of our doing this in the last decade or so). We encourage steps toward democracy where such prospects are propitious (but also sometimes when they’re not). We can deploy or mobilize di-plomacy and sanctions with a North Korea or Iran. But we must also recognize that there will also be instances when a state is so failed (Somalia? Sudan/Dafur?) that it should be “taken over” by the world community or a consortium of advanced nations. Or, when a regime is so evil and dangerous to his own people and others that the long-term burdens of “taking it out” are justified. (9/11 showed that Afghanistan was at that point. Whether Saddam was is doubtful; he was being contained.)
We all need to recognize that most nations fitting these examples lack the traditions and institutions of law, civil society, and self-government. Quick elections are no panacea and won’t work in many such cases (and, indeed, often haven’t). What such instances inevitably require is nation building over the long run of a decade or more. This can be encouraged by diplomacy, foreign aid, international exchanges, and the like. But more direct tutelage may sometimes be needed. It is an anathema to many, I know, but we may need, in some cases, a revival and updating of the notion of the “Protectorates” and “Mandates” of the last century. A consortium of advanced nations (NATO?) or the United Nations should at least start considering what this might mean in the 21st cen-tury. If they won’t touch it, as is likely, scholars and journalists should start the process.
The U.S. will likely continue to be a superpower for a long, long time. And the chal-lenges of failed/dangerous states will demand that the American people accept, indeed often lead, efforts at nation building of a prolonged nature. The Iraq example does not get us off on the right foot; people don’t like committing to long-term challenges they were misled into by leaders ignorant of what they were really doing. But if the threats of radicalism or nuclear proliferation are to be contained, then the world community, or a consortium of its most advanced members, must accept the need for nation building over prolonged periods of time and convince their populations to support such efforts. This will require democratic leaders to engage in open and transparent arguments that this is in the best interest of everyone. It won’t be easy, but the alternative of no such action with failed or dangerous states is increasingly intolerable.
The greatest casualty of our Iraq misadventure may be its impediments to our under-standing and embracing this role.
The author was a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Labor in the Carter Administration and presently is a consultant to foundations, nonprofits, and business on workforce, com-munity, and economic development.
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