Two days ago, Charles Ferguson, director of the Iraq-doc "No End In Sight," was on public radio in New York discussing his work on a book that will extend his film’s findings. His conclusion, he told host Brian Lehrer, was that the decisions the U.S. made in the months following the invasion in the spring of ’03 were the most calamitous decisions in 50 years of American foreign policymaking.
The decisions made after the invasion. Ferguson seems determined to prove that if the Coalition Provisional Authority had not deBaathified the civil service, dismissed the Iraqi army, and so forth, everything would have been hunky-dory in Baghdad. Two of his latest assertions are that martial law should have been declared during the period of looting after Baghdad fell, and that Bernie Kerik, who was brought in to police Iraq, didn’t know Arabic and had been given a task way "above his pay grade." There were others who could have done the job, Ferguson said, without naming names.
I wonder who. The problem with this Monday-morning quarterbacking is that it originates from people who are a, trying to justify their support for this terrible war, or b, trying to rescue the principle of armed intervention to end dictatorships in foreign lands. Even assuming Ferguson falls into the second and more innocent category, his argument is flimsy. Of course the management of Occupied Iraq was mishandled, but who truly is capable of managing such matters competently? No one. Just ask the Israelis. Where is the compendium of know-how about how to administer a crippled state not your own in the postcolonial era? The U.N.; it is the only place that can halfway pull off such tricks; and it refused to sign off on the Iraqi debacle, with good reason. Ferguson was sneering in his comments about Bernie Kerik. But Kerik is an experienced American police chief. Can you think of an Arab police chief who would have done the job?
The chaos in Iraq was inevitable. In his book Dying To Win, Robert Pape has shown that occupations in which occupier and occupied have religious differences result in suicide bombing. Then there are the local politics. No matter what Ferguson says about martial law or de-Baathification, the U.S. was removing a minority sect, Sunnis, from power and thereby creating an instant sectarian struggle for power. If the CPA had kept the Iraqi army intact, or sent in the Rockettes, the same insurgency would
have eventuated, and neolibs would now be talking about how that
was the worst decision ever made.
There is no good way to do this. That is the lesson of Iraq. The United States cannot and should not invade sovereign dictatorships to impose democracy.
Exactly so, Philip. Once the decision had been made by The Decider in Chief to invade Iraq, everything else that (predictably) happened was secondary.
Thom Friedman in March 2003 was the first neo-conman to use a secondary effect (like disbanding the Iraqi army) as excuse for the whole failed project. I wrote the following comment on the NYTimes TF forum:
"Mr. Friedman's columns are so refreshing to read now, especially since he's seen the light on how badly wrong the whole zionist enterprise against Iraq could go. To his credit he is being honest in reporting his concerns. However, his truthfulness is a pleasure to read for those of us who have chaffed at his canards, shiboleths, and early-on warmongering. He is someone who has gotten what they wished for (a war), but who now criticizes the Bush team as the obvious disaster it has always been since day one.
In effect, TF is providing himself and the "give war a chance" faction a way to cover their rears when the unpleasant realities of war and the world's reaction to it come home to roost."
First: Of course invading Iraq was a criminal mistake. Those who thought it up and perpetrated should all be tried in The Hague.
Second: Having said that, it could have been done better. It would have still have been criminal, but there are criminals and criminals… like the difference between Ocean's Eleven and a filling station holdup.
How could it have been done better?
Concentrate troops in Baghdad where the cameras are, shoot the looters in traditional martial law fashion. Curfew one hour before sunset, shoot anyone on the street during curfew. This is how it has been done for centuries.
Distribute food and cash among the population of Baghdad. Chocolate, silk stockings and cigarettes have been making friends for GIs since time immemorial.
Don't disband anything. Pay all the salaries at once. Promote juniors willing to fink on seniors. Captains become colonels, colonels become generals… encourage the old generals to flee to Uganda or such like. If they don't, leave them to the mercy of the ex-colonels.
All this is ABCs. Why wasn't it done?
Because what you see is what you get. The total destruction of Iraq, not just its regime, was the object of the exercise.
My private theory is that the real Isreali-neocon strategy was to destroy Iraq as a unified nation and then go on to destroy Iran as a unified nation, thereby leaving the Middle East without any centers of power that could ever threaten Israel. It worked in Iraq, but Iran has proved too tough to chew.
DSeaton: Oded Yinon, who in 1982 wrote the "Zionist Plan for the Middle East", confirms your theory of nation-fracture. His paper is a fascinating look into Israel's private thoughts.
Buchanan on McLaughlin group:
"The Israelis are withdrawing from Gaza because they could not occupy that small strip of land. What makes us think that we can occupy a Gaza that is 100 times bigger?"
http://americangoy.myblogsite.com/
PS
I hate typepad
Excellent blog entry, Phil. However, even Pat Buchanan (saw his appearance on C-SPAN's 'Washington Journal' yesterday with neocon advocate host Peter Slen) has fallen for the 'democracy' line asserted by the JINSA/PNAC/AEI as a mask to cover their war for Israel agenda that Kevin MacDonald discusses in his 'Thinking about Neoconservatism' article which is linked near the top of the following URL:
Be sure to also read Kevin MacDonald's 'Thinking about Neoconservatism' article and his 'Neoconservatism as a Jewish Movement' monograph which are both linked at the top of the following URL:
http://www.itszone.co.uk/zone0/viewtopic.php?t=32606
http://NEOCONZIONISTTHREAT.BLOGSPOT.COM
Excellent post about Israeli Oded Yinon's 'divide and conquer' plan for the Middle East as the guy at the following URL (click on the picture there to access the video) mentioned such to Congresswoman Diane Watson and General Eton who was one of the generals who revolted against Rumsfeld:
http://neoconzionistthreat.blogspot.com/2007/10/citizen-asks-rep-jane-harman-about.html
Dr. Stephen Sniegoski had written about Yinon's plan in his 'Israeli Origins of Bush II's War' which is linked at the following URL:
http://www.itszone.co.uk/zone0/viewtopic.php?t=33763
Dr. Sniegoski is coming out with his book (which can currently be pre-ordered at amazon.com) titled the 'The Transparent Cabal' which will address the JINSA/PNAC/AEI push to war in Iraq for Israel via JINSA/PNAC/AEI associated Dick Cheney whose wife is still a fellow up at AEI.
Keep in mind that the JINSA/PNAC Neocons (Richard Perle, Douglas Feith and David Wurmser) were never interested in 'democracy' for Iraq and wanted Chalabi as their pro-Israel dictator to replace Saddam in accordance with their 'A Clean Break'/war for Israel agenda that James Bamford describes on pages 261-269/321 of his 'A Pretext for War' book. Chalabi had promised the 'JINSA crowd' friendly relations with Israel within six months of being 'installed' and had promised to restore the oil pipeline from Iraq to Israel as well (see www.nogw.com/warforisrael.html). The US only pushed the 'democracy' line for Iraq when Sistani insisted on such…
Can read pages about the 'A Clean Break'/war for Israel agenda on pages 261-269/321 from James Bamford's 'A Pretext for War' book at the following URL (the paperback version of 'A Pretext for War' includes an additional section about the ongoing AIPAC espionage case which the pro-Israel biased US media is hardly covering either):
http://www.itszone.co.uk/zone0/viewtopic.php?t=28769
Former CIA Bin Laden unit head said it best:
Israel Not Worth an American Life or an American Dollar:
http://www.itszone.co.uk/zone0/viewtopic.php?t=82740
Is Bush Stopped in His Tracks on Iran?
link to itszone.co.uk
Robert Pape is excellent in that 'Dying to Win' book which Phil mentioned in the blog entry above. Pape conveys that the majority of suicide bombers are motivated by the occupation of their land and not because of a radical ideology as the same guy in the exchange with 9/11 Commission co-chair Lee Hamilton mentioned via the following URL:
Video that gets to the Israel question:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1bm2GPoFfg
Additional at the following URL:
http://www.itszone.co.uk/zone0/viewtopic.php?t=39590
More on Mearsheimer/Walt:
http://www.itszone.co.uk/zone0/viewtopic.php?t=49800
Hear, hear. Phil, this is why so many young, anti-war activists cannot even stomach the Democratic party these days.
"If only the incompetent Bush administration hadn't blah blah blah…"
They have no vision, no principles, well, except for pre-emptive war, for profit. Clinton, Pelosi, Waxman, Schumer, all these 21st century U.S. "liberals" who are too timid (read: bought off) to come out and say the obvious: Causing genocide is immoral, those who cause genocide are not incompetent, they are war criminals.
Add: I also believe that chaos and a fractured state were the goals in Iraq from the git-go. Hearing all the hollow lip service to democracy and freedom have frequently made me want to slice off my ears.
Off-topic, but I thought I should share:
"Is Zionism racism?"
http://lefti.blogspot.com/2007_12_01_archive.html#1098183332424674463
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/19/AR2007121902681_pf.html
(Richard Witty, proceed with extreme caution and your Rationalizer-3000 plugged-in and turned on full blast.)
(Phil, this is why the "two state solution" is just a front for more ethnic cleansing. I cannot believe you don't see this.)
On the subject of the media branch of the lobby:
The buyout of the Tribune Co. is finally complete. Sam Zell, the new owner, has no background in media or journalism, but will be selling off the Chicago Cubs baseball team and Wrigley Field stadium in order to concentrate on the LA Times and Chicago Tribune.
link to bloomberg.com
Zell is described by his rabbi as a "committed Zionist" and a "generous supporter of Israel" (although apparently his synagogue only sees him on holidays).
link to forward.com
The Jewish Journal of LA is pleased:
"However it turns out, we'll probably have a Jew in charge of the Times, which was once one of old Los Angeles' most famous WASP institutions. What a great day for old L.A. Jews with long memories of country clubs and downtown clubs that banned them; restrictive covenants that kept them out of certain fancy neighborhoods; anti-Semitic fraternities and sororities at USC and UCLA and law firms that never seemed able to find a place for a smart Jewish attorney. They also may have memories of the old Times, which, while not anti-Semitic, was a perfect reflection of the conservative Republican WASP culture of Los Angeles' upper classes."
link to jewishjournal.com
from today's LATimes:
"Investor [Nelson Peltz] may stir up Cheesecake, Billionaire wins antitrust approval to buy a major stake in Cheesecake Factory. He controls the corporate parent of Arby's and is a major investor in Wendy's chain.
Move over, Saban Chair of Jewish Propaganda. Another Power Ranger is on the scene.
Scott Ritter is mad as hell. He has always been a critic of our gallant little ally, but something has changed so that critics seem to feel they can speak more frankly–
"The insidious manner in which the current Israeli government has manipulated the domestic political machinery of the United States to produce support for its policies constitutes nothing less than direct interference in the governance of a sovereign state."
…
"The Israeli point of view is increasingly constructed on a foundation of intolerance and irresponsible unilateralism that divorces the country from global norms."
…
"Israel, sadly, has become like a cornered beast, lashing out at any and all it perceives to threaten its security interests. The current Israeli definition of what constitutes its security interests is so broad as to preclude any difference of opinion."
…
"Israel's shameless invocations of the Holocaust to defend its actions not only shames the memory of those murdered over 60 years ago, but ironically dilutes the impact of that memory by linking it with current policies that are cruel and intolerant."
…
"Israel at present can have no friends, because Israel does not know how to be a friend. Driven by xenophobic paranoia and historical grievances, Israel is embarked on a path that can only lead to death and destruction. This is a path the United States should not tread."
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/ritter.php?articleid=12064
Remember when they said we have the cell phone numbers of all the generals? We used the numbers and promised to keep them in power and pay the troops. In our name, they did not pay!
The Neocon's lies cost the lives of our troops.
If we had kept the army as an institution, or just pay them at home,
Iraq would not be the hell it is today for our soldiers and their Citizens.
Life has not changes for the Neocons.
They say, onward to Iran and complete the plan.
What do you think America is, a Democracy?
Two articles that you must read to better understand what is happening right now.
Confucious would be envious
http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pnoonan/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/russia/article/0,,2230924,00.html
I'm not sure if Confucious (sic) would be envious, but Edward Bernays sure would. Talk about phony news stories.
BTW, isn't it about time we had another celebrity sex scandal to keep us occupied?
Mr. Huckabee is clever. He puts forth his policies, such as they are, based on a faith-based understanding of public policy, and if you disagree with his policies, or take a hard shot at them, or at him, he suggests the reason is that you look down on evangelicals. This creates a new fissure in a party already riven by fissures. He has been accused by some in the conservative press of tearing the party apart, but it was being torn apart before he got on the scene. His rise is not a cause of collapse but an expression of it.
We are witnessing a new stage of the culture wars. Some of the problems with Israel stem from this culture war. Interesting to follow the discourse between believers and non-believers across traditions.
Discussion of Putin's wealth has previously been taboo. But the claims have leaked out against the backdrop of a fight inside the Kremlin between a group led by Igor Sechin, Putin's influential deputy chief of staff, and a "liberal" clan that includes Medvedev.
The Sechin group is made up of siloviki – Kremlin officials with security/military backgrounds. It is said to include Nikolai Patrushev, the head of the Federal Security Service (FSB), Russia's KGB successor agency, his deputy Alexander Bortnikov, and Putin's aide Viktor Ivanov.
Those associated with the liberal camp include Roman Abramovich, the Russian oligarch and owner of Chelsea football club who is close to Putin and the Yeltsin family. Other members are Viktor Cherkesov, the head of the federal drug control service, and Alisher Usmanov, an Uzbek-born billionaire.
Insiders say the struggle has little to do with ideology. They characterise it as a war between business competitors. Putin's decision to endorse as president Medvedev – who has no links with the secret services – dealt a severe blow to the hardline Sechin clan, they add.
Some analysts have said Putin would like to retire but has been forced to carry on to shield Medvedev from siloviki plotting. Others disagree and say Putin wants to stay in power. On Monday Putin confirmed he intends next year to become Russia's prime minister.
Five years ago, Congress and President Bush made the most consequential and, as now seems more likely than not, unfortunate decision of this country's still young century. On October 16, 2002, Bush signed a resolution authorizing the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Should war supporters apologize?
Democrats certainly think so. In the five years since then, many of them have said "I told you so" — many more, in fact, than told us so. In a recent paper, Gary C. Jacobson, a political scientist at the University of California (San Diego), unearthed figures suggesting that some Democrats have edited their memories. Before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, 46 percent of them favored the war, according to an average of a dozen surveys. In 2006, only 21 percent of them said they had favored the war. Hmm. Do the math.
Those 25 percent of Democrats who were for the war until they had always been against it were probably not dissembling. They were just being human. "Memory is a self-justifying historian," says Carol Tavris, a social psychologist and a co-author (with Elliot Aronson) of the recent book Mistakes Were Made (but not by me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts. "Our memories are a better indication of what we believe and how we see ourselves today than of what actually happened."
I believe her, because I was not above a little memory repair myself. Recently, after a book review of mine appeared in The Washington Post, an angry reader wrote, "It will come as no surprise that Rauch was an advocate of invading Iraq." Who, me? I recalled myself as an agonized fence-sitter, more anti-anti-war than pro-war (an important distinction, you understand), maybe marginally in favor but more worried than convinced.
Just double-checking, I reread my columns from the period and promptly found one, from February 2004, in which I described myself as an, er, "advocate of the war." Gee. Imagine that.
So let me say for the record: I was wrong. Like most Americans, I have long since come to believe that the Iraq war was a strategic mistake — with luck. (Without luck, it will be a strategic calamity.) But let me also say what I was wrong about.
In that February 2004 article, I called the war a "justified mistake." When a cop shoots a robber who has murdered in the past and who brandishes what looks like a gun, we blame the robber, not the cop — even if it turns out that the robber was brandishing a toy or a cellphone. The robber was asking for it, and so was Saddam Hussein.
That answer, although still reasonable, no longer seems as convincing. Since 2004, it has become clearer that the Bush administration's prewar hype portrayed the intelligence on Saddam's alleged weapons of mass destruction as solider and starker than it really was. Not enough people, including people in the media, asked enough hard questions. I should have been more skeptical of the WMD hard sell. That was mistake No. 1.
Mistake No. 2 was forgetting the difference between experts and poseurs. Over the past few years, it has become clearer that the hazards of the U.S. occupation of Iraq were not unforeseeable. In fact, quite a few people foresaw them. And warned about them. And went unheeded. Partly that was because the Bush administration wasn't interested, but partly it was because a lot of us in the media gave a lot of ink and airtime to pontificators who had never been to Iraq, who had never fought in a war or served in an embassy or worked on a reconstruction team, and who did not know Iraq's language, culture, people, leaders, history, or region. Other than that, they were experts.
In 2002 and 2003, of course, there was no way of knowing which of countless forecasts and opinions would prove correct. The experts were divided; sometimes fresh-eyed amateurs see what jaded experts miss; the previous U.S. Iraq policy was no big success. All true. Still, the fact that so many of the war's sturdiest proponents were journalists and pundits — in other words, hacks, like me — should have rung more alarm bells. That was mistake No. 2.
Those, however, were small mistakes compared with the fundamental one. It was not, really, a mistake about the war at all. It was a mistake about the president.
Fool me twice, shame on me. In 1990, I was fooled once. In the prelude to the Persian Gulf War, I misjudged President George H.W. Bush. In those days, America's most resounding recent military triumphs had been against the Lilliputian forces of Panama and Grenada, against which weighed the 1975 defeat in Vietnam, the 1980 fiasco of Desert One (President Carter's failed hostage-rescue attempt in Iran), and the 1983 humiliation in Lebanon (where U.S. forces turned tail after losing more than 200 marines to a Hezbollah truck bomb). Saddam Hussein's forces looked formidable and well entrenched in 1990. The sandstorms looked forbidding. And President George H.W. Bush looked hapless. I opposed the war.
The U.S. military proved virtuosic, the Iraqi military proved worthless, the desert proved tractable, and, much the most important, the elder Bush proved dazzling. He marshaled an unprecedented coalition. He won decisively in hours. He quit while he was ahead. He even got other countries to pay. He should not have stood by as Saddam savagely put down postwar rebellions; but otherwise his performance was masterly, not least in its realism and restraint.
As I came to the 2002-2003 Iraq debate, I was determined not to make the same mistake twice. Another Bush was president, and the younger one looked as decisive as his father had once seemed dotty. This, after all, was the George W. Bush who had impressively rallied the nation and the world after September 11.
His foreign-policy team looked easily the equal of his father's, or anybody's. Vice President Cheney was the wise man of Washington and the elder Bush's successful Defense secretary. Secretary of State Colin Powell was the magisterial architect of the Gulf War. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was the man whose plan had worked like a charm in Afghanistan. If Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, was not the equal of her 1990 predecessor, Brent Scowcroft, she was no lightweight. Surely if any war Cabinet could inspire confidence, this was it.
Wrong again. Zero for two.
George W. Bush had more than his share of bad luck in Iraq. He bet that Saddam would have an active nuclear or at least biological-weapons program; that Iraq's social and physical infrastructure would be functional; that the war would be short. None of those bets was crazy, but he lost all three.
Still, a good gambler never bets more than he can afford to lose; he scrubs the odds with a sharp eye on the worst case; he hedges to give himself options. Above all, he keeps abreast of the game.
Bush placed too large a bet, padded the odds, and didn't hedge. Worst of all, he never caught up with the state of play. Again and again, he and his team were too slow in understanding and reacting to events, if they reacted at all. They were late to react to wholesale looting; late to understand the scale of the effort and to commit sufficient forces (arguably they still haven't); late to recognize they confronted an insurgency and to fight it with proven counterinsurgency tactics; late to recognize the emergence of a Shiite-Sunni civil war. Today, almost five years on, they are still behind the curve: As Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Joseph Biden, D-Del., plausibly argues, Bush clings to an insistence on a strong central government in Baghdad, despite that strategy's failure and signs that regionalism would work better.
Some optimists say that in Army Gen. David Petraeus, Bush has finally found his Gen. Grant. That may or may not be true, but it is beside the point. The problem is that Petraeus has not yet found his President Lincoln.
Judging presidents' wartime performance before the war starts is hard. No one could have known in 1860 that Lincoln, a lawyer and military novice, would develop into a commander-in-chief of genius. As lessons go, "Don't misjudge the president before committing to a war" is roughly as useful as "Buy low, sell high."
It does, however, provide some insight into the key mistake of five years ago. In February, asked for the umpteenth time to recant her war vote, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., for the umpteenth time refused. "The mistakes were made by the president," she said. In 2004, she said, "I do not regret giving the president authority…. What I regret is the way the president used the authority."
She had a fair point. She might have sharpened it by saying what I have come to say: I do not regret giving the president authority; I regret giving this president authority. I am sorry. I made a mistake five years ago. But not about the vote. About the leader.
http://reason.com/news/show/123095.html