The Iraq War and the hubris of the neoconservatives
It is already hard to remember the heady days when the Iraq adventure began, trumpets blaring and banners unfurled. Vice President Dick Cheney and the administration neoconservatives arranged for the airlift of exiled Iraqi leader Ahmed Chalabi and about 500 of his fighters into the country. He had been a major source of the disinformation about weapons of mass destruction that had provided the justification for the war. Now he was expected to assume power, restore order and make Iraq into a base for the projection of U.S. influence throughout the Middle East. Instantly, Iraq would become a beacon of democracy. Awestruck, the Palestinians would forswear terrorist groups like Hamas. From the Iraqi bastion, the U.S. would topple the regimes of Syria and Iran, by military force if need be. The Iraq example would serve for invasions elsewhere. Saudi Arabia and Egypt would have no resort but democratizing, their rulers yielding to secular figures in the inspiring mold of Chalabi. Like Saddam Hussein's regime, the entire region was supposedly a house of cards. - Sidney Blumenthal, Iraq: The big lie Salon 03/16/06
What Blumenthal is describing is the grand "neoconservative" vision for the Middle East which was at least a major part of the motivation for invading Iraq. One of the odd things about this war is that no one seems to be able to come up with a compelling answer to the question of what really motivated the Bush administration to undertake this disastrous war. Certainly, the pie-in-the-sky predictions that Blumenthal summaries in the quoted paragraph contributed to the administration's radical underestimation of how difficult this war would be. But was this updated version of the British colonial "white man's burden" the main motivation? Was it ultimately control of the oil? Was it the toxic combination of arrogance, careless and immense military power that made Bush, Rummy, Cheney, Condi-Condi, Colin Powell and all the others embrace this thing?
There is no doubt what the official goals of the war were, because Congress passed a war resolution in October 2002. It specified two conditions, both of which had to be met before the invasion was authorized.
One was that all peaceful alternative to dealing with the nonexistent problem of Iraq's nonexistent "weapons of mass destruction" had been exhausted. The WMD threat, especially Saddam's alleged nuclear program - Dick Cheney even said explicitly that Iraq possessed nuclear weapons already - was by far the main threat that he used to scare Congress and at least half or so of the public to go along with the war. But the Congressional resolution also specified that the war had to be connected to dealing with Al Qaeda and specifically with those who had taken part in the 9/11 attacks.
The Bush administration met neither condition. The official goals of the war, ridding Iraq of WMDs and ending any connections of Saddam's regime with Al Qaeda, were accomplished before the war began. They were figments of the imaginations of the Bush war propagandists anyway.
But, as Blumenthal says, the Bush team seems blind to the real problems they've created for themselves and other in Iraq:
Bush no more pays attention to the criticisms of conservative Republicans than to those of liberal Democrats. He is consistent in his rejection of criticism of any kind from any quarter. But his granitic impassivity does not resolve any actual problem; nor does ignoring critics make his arguments more convincing.
I never realized that the adjective for "granite" was "granitic". See how blogging can expand your vocablulary?
Blumenthal's article compares some of the optimistic statements coming from Bush and Rumsfeld with more sober assessments coming from current military officials and Ambassador Khalilzad in Baghdad. One comparison may be a bit overdrawn, one that I'm seeing elsewhere. Yes, the Bush administration has vaguely suggested that they have no particular desire for permanent bases in Iraq. And, yes, Gen. John Abizaid told Congress this week that we might want to keep permanent bases. But the claims from both the administration and the generals have been so vague and slippery that we can hardly say that's a contradiction.
The permanent bases also would be a reservation I would attach to this otherwise sensible statement by Blumenthal:
Bush promises to deliver more speeches on Iraq. Rumsfeld will undoubtedly provide lessons in history. They have condemned themselves to their Sisyphean labors, endlessly pushing the rock up the hill, because they will not or cannot politically explain the actual mission in Iraq today: tamping down sectarian violence sufficiently to begin the withdrawal of U.S. troops on a strict timetable dictated by the convening of the Iraqi assembly and the approach of the American midterm elections. Whether that is possible and about what happens next, the administration is clueless. But none of that can be articulated. Time and again, Bush asks for demonstrations of faith and will in place of logic and strategy.
My own guess about this administration's goals is that it does want to have permanent bases in Iraq, based on the neocon dream of using Iraq as a springboard for subversion and war against nearby countries, Iran and Syria first of all. The original expectation was that American troops could be drawn down to 40,000 or so by the end of 2003, who would presumably have been stationed there more-or-less permanently. I think Bush and Rummy are still looking for that kind of withdrawal, although they just moved 700 more troops from Kuwait into Iraq to help protect Shi'a pilgrams to Karbala from sectarian violence. But they're in such a mess there, that they seem clueless about how to get the US troops out of there.
The goal of permanent bases is unrealistic because of the high levels of violent hostility toward the American "occupation" forces. But another factor that seldom gets discussed is the regular role of armies to guard the national borders and to protect against foreign invaders. With no Iraqi army batallions yet ready to fight on their own, where will they come up with the army of at least 150,000-200,000 that Iraq would realistic need under any kind of regime for national defense? And the US has done virtually nothing about developing a new Iraqi air force. Everything about the administration's approach to building up the Iraqi military suggests that the assumption is that American ground troops and air forces will play a major role even in Iraq's basic national defense for the indefinite future.
