[Mb-civic] another neocon gives up on Iraq

[Hawaiipolo at cs.com]

It Didn't Work 
By William F. Buckley 
The National Review 

Friday 24 February 2006 

"I can tell you the main reason behind all our woes - it is America." The New 
York Times reporter is quoting the complaint of a clothing merchant in a 
Sunni stronghold in Iraq. "Everything that is going on between Sunni and Shiites, 
the troublemaker in the middle is America." 

One can't doubt that the American objective in Iraq has failed. The same 
edition of the paper quotes a fellow of the American Enterprise Institute. Mr. 
Reuel Marc Gerecht backed the American intervention. He now speaks of the bombing 
of the especially sacred Shiite mosque in Samara and what that has 
precipitated in the way of revenge. He concludes that "The bombing has completely 
demolished" what was being attempted - to bring Sunnis into the defense and interior 
ministries. 

Our mission has failed because Iraqi animosities have proved uncontainable by 
an invading army of 130,000 Americans. The great human reserves that call for 
civil life haven't proved strong enough. No doubt they are latently there, 
but they have not been able to contend against the ice men who move about in the 
shadows with bombs and grenades and pistols. 

The Iraqis we hear about are first indignant, and then infuriated, that 
Americans aren't on the scene to protect them and to punish the aggressors. And so 
they join the clothing merchant who says that everything is the fault of the 
Americans. 

The Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, elucidates on the complaint 
against Americans. It is not only that the invaders are American, it is that they 
are "Zionists." It would not be surprising to learn from an anonymously cited 
American soldier that he can understand why Saddam Hussein was needed to keep 
the Sunnis and the Shiites from each others' throats. 

A problem for American policymakers - for President Bush, ultimately - is to 
cope with the postulates and decide how to proceed. 

One of these postulates, from the beginning, was that the Iraqi people, 
whatever their tribal differences, would suspend internal divisions in order to get 
on with life in a political structure that guaranteed them religious freedom. 


The accompanying postulate was that the invading American army would succeed 
in training Iraqi soldiers and policymkers to cope with insurgents bent on 
violence. 

This last did not happen. And the administration has, now, to cope with 
failure. It can defend itself historically, standing by the inherent reasonableness 
of the postulates. After all, they govern our policies in Latin America, in 
Africa, and in much of Asia. The failure in Iraq does not force us to 
generalize that violence and antidemocratic movements always prevail. It does call on 
us to adjust to the question, What do we do when we see that the postulates do 
not prevail - in the absence of interventionist measures (we used these 
against Hirohito and Hitler) which we simply are not prepared to take? It is 
healthier for the disillusioned American to concede that in one theater in the 
Mideast, the postulates didn't work. The alternative would be to abandon the 
postulates. To do that would be to register a kind of philosophical despair. The 
killer insurgents are not entitled to blow up the shrine of American idealism. 

Mr. Bush has a very difficult internal problem here because to make the kind 
of concession that is strategically appropriate requires a mitigation of 
policies he has several times affirmed in high-flown pronouncements. His challenge 
is to persuade himself that he can submit to a historical reality without 
forswearing basic commitments in foreign policy. 

He will certainly face the current development as military leaders are 
expected to do: They are called upon to acknowledge a tactical setback, but to 
insist on the survival of strategic policies. 

Yes, but within their own counsels, different plans have to be made. And the 
kernel here is the acknowledgment of defeat. 

-------

 Jump to today's TO Features:                                                 
                                            

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed 
without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the 
included information for research and educational purposes. t r u t h o u t 
has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is t r u t 
h o u t endorsed or sponsored by the originator.) 

"Go to Original" links are provided as a convenience to our readers and allow 
for verification of authenticity. However, as originating pages are often 
updated by their originating host sites, the versions posted on TO may not match 
the versions our readers view when clicking the "Go to Original" links. 

Print This Story E-mail This Story



    
    
        
    
| t r u t h o u t | town meeting | issues | environment | labor | women | 
health | voter rights | multimedia | donate | contact | subscribe |

    


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://www.islandlists.com/pipermail/mb-civic/attachments/20060225/91bf437d/attachment.htm