Iraq and the Big Picture
Those who advocate a reduced global American military presence are often accused by defenders of the status quo of somehow being naïve or unable to see the big picture. But the exact opposite is true — it is those who insist America must be everywhere at all times who are also all over the place in their logic, as their advocating for perpetual war continues to lead to permanent disaster.
Take Iraq. Now that Obama has announced his own “Mission Accomplished” and is reducing troop levels, Democrats are praising the president’s leadership and Republicans are touting the Bush surge that made it all possible. But however stable or unstable Iraq becomes in the years ahead, what, exactly, did the United States get out of this war?
Did any of the reasons Americans were given for invading Iraq — that Saddam Hussein was a “threat,” that he possessed weapons of mass destruction, that he aided terrorists and was somehow connected to 9/11 — turn out to be true? When asked whether it would have been wise to oust Hussein during Operation Desert Storm, former Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney said in 1994 that invading Baghdad would have created a “quagmire,” destabilized the region, caused civil war, empowered Iran, and led to U.S. casualties that would have been too high. “How many additional dead Americans is Saddam worth?” Cheney asked in ’94.
Did not everything Cheney once feared about invading Iraq come to fruition after 2003, and are these not the reasons Bush even had to surge or Obama still has to stay? Cheney was right the first time — how many dead Americans was Saddam worth? With nearly 5,000 soldiers lost, tens of thousands of civilian casualties, a more brazen Iran, and a $3 trillion price tag, what have we accomplished in Iraq that, in retrospect, was even remotely worth the cost? Those who still believe that it was necessary to invade Iraq would likely consider this critique the ramblings of a naïve fool who does not understand the big picture when it comes to fighting the War on Terror — but what has the Iraq War ever had to do in any conceivable way with actually fighting al-Qaeda, a group that did not even exist in that country until the U.S. invaded? It is not the Iraq War’s critics who have failed to see the big picture.
American foreign interventionism is like an abusive marriage — no matter how illogical or tragic it becomes, we always rationalize why we must stay. We went to Iraq to take care of the “threat” that Saddam had allegedly become — something, even if true, we created through years of aid and ammo to the Iraqi dictator in the 1980s. If Saddam ever had WMDs, we gave them to him. Why would we aid Hussein? As a bulwark against Iran, whom we perceived as a threat, and why? Because Iran took American hostages following their 1979 revolution in which they overthrew the Shah — a leader we installed and Iranians despised, engendering anti-American sentiment and sowing the seeds for revolution for decades. Today, the same people who thought the Iraq War was a good idea are clamoring for war with Iran. Why? Because with the overthrow of Saddam, Iran’s power and influence in the region has risen, making that country now also a “threat,” just as Dick Cheney once warned it might become.
And then there’s Afghanistan, where we fought the Taliban after 9/11, whose training and weapons came from the United States in the ’80s during the Cold War. The 1988 action movie “Rambo III,” in which Sylvester Stallone made new friends in Osama bin Laden’s social circle, ended with the following dedication: “This film is dedicated to the gallant people of Afghanistan.” Those gallant Afghans now make up the insurgency that persists in that country, where our current president is escalating troops for some vague reason, while simultaneously carrying out drone strikes in neighboring Pakistan, our supposed ally. Former Reagan official and foreign-policy critic Bruce Fein estimates that for every U.S. drone strike, 10 new insurgents are created — making the so-called War on Terror more a war for it.
That our interventionism only begets more interventionism, that our wars on terror only create more terrorists, and that virtually every military action we take in the Middle East results in further military action is the big picture that defenders of the foreign-policy status quo either cannot see or do not want us to. What do we ever “win” in the Middle East? What have we ever “won?” Seeing the big picture in Iraq necessarily means applying a cost/benefit analysis, and those who would consider this Monday-morning quarterbacking are the same government liars who somehow keep their game face every time they change strategy or rationale, constantly reinventing the reasons for war as they go along.
Rationalizing the irrational, whether out of incompetence or complacency, is not sound foreign policy, and just as most Americans don’t want another Vietnam, we must also now recognize that we don’t want another Iraq, Afghanistan or possibly Iran, either. It’s time we injected some sanity into our foreign-policy debate — and to do so, we must see the big picture.
[...] 24 Aug 2010 | The American Conservative [...]
In the near future the Bush presidency and the Iraq war as well as the war on terrorism as a whole will be seen as a huge success for America and conservatism. Bush guided us through one of our nations darkest hours and responded to the terrorist threat with great courage and because of him America has liberated an entire nation as well as gained an ally in the Middle East thus showing the rest of the world that America is a beacon of freedom and democracy. After seeing what happened to Saddam all the other radical anti-American terrorist dictators throughout the world are wondering which one of them will be next. Just a reminder, there were zero terrorist attacks under Bush after we invaded Iraq. The Bush doctrine simply works. Democratic nations do not go to war with other democratic nations, therefore it is only logical that conservatives should embrace a foreign policy of interventionism, preemptive war, and nation building in order to spread democracy and peace throughout the world.
War is the health of the state and permanent war means more and more power to the rulers and wealth for the military industrial media complex which supports them. Eventually these parasites will kill the host, but in the meantime they are having a great party. Can you imagine the rush that must come from being able to kill anyone anywhere in the world just by pushing a button and being able to watch in real time?
The real reasons for the Iraq War were stated but never emphasized: to spread Democracy in the Middle East and to give the US a beach head for future strategic operations. If we were going to follow neoconservative foreign policy and intervene militarily in the region, what better place than Iraq for stationing our troops.
Pursuit of this policy waned with the departure of Bush and his neocon cronies. The abandonment of this policy leaves no real justification for the action in Iraq. It was just a big waste of blood and treasure. It also illustrates the folly of an interventionist foreign policy
AIPAC Rat go home!
As for Hunter, he is right on foreign policy as usual. But one must add a thought – is the interventionism illogical? Does Cheney not personally profit from it? Did the Saudi friends of the Bush family not do just fine from the Iraq mess? Do the criminal mega-banks not profit from both the shares they own in war-profiteering enterprises and from the increased national debts?
It seems these policies are planned logically for individuals’ gain.
“to spread Democracy in the Middle East and to give the US a beach head for future strategic operations”
Royden, your second reason is surely accurate, but you really think they care about democracy? Were we defending democracy in Kuwait? Saudi? UAE? Egypt? Did we support free elections in Palestine? Perhaps they support a constitutional republic so as to weaken the govt (a military dictatorship is more prone to threaten Israel), but not because they really care about elections.
A huge portion of the war was certainly to do with preparing for future wars they could launch in surrounding countries. I am sure most of the rest of it is profiteering, not only from oil, but from all the contractors. Then, there are the banks which invest in those companies and draw interest from debts. Finally, the Israeli lobby is a major player, even if some overestimate their role.
I suspect that Mr Weinstein has sipped rather too vigorously from the grape-flavoured beverage offered by his ideological mentors. Bush’s foreign policy has hardly made America more secure, when he directly took the United States to an entirely avoidable war with Iraq. The casualties and cost of that war made Al Qaeda’s efforts on 911 seem entirely trivial. The idea that a lack of Al Qaeda attacks on the US mainland is indicative of improved security is laughable when one considers the gourmet feast of targets offered to AQ in Iraq.
Furthermore, the idea that Mr Weinstein and his cohorts have that this war somehow demonstrated to the Middle East America’s “democratic and free” credentials is either deliberate misinformation directed at an American audience that doesn’t know any better, or is indicative of ideological brainwashing of the deepest degree. The truth is that there is deep resentment in Iraq, amongst Iraqis, at what America has done there. Mr Weinstein’s Iraqi “ally” is composed of political parties that share a single thing in common (other than the love of corrupt money), which is to see the US leave Iraq.
Here is a link to a translated editorial from an Iraqi newspaper, to give readers an idea of the actual sentiment in the country:
http://www.azzaman.com/english/index.asp?fname=news\2010-08-25\kurd.htm
Oh, and the idea that democracies never go to war is an equally laughable fallacy, be it from historical precedent of Britain declaring war on Finland in WW2, be it the American subversion of democracy in Iran, Chile and elsewhere, or be it the more recent example of NATO democracies blasting democratic Serbia into rubble.
(Sometimes, one has to wonder where these people come from!)
i refuse to let cheney from ’94 off that easy. can you please quote or cite specifically when/where he acknowledged removing saddam would have “destabilized the region, caused civil war, empowered Iran, and led to U.S. casualties that would have been too high”?
Someone declared that since 9/12 American has been safe from terrorists. Wasn’t it Bush/Cheney who were in charge on 9/11! The 4,500 troops killed in Iraq were victims of Bush/Cheney’s phony war. Remember Sadaam Hussein told the truth about his weapons in Iraq to the world, none, and it was Bush/Cheney the USG and its propaganda arms, the MSM and the pretend christian churches that recited the criminal administration lies. Sadaam told the truth Bush lied. That is the mindfulness reality, any rationalization about invading and occupying Iraq is just mindlessness reciting of the thoughts of others no truth or facts.While overall the M.E. adventure has been a failure a few have benefited greatly, THE PREDATORY CAPITALIST WELFARE KINGS which get thew contracts and reap the benefit of the graft and corruption which are the real purposes of the illegal criminal act of the Bush gang.
@fieldy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YENbElb5-xY
Thomas:
I think you’re correct in assuming that Cheney/Rumsfeld/Wolfowitz were certainly representing the factions that would profit from the Iraq War. Oil and munitions would certainly enrich their constituents. I do think, however, that Bush himself had some grand vision of bringing peace and stability to the region through the spread of representative government. I may be naive, but I think that some foolish actions can be motivated by good intentions
N. Weinstein (24/08/10) said;
“…therefore it is only logical that conservatives should embrace a foreign policy of … preemptive war … in order to spread … peace throughout the world.”
So true, so deeply perceptive