Transterrestrial Musings

Comments

Why wasn't this foreseen in 2003? What this author describes is exactly the challenge we should have been prepared to face from day one.

Removing Saddam was the easy part (and entirely an honorable and noble effort). Standing up a coherent Iraqi government thereafter? Much much harder as we now see.

But in 2003 anyone who dared raise such objections was called a moonbat or worse, a traitor.

Posted by Bill White at December 13, 2006 09:17 PM

And Then There Are the Problems No One Wants To Talk About

Huh? These are some of the problems I wanted to talk about in 2003.

Posted by Bill White at December 13, 2006 09:18 PM

I suspect that they were called "moonbats" and "traitors" for many other salient reasons.

Posted by Just John at December 14, 2006 12:49 AM

Removing Saddam was the easy part (and entirely an honorable and noble effort). Standing up a coherent Iraqi government thereafter? Much much harder as we now see.

Once there was a President -- a Democrat -- who told the world that America sets out to do some things "not because they are easy, but because they are hard."

But in 2003 anyone who dared raise such objections was called a moonbat or worse, a traitor.

Um, no. In truth, it was the people who thought if it wasn't going to be easy we shouldn't try, who were moonbats.

Posted by McGehee at December 14, 2006 08:32 AM

Also among the moonbats were those who claimed it was all about oil or those who claimed that sanctions were working.

For those who think OIF was a mistake answer me this: if OIF had never happened what would be the condition of Saddam/Iraq today? Would sanctions still be in effect?

I'll answer, no they would not. Sanctions would have ended by now at the insistence of France and some others. Saddam would be again free to do as he chose to and I for one don't believe for a second that he would not be pursuing NBC technologies again.

Was invading Iraq a mistake? No. Have mistakes been made in the aftermath? Many.

Posted by Cecil Trotter at December 14, 2006 09:05 AM

I prefer the strategy outlined on board the USS Clueless:

Why do the Islamic fundamentalists hate us? Because we are undermining their culture. We aren't rampaging elephants stampeding through the streets of their cities, we're termites devouring the foundation of individual buildings. Their culture isn't fighting one huge battle against us, it's fighting millions of small ones – and it is losing, one mind at a time. Individual people who see parts of our culture find that they like them. It isn't our big things which devour them; it isn't the Bill of Rights, secular government, the English language. It's small things: rock music, blue-jeans, fast food, movies, and Barbie Dolls.

It is difficult to play termite and undermine their culture when we have Abrams, and Strykers, and US Marines in full combat kit knocking in doors. That makes us the rampaging elephants to continue with Den Beste's analogy.

We could have removed Saddam and then given the keys to Iraq to al-Sistani within weeks of victory and then resumed the termite strategy rather than the elephant strategy.

Posted by Bill White at December 14, 2006 11:06 AM

Bill White wrote:

> We could have removed Saddam and then given the
> keys to Iraq to al-Sistani within weeks of
> victory and then resumed the termite strategy
> rather than the elephant strategy.

First of all, you're reading den Beste. That's good. Keep reading, and eventually things will fall into place.

Now, about your strategy. First, by most accounts, al-Sistani doesn't want the keys. Second, he didn't, and doesn't, have the police or military forces to keep the country under control even if he did. Third, there's no guarantee that whoever won the free-for-all such a power vacuum would create would be half as classically liberal as the Iraqi government of the past three years has been. For example, such a government created by a strongman out of chaos is highly unlikely to write a constitution guaranteeing the rights of free speech, religion, the press, the vote, etc. And fourth, most Democrats would blame Bush for the resulting chaos anyway even if he had abandoned Iraq after just a few weeks.

Lots of downside risk and no upside -- not a good strategy. Unless, of course, you consider blaming Bush to be the upside.

Mike

Posted by Michael Kent at December 14, 2006 04:57 PM

"We could have removed Saddam and then given the keys to Iraq to al-Sistani within weeks of victory and then resumed the termite strategy rather than the elephant strategy."

Some things never change.

So much rhetoric today reminds me of the rhetoric during the cold war. Back then it was the anti-communists vs the anti-anti-communists. Always there was some horribly flaw or evil that America was committing in the fight against communism. Support of authoritarian anti-communist governments was first among the accusations liberally raised by the anti-anti-communists. South Korea being a perfect example.

Yet look how the cold war ended up, and compare the fates of nations such as Vietnam vs Germany, South Korea vs North Korea, El Salvador vs Cuba.

Today the rhetoric is the pro-war vs the anti-war factions. Once again the pro-war faction can't do anything right in the eyes of the anti-war faction. If America had supported an authoritarian pro-American government in Iraq, the easy solution to immediate American goals, the anti-war faction was all set to jump all over that. I remember the regular Slate.com feature 'Kurd sell-out watch' which started as soon as the Invasion of Iraq in anticipation of levelling the traditional criticisms.

Yet that Slate feature was dumped, why? Because America didn't sell out the Kurds, America tried to do all the hard things in Iraq, minimizing collateral damage, supporting democracy, rebuilding the country. So naturally the anti-war faction found new things to attack and undermine American morale about the war.

America was in a place before when the anti-war faction had the upper hand, during the climax of the Vietnam War. But I have no fear for the long term considering America did eventually triumph over the evil empire, no thanks to the peaceniks.

Posted by Brad at December 14, 2006 05:08 PM

Brad and Michael --

Do you agree with the termite / elephant analogy or not?

As for strategy, maybe there was not a good strategy for post-Saddam Iraq to be had. In that case we needed to find someone to share the blame for a potentially failed reconstruction.

The current talked about strategy? Align the US with SCIRI and take out that nut-job Sadr. Okay, we should have taken out Sadr at Najaf (and Bush 41 should have taken out Saddam after the 100 hr war) but SCIRI?

They are the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq. We work with Hakim and SCIRI and we are coordinating strategy and tactics with Iranian proxies. Maybe that is the "realist" thing to do, but then lets not scream "no talks with Iran"

= = =

The Jimmy Baker way would be to open significant clandestine talks with Tehran while telling the American media that we will NEVER negotiate with Iran.

Posted by Bill White at December 14, 2006 05:22 PM

Sayyed Abdul Aziz al-Hakim (born 1953) is an Iraqi theologian and politician and the leader of SCIRI, the largest political party in the Iraqi Council of Representatives. See recent photos with George Bush.

Abdul Aziz al-Hakim became leader of SCIRI after his brother Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim was assassinated in Najaf by a giant car bomb in August 2003. Some evidence points to "the violent history of rivalry between Shia factions and the unexplained circumstances of these attacks has led others to conclude that the attack was most likely carried out by supporters of a rival Shia leader, possibly hardliner Muqtada al-Sadr."

(Others blame the Sunni for that car bomb.)

Now, al-Hakim is in Washington asking for a crackdown on Moogie Sadr. Perhaps it is well deserved but is it in our interest to ally with al-Hakim and SCIRI? Read this about SCIRI and Iran.

It is a tangled, tangled web. and while we cannot cut-n-run there also is no obvious road to victory.

Posted by Bill White at December 14, 2006 06:11 PM

"Do you agree with the termite / elephant analogy or not?"

I disagree.

But to elaborate, lets examine your analogy. You said...

"It is difficult to play termite and undermine their culture when we have Abrams, and Strykers, and US Marines in full combat kit knocking in doors. That makes us the rampaging elephants to continue with Den Beste's analogy."

"We could have removed Saddam and then given the keys to Iraq to al-Sistani within weeks of victory and then resumed the termite strategy rather than the elephant strategy."

You make several erroneus assumptions. But the key one is that of either/or. That is -- the assumption of your analogy is if America acts as a 'rampaging elephant' than America cannot act as a 'burrowing termite'. This is false, and the parallel history of the cold war shows it to be false.

But I must touch upon the other false assumption, which is the characterization of American actions as those of a 'rampaging elephant'. Short of a complete prohibition of all military action, a condition that was absent even during the long period of the failed Iraq sanctions policy, it is absurd to describe the excrutiatingly measured and restrained military actions of the United States as that of a 'rampaging elephant'.

Posted by Brad at December 14, 2006 06:37 PM

First, the analogy was Den Beste's to begin with and while I find it persuasive, it is his not mine and therefore your disagreement is with him.

My largest objection to the Iraqi occupation is that I cannot identify a faction within Iraq that is on "our" side. Except maybe the Kurds who represent a genuine victory for the West. A free and prosperous Kurdistan is the one glowing success story I see.

Otherwise,

There are the Sunni who hate us for removing them from a preferred position under Saddam.

There is SCIRI, Shia who are acting and talking nicely to us now, because they want us to crush the Sunni and the Sadr-ists, saving them the trouble. SCIRI is closely tied to Iran and are quite Islamist.

There is Sadr and his followers. The current leader, al-Maliki, is of the party of Sadr. He is an Iraqi nationalist and opposed to being an Iranian puppet but he is an Islamist nut-job.

Who do we stand up as the "leadership" of Iraq?

I refer back to the strategy page link Rand posted in the beginning:

The Shia and Kurds also have a secret weapon; hatred of the Sunni Arabs. The Shia and Kurds want revenge. What no one wants to admit out loud is that the Shia and Kurd population are very much in favor of doing a "Bosnia" or "Rwanda" to the Sunni Arabs of Iraq. The Iraqi government won't touch this one, because they know that it would cause their Sunni Arab neighbors to start talking openly of intervention. This is what the Iraqi Sunni Arab terrorists want. This is what all Sunni Arabs in the region want. That's because the Sunni Arabs do not want an Arab state controlled by Shia. For a thousand years, there has been a struggle in the Islamic community between the Shia and Sunni. For the last few centuries, the Sunnis have had the edge. But a radicalized Iran, long the only Moslem nation run by a Shia majority, has been leading a Shia revival for over two decades now. The Arabs fear Iran, not so much for religious reasons, but because Iran has been the big bully in the region for thousands of years. People in the Middle East like to respect tradition, but the legacy of Iranian military prowess and aggression is simply feared.
So the problem in Iraq is not just getting a competent government that will not destroy it's Sunni Arab minority, but also a government that will be accepted by its Sunni Arab neighbors. Never forget that, when it comes to Iraq, there are more problems present, than are talked about openly.

After what transpired under Saddam, I cannot really blame this desire for revenge however it is not in our interest to allow it to happen, in part because Saudi Arabia may feel forced to intervene (and they already are). Just as the Iranians are funding and supplying insurgents, privaet elements within Saudi Arabia are doing the same.

Anyway, who is Iraq is on "our side" -- Allawi may have been yet the number of secularist minded people in Iraq have been dwindling rapidly.

Posted by Bill White at December 14, 2006 07:17 PM

PS -- there have been calls to give Rumsfeld "a larger canvas" which suggests to me a widening of the conflict to include direct US action against Iran and Syria.

I will not debate the merits of that here since Rumsfeld was subsequently fired and Robert Gates is on record that war with Iran and Syria is a very bad idea. President Bush may have considered war against Iran and/or Syria yet the selection of Robert Gates signals (to me at least) that he is far less likely to take that route.

Posted by Bill White at December 14, 2006 07:22 PM

"Anyway, who [in] Iraq is on "our side" -- Allawi may have been yet the number of secularist minded people in Iraq have been dwindling rapidly."

Who cares? France isn't on 'our side' either and who cares?

Success in Iraq is not defined by having in power a pro-US government. Success in Iraq is defined by having in power a government which is NOT anti-American.

Posted by Brad at December 14, 2006 07:33 PM

"First, the analogy was Den Beste's to begin with and while I find it persuasive, it is his not mine and therefore your disagreement is with him."

Wrong.

I agree with Den Beste. I disagree with you.

Note how I carefully quoted exactly what it was I was disagreeing with. The quotes were of you, not Den Beste.

You created your own version of what Den Beste started. It is your version (which I quoted in full) that I disagree with.

Posted by Brad at December 14, 2006 07:41 PM

Success in Iraq is not defined by having in power a pro-US government. Success in Iraq is defined by having in power a government which is NOT anti-American.

I can agree with this.

What measure of time do we use to measure success and how long must we stay in force to achieve this goal?

Posted by Bill White at December 14, 2006 07:44 PM

So what happens if the new Iraqi government decides it wants nukes?

Posted by anonymous at December 14, 2006 08:29 PM

"So what happens if the new Iraqi government decides it wants nukes?"

Then Iraq gets another new government, and a lot of new holes in Iraq.

The world can't afford any more Moslem nations with nukes. It can't afford the one it already has, but I suppose that is now a fait accompli.

Posted by Fletcher Christian at December 15, 2006 03:53 AM

Fletcher, do you mean Pakistan or Iran because Iran would make two.

Posted by anonymoose at December 15, 2006 06:57 AM

First, the analogy was Den Beste's to begin with and while I find it persuasive, it is his not mine and therefore your disagreement is with him.

You appear to seek to put words in Mr. Den Beste's mouth so you can pretend to be arguing from someone else's authority.

Don't you have the courage of your own convictions?

Posted by Phil Fraering at December 15, 2006 01:57 PM

anonymoose:

Just what exactly is your point?

I meant Pakistan. Iran doesn't have them - yet. And Pakistan may concievably be kept in check by the fact that their main enemy, India, also has nukes and has said they will use them if attacked.

India is also helping to some degree to keep China in check. It is also, day by day, acting to refute the arguments of those who say that a nation as large as China can't be a democracy because democracy doesn't work with that many people.

It's doing it simply by existing; India has about a billion people, China has about 1300 million I think, and India is a democracy whereas China is most decidedly not.

India is the country to watch in the 21st century. Maybe the politically dominant language of the world will be English, after all. Considering that the software you are looking at this with was partly written in India...

Posted by Fletcher Christian at December 16, 2006 05:31 AM

Let's list some of the Moonbats and Traitors of 2002.

1) Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen Shinseki;
"Occupation may require on the order of several hundred thousand
troops".

Response : "Gen Shinseki is severely mistaken on how many troops
it will take to occupt Iraq, any level beyond 20,000 is just speculation" ASD Paul Wolfowitz.

Result: Shinseki was cashiered within a week.

2) Army Secretary Richard White : "General Shinseki has a very serious basis for his post conflict strategy"

Response : White House " Please send in your resignation".

Result "White was cashiered within the week".

3) Chairman Council of Economic advisers Lawrence Lindsay:
"Occupying iraq and rebuilding may cost 2-3 hundred billion".

Response " I doubt a country with the second largest oil
reserves in the world won't be able to pay for it's reconstruction and occupation" ASD Paul Wolfowitz.

Result : Lindsay was cashiered.

How is that for some moonbats and traitors.

Posted by anonymous at December 19, 2006 04:21 AM

Post a comment