This week John McCain has referred to the crisis in Iraq as
the gravest threat to American security interests since the end of the Cold
War. http://www.mediaite.com/tv/huffpost-reporter-confronts-mccain-does-victory-in-iraq-mean-endless-war/
Of course, he also said those same words, or something almost exactly like it,
about (in alphabetical order) Georgia, Iran, North Korea, Syria, and Ukraine. I
find the omission of the basic facts about American opinion on Iraq when Obama
entered office an interesting cross current in all the commentary about bad
choices and feckless leadership. In 2008 a Washington Post poll found that 64%
of Americans felt the worth was not worth fighting. Hilary Clinton lost the
nomination specifically because she authorized the resolution to go to war. Obama
was elected to get the US out of Iraq. So McCain's position is basically that
Obama should have voided one of the central rationales for his campaign, the
reason that he is President, the reason he in fact beat McCain, to support a
failed policy that 2/3 of Americans were challenging. Whatever, McCain says
now, there is no clearer example of the statement that elections have
consequences. Any criticism he directs towards
the President is also in part a howl against public opinion which abandoned
him, his party and his ideas in 2008. I suppose this is McCain’s way of saying
he was right and ought to have been elected, but only Americans with absurdly
short memories have forgotten how American public opinion had completely shifted
in opposition to a war they now realized was wrong, both in justification and
execution. Then again I don’t think it’s
possible to lose a bet underestimating the memory of either the shameless American
politician or the voters they try to hustle.
Joe Scarborough who has long advocated the departure of
American troops from Afghanistan, is now pillorying the President for leaving
Iraq too soon. I am glad to hear Scarborough and so many other commentators lay
so much blame squarely at the feet of Paul Bremer, Bush's civilian
administrator in Iraq. His decisions to force all Baathists from the Army and
any role in civilian government ensured that the Sunni would be isolated form
the administration of Iraq and is the direct antecedent to the current crisis. http://pfiffner.gmu.edu/files/pdfs/Articles/CPA%20Orders,%20Iraq%20PDF.pdf
When he forced all NGO’s to register with the American occupiers he in effect
advised the Iraqis many of whom deeply distrusted America and its new viceroy,
Bremer, that America, and the coalition forces it lead were their new master. Problem
is the place stopped functioning. Electricity
in Bagdad summers where the temperature routinely reaches 120, became scarce
and inconsistent. Water and food were hard to get. Government offices and
cultural institutions were looted. A sense of lawlessness took over the streets.
Hostilities between neighbors were played out in high noon showdowns. Thanks to
Rumsfeld’s disastrous war plan, the Americans were so shorthanded they could
not be in enough places at once. This unleashed the savage dogs, butchers from
both religious groups, long suppressed by the brutal tyrant Hussein were unleashed.
What Americans did not understand then and are only waking
up to now, is that the United States bumbled into a civil war by taking sides
between a Shiite majority, now backed by Iran, and a Sunni minority. There was
no way this was going to end well. Joe Scarborough, speaking in recent days, surprises
me, though I guess he shouldn’t. He has
been advocate for troop withdrawals from Afghanistan for years, putting him to
the left of Obama who he’s criticized for moving too slowly. In Iraq he was a hawk from the jump. He wrote
a blistering editorial in 2011 http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1211/70653_Page2.html
where he excoriated Bush’s handling of the war and the left’s criticism of it. Back then we was trying to make the case that
the removal of Hussein was a good thing. He called on all sorts of politicians
and media types to “apologize” for the politically motivated criticism of Bush,
and to finally acknowledge the painful but ultimately positive results in Iraq.
He listed Democrat after Democrat that voted for the resolution. And then he
ended with this, “The Iraq war framed a disastrous decade for U.S. foreign
policy. President Obama should be praised for bringing it to a close. But as we
move forward into even more uncertain times, Americans should always remember
that the Iraq war was not the product of one man or one party, but of a
political system that continues to betray the very citizens it is supposed to
protect and serve.” Just three years later in the face of a new crisis, Scarborough
is bashing the President for leaving too soon. He generously allows Obama to
share the blame with Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld, who bumbled into a disastrous war,
and Bremer, of course. We all have short memories I suppose. But after 4,500 deaths,
and 40,000 or so grievous injuries, we ought not to allow ourselves to be distracted
so easily. The Iraq war, after all, was
one Scarborough supported fiercely early on.
We will all watch now as truly brutal masters assert their will
in Iraq. This human catastrophe will be worse I think then Sarajevo in 1992 for
one simple reason: Americans, or at least any of us capable of honesty, will
know in their hearts the significant roles we took in unleashing this fury. Short of boots on the ground there is precious
little we can do that will have any impact, and I am fairly certain that won’t happen,
so we will watch, haunted by images of utter brutality. Let us hope this will finally cause Americans
to take stock of the limits of our power. Since 1954, the US has executed its will,
often violently on the countries of Bosnia, Cambodia, Columbia, Cuba, Chile, The
Dominican Republic, Grenada, Iraq, Iran, North and South Korea, Laos, Lebanon, Libya,
Pakistan, Somalia, North and South Vietnam, Yemen. We have fought the war on communism,
the war on drugs and the war on terrorism. Though communism pretty much
imploded under the weight of its own failure, drugs, terror, and all means of
sectarian violence consume vast portions of the human community here on our
very small earth. We have tried to remake the world in our image, often with
arrogance and ignorance. We have yet to learn the limits of our power and in allowing
and encouraging its use even after we have seen cataclysmic failure after cataclysmic
failure we have squandered our morality as a nation.
Let us all now, pray for peace… And forgiveness…
