President Bush has begun to be more realistic in talking about Iraq, admitting that it is difficult going but remaining confident about eventual success. But conservative columnist George Will thinks Bush needs to go further. “Accentuate the negative and eliminate the positive — that is, emphasize the dangers of failure and de-emphasize talk about Iraq’s becoming a democracy that ignites emulative transformation in the Middle East,” Will advised. On that last point, Will said: “Three years ago the administration had a theory: Democratic institutions do not just spring from a hospitable culture, they can also create such a culture. That theory has been a casualty of the war.”
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
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10 Comments
It’s time for Bush to wake up and smell the coffee.
Ben Huie,
Don’t count on it. They’ll go on defending their collective fantasy about ‘democratization,’ and calling anyone a racist who points out that the historical conditions in Iraq (sectarian divisions and a tribal political culture) are unfavorable to the development of democratic institutions. This gang never was one to let the facts get in the way of a good attempt to exhibit their power.
It has been fun to watch George Will come around, however. He’s a weasel and a shill, but he, at least, still has something like a functioning reality principle. That’s more than one can say for George (’pass the Crown Royal’) or Dick (’if I say it, it’s true’).
Right to both.
This war was lost before we even went in. Anybody who knows anything about history could see it coming up fifth avenue.
The real question is the one that Helen Thomas asked the President in the press conference Tuesday–why did we really go in?
My theory: Saddam Hussein nationalized the oil fields and actually used the money to improve Iraq.
The Bush administration is very tolerant of anything except cutting profits to big corporations exploiting weak countries.
Trudy Rubin had a good editorial in The Eagle today. She has been right on with almost everything she said would come to pass.
You know, I suspect that President Bush has dismissed George Will’s advice out of hand. Probably didn’t get past the headline, “Bleakness in Baghdad,” even.
Why? Not optimistic enough. Neither is Will’s advice, obviously. Maybe I’m wrong, I sure hope so.
I’d like to see Will develop this idea further, however; it’s interesting and he may be right.
The money paragraphs, imo (from Phillip’s link):
“In Spain [during the Spanish Civil War of 1936-39], the security forces were united and in three years were victorious. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Gen. John Abizaid, U.S. commander in the Middle East, recently said that Iraqi forces would cope with a civil war “to the extent they’re able to” (Rumsfeld) and “they’ll handle it with our help” (Abizaid). Their problematic assumption is that Iraq’s security forces have a national loyalty and will not fracture along the fissures of Iraq’s sectarian society.
Tom Ricks, military correspondent for The Post, has doubts. He recently returned from his fifth visit to Iraq. In March 2003 he thought that the invasion was a strategic mistake in the struggle against terrorism. His assessment of subsequent events is the title of his book, coming in September: “Fiasco.” Now, however, he thinks that a U.S. withdrawal would leave chaos that might lead to radical Islamists acquiring what they most want: Saudi oil fields and Pakistani nuclear weapons. So America, he thinks, needs a plan to reduce fatalities to two or three a week, then two or three a month.
But who, he wonders, will control the likes of Moqtada al-Sadr? Imagine, Ricks says, another cleric, the Rev. Al Sharpton, controlling the Bronx with a militia he can call into the streets at any time…”
Ricks’s opinions about SA oil fields and Pakistani (AQ Khan, that is) nukes deserve serious consideration, imo.
After all, Ricks is correct: Iraq was a terrible strategic blunder in the GWOT. He may very well be correct that stabilizing Iraq is in our best interests.
We owe it to ourselves to ensure that any blowback from our Iraqi mistake can’t hurt us.
Democracy in Iraq be damned (I agree with Wills), I’ll happily settle for stability if Ricks is correct. Especially if the whole enchilida is on our dime.
Frickin’ Bush, sheesh.
Study alleges US sets aside own security interest for Israel’s
Research paper by two leading academics on US-Israel relationship ignites controversy.
By Tom Regan | csmonitor.com
“A research paper by two leading American political scientists alleges that the US relationship with Israel is not good for US security, and that the Israeli lobby in the US, particularly the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee, has helped exaggerate to the US media and public the importance of making the protection of Israel a key part of US foreign policy.John J. Mearsheimer, a professor of political science and a co-director of the Program on International Security Policy at the University of Chicago, and Stephen M. Walt, academic dean of the Kennedy School, published their paper, “The Israeli Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy,” on the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University website. A shorter version was also published by the London Review of Books.
Mr. Mearsheimer and Mr. Walt question the relationship between the two allies right from the beginning of the paper:
The US national interest should be the primary object of American foreign policy. For the past several decades, however, and especially since the Six Day War in 1967, the centerpiece of US Middle East policy has been its relationship with Israel. The combination of unwavering US support for Israel and the related effort to spread democracy throughout the region has inflamed Arab and Islamic opinion and jeopardized US security.
This situation has no equal in American political history. Why has the United States been willing to set aside its own security in order to advance the interests of another state? One might assume that the bond between the two countries is based on shared strategic interests or compelling moral imperatives. As we show below, however, neither of those explanations can account for the remarkable level of material and diplomatic support that the United States provides to Israel.
The 81-page paper then says that the “overall thrust of US policy in the region is due almost entirely to US domestic politics, and especially to the activities of the ‘Israel Lobby.’” While other special interest groups have skewed US policy in their favor, the authors write that no group has been so successful at diverting the US national interest from what it should be as the Israel lobby, “while simultaneously convincing Americans that US and Israeli interests are essentially identical.”
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0321/dailyUpdate.html
I’ll be damned, the CS Monitor.
Woo hoo!!!
Ed, I’ve long suspected that your problem hereabouts has more to do with marketing than model (content).
;)
I believe Cafferty made a good point last night. If someone were to blow up ST. Patricks Cathedral and in teh weeks to come 50-60 people die daily on the streets of NY, would the media report about it.. of course they would.
When people finally realize that the news they are getting is really what’s happening then we can begin to find a real solution.
If this soldier’s experience is representative – IF – then Will’s advice is advice the president needs to heed.
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/huffpost/20060324/cm_huffpost/017778
…So, I asked “The Cardinal [a soldier in Iraq]” one simple question: “What do you say when people say the media doesn’t tell enough good news stories out of Iraq?”
His response:
“I never hear that because we all here know the good news stories are bullshit and do not really affect the mission in any way. It’s like this thing we keep saying here about all the new people we’ve recruited for the iraqi police. It leaves out the fact that my platoon was in a 40 minute gun fight with the iraqi police. So you recruited more of them … awesome! I am sure that will make everything better. Also, they don’t do ANYTHING. They don’t even leave their building, and that is not an exaggeration. They don’t. So what good is a billion-man police force that doesn’t do anything? Also, they get almost no training. They tried to stand up some kind of mentoring initiative here using the guardsmen that are civilian cops, but it so far has fallen through. They will get set up to be killed, as is already suspected of the THREE SVBIEDs that have hit their station. Inside jobs, all. During our fight with them, we picked up the police chief (who was riding in a car that was shooting at a coalition vehicle — an M1A1. You know how that story ends) and he was with a guy (who it turned out was his nephew) who had this radical islamic terrorist literature on him. It would be a joke if it weren’t costing our lives.
“the iraqi army is making progress and we’re handing over more and more to them everyday.” Complete bullshit. What’s the good news in the fact that all their logistics, medical, engineering, staff function, etc. is being done by us? ALL OF IT. And PS, they’re not being trained on any of the other shit, either, except a broken medical training program.
You can clearly see by reading the news how much it matters that X number of people have power now. The bottom line is, the overwhelming majority of people live in fear. We can do NOTHING to help them. We don’t have anywhere near the manpower, and our actions are too severely restricted. Good thing 2500 people died for this.
What are the good news stories? I would love to hear them. Spare me the heart warming tales of a single family or school or neighborhood that was helped. Operation Iraqi Freedom is, at this point, an abject failure. This is the most dangerous place on earth and it’s getting worse, not better.
Also, you have to consider that our definition of good news is not the iraqi definition of good news. These people are not americans. Culturally, they do not respect or appreciate the same things we do. “Our neighborhood has power now! It’s about time, infidels. What about the water?” “Hey, thanks for the medicine for our clinic! I’m still totally supporting the insurgency, but at least i can provide them better medical care now.” Giving them shit does not win their allegiance. They don’t think, “wow, I was wrong about americans.” It just gives them shit.
The “we don’t hear good news from Iraq” mindset is one that is totally ignorant of Iraqi culture. There is no good news. There’s a bunch of people getting handed shit, and it doesn’t change a single thing.”
———————————-
If this soldier is correct about Iraq as a whole, then when the truth is known the president’s pollyanna act (e.g., Tal Afar) will kill dead any American support for Iraqi nation-building.
I sure hope President Bush’s famous optimism doesn’t cloud his judgement here, for all our sakes.
Yea flike. We wouldnt want king george to be blinded by the light, er, the optimistic yellow rug.