Hurrah For a Sovereign Iraq

[selenite0]

The great experiment is going full speed ahead. Now there's an Iraqi government holding real power. Not that they can tell the US troops what to do, but that puts them in the same boat as South Korea. That's a hopeful comparison for me. South Korea is another example of a devastated country with no tradition of democracy becoming a free nation.

The Iraqis have been taking a lot more responsibility for running the infrastructure of the country as the CPA wound down. Now they've got the whole thing. Allawi can act more decisively than any American could, knowing he's not an occupier and the Iraqis will give him the benefit of the doubt instead of distrusting his motives or simply rejecting him as an "infidel." He's made it clear he's going to use that ability to crack down on the terrorists and hold elections as early as possible. I wish him luck. There's a lot of people willing to die to make Iraq either a Sunni-ruled dictatorship or a sharia-law theocracy (with some overlap between the two).

I suspect I'm going to see a lot of news stories about major screw-ups by the Iraqis presented as "See! They're incompetent! The whole effort is doomed!" I'll be pretty happy if anything goes right. There's no way for people to learn how to do a job other than actually doing it and that means mistakes. The US government has been at it a lot longer the the Iraqis and the best I hope for in any government project is for the feds to make an even number of mistakes so they might cancel out. Plus a lot of "mistakes" will probably be the results of enemy attacks. That's the problem with war. You can have a perfect plan and the enemy can trash it in a heartbeat by coming up with a new idea. You just have to keep coming up with new ideas or keep slugging it out until the other side folds.

The US was once in the position Iraq is now. Ben Franklin said we had a republic "if we can keep it." The Iraqis have a republic, and a lot of people are trying to take it from them. If they can keep it, if young Iraqis can grow up knowing they can make their own choices, then the Middle East will have a better tomorrow and we'll have averted a catastrophe worse than the world has ever seen before. That means we have to keep helping them as much as we can to make it happen. The costs in lives and cash may be more than we've lost so far but to get this far and give up--running away or leaving them to the criminals and incompetents of the United Nations--would not just dishonor those who died to get us here but guarantee a grimmer future for Iraq, for America, and the for the world as a whole.

Comments

[btripp.livejournal.com]

"Allawi can act more decisively than any American could"

This is the best hope I have for Iraq moving forward ... we could never move into the "hotbed" cities and apply sufficient muscle to get the job done, because Ted Kennedy and Al Gore would be all over Network News screaming that we were "butchering innocent civilians" ... Allawi can do exactly what needs to be done, and from his side of the table it is "rooting out the cancer of foreign terrorists and Saddamite hold-overs" ... and if a few thousand by-standers (who happen to have been harboring the bad guys all this time anyway) get taken out, well, that's the cost of "making Iraq safe for Iraqis" or something like that.


(http://www.btripp.com)

Korea

[p-o-u-n-c-e-r.livejournal.com]

The Clinton-Dole campaign pitted the last of the WW-II generation against the first of the VietNam era vets.

Pity there isn't a Korea-war era leader out there. Note that the Korean "War" still isn't settled. A cease fire is the best we've done. On the other hand, the side the US backed, authoritarian and undemocratic as the past decades have shown it to have been, has managed to feed it's people. The side "the inevitable tides of socialism" was to have lifted, has sunk into suicidal depression.

[patgund.livejournal.com]

Keeping fingers crossed that it works out. It's not quite true "Sovereignity", but it's a start. And you're right, people in that culture may react better from someone "in their own neighborhood" than from a stranger. Assuming the religious fanatics and the Sunnis don't just automatically dismiss Allawi as an satrap for the infidels.

you know...

[http://users.livejournal.com/_nymphette_/]

considering SK, I'm starting to view Iraq from a whole new perspective. I mean, I'm well aware that americans collectively lack the virtue of patience "FIX IT! NOOOOOW! OR WE'LL PROTEST!", but evenso, I always thought they were expecting an awful lot of progress in that first year without saddam. Geesh people, get a grip!


Thanks for bringing that up! : )

An experiment???

[(Anonymous)]

Does it not disturb anyone to know that, ultimately, we went to war for an "experiment?"

It is unclear to me that a war based largely on wishful thinking can also be considered a war of necessity.

Here's a test of sovereignty: if Allawi (who seems to be doing an superb job so far) and his government asked us to pull our troops out tomorrow, would we?) (Of course, I think it would be a terrible idea for him to ask that. It's just a thought experiment.)

- A

Re: An experiment???

[selenite.livejournal.com]

The preservation of the sacred fire of liberty, and the destiny of the republican model of government, are justly considered deeply, perhaps as finally, staked on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people.

George Washington, First Inaugural Address, April 30, 1789

> Does it not disturb anyone to know that, ultimately, we
> went to war for an "experiment?"

"The Great Experiment" was the Founding Father's term for our Republic, an uncertain venture that they fought a war to create. They considered it worth a war, and I think the results justify them. Democracy in Iraq is inherently an experiment. There's a lot of evidence saying it can succeed--the example of post-war Japan and the success of Arabs in US and Israeli politics--and some more against--the lack of any Arab democracies and the Islamic assertion of sharia law over any secular code. I think the odds justify the experiment. Bush has to speak as if the odds are 100% because in his position words become self-fulfilling. Any doubt he expresses will be eagerly seized upon and used by his opponents.

> It is unclear to me that a war based largely on wishful
> thinking can also be considered a war of necessity.

"War of necessity" is a question-begging term, beginning the debate with the assumption that a war should only be waged if its necessity can be proved absolutely. Actual decisions require comparing alternatives to identify the best one. Continuing the old strategy had brought us 9/11 and was becoming more difficult as the sanctions against Iraq broke down. Invading another country (say, Saudi Arabia) would have been difficult with a good part of our force tied down by Iraq, and would have risked an Iraqi attack against our flanks. Pulling out of the Middle East completely would have ceded control of the world economy to enemies who want our destruction.

If you want an argument from necessity, I'll offer the moral necessity of avoiding the worst case scenario. If we can't defeat Al Qaeda and the other Islamofascists they will eventually penetrate our defenses with an attack much greater than 9/11. A blow like that would enrage the US to the point where we would destroy the Arabs as a people. I don't want genocide on our hands--creating a democracy in Iraq is the best way to avoid it.

>
> Here's a test of sovereignty: if Allawi (who seems to be
> doing an superb job so far) and his government asked us to
> pull our troops out tomorrow,
> would we?) (Of course, I think it would be a terrible idea
> for him to ask that. It's just a thought experiment.)
>
Colin Powell says yes. I suspect we'd reserve the option to go back in if Allawi's government collapses.

Re: An experiment???

[abovenyquist.livejournal.com]

> "The Great Experiment" was the Founding Father's term for our Republic, an uncertain venture that > they fought a war to create. They considered it worth a war, and I think the results justify them.
> Democracy in Iraq is inherently an experiment.

The prime difference is that the American people chose to embark on the Great Experiement of the American Revolution, and American people made the decision that it was worth a war. In contrast, the Iraqi people did not seem to be given much choice into whether they would embark on this New Experiment. Would they have considered the war worth it, if we had asked them? Do they consider the war worth it now? Will they consider it to have been worth it 10 years from now? Will the results justify them?

For the Americans who lost loved ones in the American Revolution, the answers might be yes. To the Iraqis who were just minding their own business when Coalitian bombs landed on their house and killed most of their family - I'm not so sure. Iraq may be better of in 10 years. I really hope they are. But I doubt they will be thanking us for it even if they are.

These questions have kept me awake at night, and I'm sure they've kept you up at night too.

50 years from now, what day will the Iraqis celebrate as their independence?
The day Saddam's forces surrendered?
The day Saddam was captured?
The day (hopefully soon) that Saddam was executed?
The day of the "transfer of power"?
Or... will they be celebrating the day the "foreign occupiers" pulled out?

> some more against--the lack of any Arab democracies and the Islamic assertion of sharia law over > any secular code.

It's that last observation that makes me the most nervous about comparing Iraq to South Korea and Japan. I know little of Japanese and South Korean religions, but I suspect we didn't face the God Tells Me to Kill the Western Infedel mentality to the same degree.

> Invading another country (say, Saudi Arabia) would have been difficult with a good part of our force > tied down by Iraq, and would have risked an Iraqi attack against our flanks.

I have this vision of Rumsfeld/Cheney/etc. sitting around a room, looking at Arab countries, picking which one to overthrow first and make into a democracy. "Man, we gotta go kick _somebody's_ ass. Iraq! Yes, we've been wanting to kick their ass again for ten years. Iraq's ass is as good an ass to kick as any."

> If you want an argument from necessity, I'll offer the moral necessity of avoiding the worst case
> scenario. If we can't defeat Al Qaeda and the other Islamofascists they will eventually penetrate our > defenses with an attack much greater than 9/11.

I think therein lies our most fundamental disagreement. I agree in avoiding the worst case scenario. You feel that the administration's actions are helping to avoid that; I feel that the administration's actions are hurtling us headlong towards it. You are voting for Bush to try to avoid catastrophe. I have to vote against him (and alas, that requires voting for That Other Guy) to avoid catastrophe. If we are to defeat Al Qaeda, it would be helpful if our presence in Iraq didn't provide them with a nonstop recruiting video.

(to be continued)

Re: An experiment???

[selenite.livejournal.com]

Would they have considered the war worth it, if we had asked them?

Allawi, Chalabi, and the Kurds asked us. But it doesn't really matter if it was worth it to them. We didn't ask the German and Japanese peoples if they thought a free government would be worth it given the cost of an invasion. We did it for our benefit, not theirs.

50 years from now, what day will the Iraqis celebrate as their independence?

Hopefully the day they ratified a constitution establishing them as a democratic nation.

I suspect we didn't face the God Tells Me to Kill the Western Infedel mentality to the same degree.

Not from the Koreans, but the Bushido code made the war with Japan much more vicious than the European theatre. If you're interested the Bataan Death March and Rape of Nanking would be places to start.

You feel that the administration's actions are helping to avoid that; I feel that the administration's actions are hurtling us headlong towards it.

A key point deserving detailed discussion. What we're getting at here is the question of what motivates someone to become a suicide bomber, or to encourage someone else to be one. I'll tackle that in another post.

Re: An experiment???

[selenite.livejournal.com]

What we're getting at here is the question of what motivates someone to become a suicide bomber, or to encourage someone else to be one. I'll tackle that in another post.

http://www.livejournal.com/users/selenite/53556.html#t109364
and the following two comments.

Could we have a new mandate?

[abovenyquist.livejournal.com]

Going back to opening paragraph, of the last post the President did not come to the American people with nuanced arguments from the PNAC whitepaper about a New Experiment. Congress did not vote to embark on a New Experiment. The American people were told that Saddam was a unique threat with devastating weapons and a willingness to use them, and Congress voted to remove those threats. Donald Rumsfelt was quite sure they were in the area around Tikrit, IIRC. And, even if Saddam didn't have WMD's at the moment, he had the ways and means to develop them in rapid order, and his regime had to be removed to prevent that.

Both those missions have been accomplished!!! Bush gets a lot of flack for the Mission Accomplished banner. I won't give him flack for that. The reasons Congress authorized war was achieved. We didn't find any weapons, but that is incidental. Saddam's regime was smashed, and Saddam himself is facing trial and execution.

Mission Accomplished.

Now why are we there? If it is to conduct a New Experiment in the hopes that it will somehow, through a long chain of events riddled with unproven theories and questionable assumptions, makes us safer from global terrorism, then alright - but let us have a new resolution. Let Congress give the President a new mandate, since the original one was fulfilled.

I think the American public would support a New Experiment now, if for no other reason than we're already stuck there. Would they have supported a war against Iraq for a New Experiment, if it was known the Saddam didn't possess WMD's? I'm not so sure.

"Of course they don't like being occupied. I wouldn't like being occupied either." - G.W. Bush

Re: Could we have a new mandate?

[selenite.livejournal.com]

Going back to opening paragraph, of the last post the President did not come to the American people with nuanced arguments from the PNAC whitepaper about a New Experiment.

The opening of the campaign to get an Iraq war decision was Bush's 9/12/02 speech to the United Nations (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/09/20020912-1.html). Some quotes:



That's what Bush said. If the newspapers didn't print it, whose fault is that? I'll grant Bush was foolish to let WMDs take over the debate in the place of greater goals, but it was the price of getting a UN resolution.

Now why are we there?

The job's not done. There's a start on it, yes. But if we pulled out right now Iraq would collapse into chaos. Iran would invade to overthrow secular government. Saudi Arabia would invade to keep down the Shiites. Turkey would invade to keep down the Kurds. Syria would invade to loot. Terrorist groups would try to set up their own fiefdoms as the PLO did in Lebanon. The Iraqis who've been cooperating with each other to rebuild the country would consider the effort doomed and concentrate on grabbing what they could for their own clan.

Worst of all, Osama's prediction that the Americans will run if you keep hitting will be vindicated. Honor and fear rule many decisions. Machiavelli's assessments still hold. We must appear strong, not just be strong, to be safe in the short run. The long run will depend on the experiment succeeding.

Let Congress give the President a new mandate, since the original one was fulfilled.

I think the people will be handing out a mandate this November. Bush is certainly saying he's going to continue advancing freedom as our strategy for victory:
"If that region grows in democracy and prosperity and hope, the terrorist movement will lose its sponsors, lose its recruits, and lose the festering grievances that keep terrorists in business." (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/06/20040602.html)
I'd urge you to read that entire speech.