THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume VIII, Issue # 61, March 27, 2006
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
RE-THINKING IRAQ
By Alan Caruba
UNITED STATES POLICY IN IRAQ & THE MIDDLE EAST: WILL THE POLICY SUCCEED? CAN IRAQ BE TRANSFORMED INTO A
PEACEFUL NATION, WITH A STABLE, FULLY FUNCTIONAL CONSTITUTIONAL DEMOCRATIC SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT?
CAN THE MIDDLE EAST BE "CONNECTED" TO THE MODERN WORLD? WHAT WE MUST NEVER LOSE SIGHT OF: THE
BACKWARDNESS & ABYSMAL IGNORANCE OF ARABS & THEIR ABILITY TO REJECT EVERY OPPORTUNITY TO JOIN THE
MODERN COMMUNITY OF NATIONS & WORK TOWARD A MORE PEACEFUL, INTEGRATED WORLDWIDE MARKETPLACE
FULL STORY:
Americans are at a place roughly analogous to the end of World War II. They wanted to demobilize the huge military machine
that defeated our enemies and there was much opposition to the Marshall Plan to save Europe from Soviet domination. It was
“mission accomplished” and to hell with the rest of the world. Only the rest of the world was not about to comply.
President George W. Bush has between now and January 20, 2009, to secure a miracle in Iraq. If, by then, Iraq has not
established a fully functional, independent government, Bush's legacy is likely to be perceived as an ill-conceived effort to
remove Saddam Hussein’s regime and replace it with a regime that would provide a base from which U.S. military forces could
threaten the Iranian leadership of the Islamic Revolution.
The irony of this is that the United States did in Iraq what the Iranians most wanted done, the removal of Saddam Hussein.
They had fought Iraq for eight years during the 1980s, losing about 300,000, with a million more wounded and captured. That
would have been the population equivalent of a million American war dead and 4 million wounded and captured.
As George Friedman [1] suggests in a March 21, 2006, intelligence analysis published by Stratfor, [2] “Not to put too fine a point on
it, but the real players in Iraq are now going to sit down and see if they can reach some decisions about the country’s future.”
The Iranians have concluded the situation is too unpredictable and that Bush needs a deal. They’re right.
Support for our current occupation of Iraq is diminishing as Americans, unmindful of how long and how costly it was to
replace the regimes of World War II Japan and Germany, and influenced by the U.S. debacle in Vietnam, begin to rethink their
view of the actions taken in Iraq. Part of the problem is that the U.S. expected to find an intact Iraqi government, but
discovered there wasn’t one. A year was lost in improvisational efforts and, yes, mistakes.
Despite growing evidence Saddam was just waiting to revive his plans for weapons of mass destruction, impatient Americans
have already forgotten that he invaded Iran and later invaded Kuwait. Had nothing been done in the latter case, Saddam
would surely have invaded Saudi Arabia next and controlled the vast bulk of Middle East oil. The U.S. was not about to allow
that.
It is conjectured that, in the aftermath of 9-11, the neoconservatives in the White House saw an opportunity to take a strategic
leap to transform the Middle East by asserting the military power of the United States. Only the future will tell us whether this
bold effort will “connect” the Middle East to the modern world by the introduction of constitutional democratic reforms. I
think the President and his advisors believed the region’s Arab population could or would put aside the debilitating internal
animosities of Islam to embrace Western-style “freedom.”
There are four words that every pundit loves to say. “I told you so.”
On August 17, 2005, I penned “The Iraq Illusion,” a commentary that offered a sober look at the situation at that time. “In the
midst of our desire to see a happy outcome in Iraq, we must never lose sight of the ability of Arabs to reject every opportunity
to join the modern community of nations, i.e., the industrialized West and those in Asia who are working toward a more
peaceful, integrated worldwide marketplace.”
Even with the great wealth generated by oil, the nations of the Middle East have little to offer to their people and the world.
They are, collectively, the most backward peoples in the world, save possibly for the nations of northern Africa, where Islam is
also the dominant faith. Despite oil, largely under the control of a few “royal” families or a handful of demented Iranian mullahs,
you have a region whose population is defined by its great poverty, ignorance, and long history of oppression.
I wrote that “The present post-Saddam Iraq is a Humpty Dumpty sitting on the narrow edge of a proposed new constitution
in a place where the rule of law has never really existed, let alone notions that include the equal status of women or even the
concept of private property.”
In a world where the United States maintains diplomatic and back channel relations with nations that are every bit as
inhospitable to human freedom and constitutional democracy, the invasion and occupation of Iraq has the look of an act of
hubris based — at least publicly — on the notion of an American Empire whose global responsibility is to spread freedom
and constitutional democracy.
In theory, that may seem like a good idea. In practice, you get Iraq.
In practice, you have the thugocracy of Syria that has no interest in a modern, constitutional democratic Iraq. Others like
Turkey have a long history of hostility to the Kurds, so they see no reason to encourage their success. The British have
already announced a timetable for the withdrawal of their troops.
It’s been three years since the U.S.A. invaded and swiftly deposed Saddam Hussein. As this is being written, while much of
the nation of Iraq is relatively peaceful, the chaos roiling in Baghdad, Samara, and other urban centers continues. It’s the
kind of insurgency with which our military is not designed to deal. Swift battles and swift victories are our métier. Today the
emphasis is on developing an Iraqi armed force, and that takes time.
Despite the daily reports in the mainstream media, if one visits the blogs by Iraqis reporting on events there, one comes
away with the impression that things are going better than what we are being told. Compared to life under Saddam, I
suppose anything is better, but what hasn’t changed is the endemic corruption of that society. What hasn’t changed are
the antagonisms between Islamic sects that date back centuries. That’s not an especially good platform for modernization.
For Iran, though, the uncertainly about Iraq’s future is even worse than it is for Americans. As Friedman says of the public
agreement between the U.S.A. and Iran for talks about Iraq,
“…the fact is that Tehran will work on nukes as and when it wants,
and Washington will destroy the nukes as and when it wants. The
nukes are non-issues in the real negotiations.”
The Middle East is a very ancient part of the world. It has resisted change for a very long time. It is likely to continue
resisting change. Arabs, in particular, live in a continual state of denial, preferring a mythic past to the future. The Islamic
Revolution is a constant threat to drag all of us back to the seventh century.
Increasingly, we’re told, Americans deem the Iraq invasion and occupation a mistake. The bigger mistake, however, would
have been to do nothing after the United States was attacked on 9-11. That’s how we responded to all the attacks that
preceded 9-11 since the late 1970s. Islamists concluded we were weak and vulnerable. After the Holocaust, the Jews vowed
“Never again.” Americans must do the same after 9-11.
The question we all must answer is whether, like our parent’s and grandparent’s generation, we have the patience to wage a
long war against an ideological enemy as evil as the former Soviet Union?
NOTES:
[1]
Dr. George Friedman, Ph.D., is an internationally recognized expert in security and intelligence issues relating to national
security, information warfare, and computer security. He is Founder, Chairman and Chief Intelligence Officer of Stratfor.
[2] Stratfor (Strategic Forecasting, Inc.) is a leading security consulting firm that provides corporations, governments, and
individuals with forecasting services on world events, terrorism and terrorist threats, and other political, economic, and
security issues vital its clients' interests. Stratfor specializes in providing situational awareness, focus and actionable
intelligence in the areas of geopolitics, security, and public policy to help its clients manage risk, i.e., prepare for
uncertainties and take action for maximizing results.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
The Middle East & the Problem of Iraq
Page Two
Page One
The Problem of Rogue States:
Iraq as a Case History
National Strategy for Victory in Iraq
Middle East -- Arabs, Arab States,
& Their Middle Eastern Neighbors
Islamism & Jihadism -- The Threat of Radical Islam
Page Three
Page Two
Page One
War & Peace in the Real World
Page Two
Page One
Islamist Terrorist Attacks on the U.S.A.
Osama bin Laden & the Islamist Declaration of War
Against the U.S.A. & Western Civilization
Islamist International Terrorism &
U.S. Intelligence Agencies
Counterterrorism & U.S. National Security
U.S. National Security Strategy
Alan Caruba is a veteran business and science writer, a Public Relations Counselor, and Founder of the National Anxiety Center, a
clearinghouse for information about media-driven scare campaigns. Caruba writes a weekly commentary, "Warning Signs," posted
on the Internet website of the National Anxiety Center, which is located at
www.anxietycenter.com.
© Alan Caruba 2006
Published with Permission of Alan Caruba
ACaruba@AOL.Com
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