22 May 2004
Admitting the Error of Invading Iraq
No. The U.S., Britain, the other Coalition partners shouldn’t pull out of Iraq – cut and run. It is time, though, for liberal supporters of the invasion to admit that they were duped. This was never a matter of Weapons of Mass Destruction. Nor was it a matter of international terrorism or removal of a dictator. Those arguments, convincing as they might have been, only covered for avenging a death threat to the father of the current U.S. President.
Saddam was an odious oppressor, true; but he kept order and prevented his land from harboring uncontrollable elements like Al Qaeda. Now that he is gone, the Coalition occupation faces resistance from violent nationalists -- “insurgents.” They have every right to seek the ouster of a foreign invader. Tragically, their resort to inhumane methods was inevitable because of the inhumanity of their previous ruler, not to mention the invitation their situation has presented to fundamentalist Islamic terrorists to take advantage.
But now we in America are stuck in Iraq. Our kith and kin are losing their lives and limbs in a conflict that was not necessary to protect our security. (Here is its real similarity to Vietnam. Fortunately, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld found a way to fight such an impetuous war without incurring massive casualties.) But by leaving before putting in place a system for keeping civil order and sustaining personal welfare the Coalition will abandon a hopeless state with no peaceful process for resolving its ethnic divisions.
The logic of Tony Blair’s membership in the Coalition is revealed in that the ultimate outcome of the invasion of Iraq will be to clean up a mess created nearly a century ago when Britain thought it should rescue the remains of the Ottoman Empire. Let us hope the natural wealth of Iraq is great enough and sufficiently widespread to buffer the disintegration of its geopolitical straight jacket.
No. The U.S., Britain, the other Coalition partners shouldn’t pull out of Iraq – cut and run. It is time, though, for liberal supporters of the invasion to admit that they were duped. This was never a matter of Weapons of Mass Destruction. Nor was it a matter of international terrorism or removal of a dictator. Those arguments, convincing as they might have been, only covered for avenging a death threat to the father of the current U.S. President.
Saddam was an odious oppressor, true; but he kept order and prevented his land from harboring uncontrollable elements like Al Qaeda. Now that he is gone, the Coalition occupation faces resistance from violent nationalists -- “insurgents.” They have every right to seek the ouster of a foreign invader. Tragically, their resort to inhumane methods was inevitable because of the inhumanity of their previous ruler, not to mention the invitation their situation has presented to fundamentalist Islamic terrorists to take advantage.
But now we in America are stuck in Iraq. Our kith and kin are losing their lives and limbs in a conflict that was not necessary to protect our security. (Here is its real similarity to Vietnam. Fortunately, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld found a way to fight such an impetuous war without incurring massive casualties.) But by leaving before putting in place a system for keeping civil order and sustaining personal welfare the Coalition will abandon a hopeless state with no peaceful process for resolving its ethnic divisions.
The logic of Tony Blair’s membership in the Coalition is revealed in that the ultimate outcome of the invasion of Iraq will be to clean up a mess created nearly a century ago when Britain thought it should rescue the remains of the Ottoman Empire. Let us hope the natural wealth of Iraq is great enough and sufficiently widespread to buffer the disintegration of its geopolitical straight jacket.
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