31 May 2006
The British Exit Strategy
In the Sunday Times of London on 21 May, Simon Jenkins wrote that “The Fantasy is Over” in Iraq. Partition is the only rational solution to the current dilemma. It was a dream to believe that the failed state there could ever be preserved in a neocon instilled democracy. The divisions in its population do not share enough of a civic culture to live together in peace without dictatorial suppression by a local tyrant or a foreign occupier. The British and American publics, however, do not have the stomach, patience, or cynicism to play that second role.
It was, after all, the British who carved the state of Iraq out of a jumble of conflicting peoples following WWI, and handed it to an Arab leader whom they made king. At one time, British intellectuals and politicians had enough power at their disposal to protect what needed to be in place in Iraq for the maintenance of order. Now the only world power is the U.S., and the U.S. administration is powerless when faced with media-savvy humanitarians, neocon philosophers and warfare-seeking industrialists on whom financing for its political existence depends.
The British, of course, have reached this conclusion before, most notably and tragically in India. But the whole West resigned itself to the breakup of Yugoslavia more recently, and there is no sanctimony to holding unfriendly neighbors together in unworkable states, democratic or otherwise. It was not clearly worthwhile to invest limitless financial and human resources into overthrowing Saddam. It is certainly not worth continued investment to pursue ephemeral democratic ideals in a political entity that will self-destruct in the absence of a strong authoritarian regime.
In the Sunday Times of London on 21 May, Simon Jenkins wrote that “The Fantasy is Over” in Iraq. Partition is the only rational solution to the current dilemma. It was a dream to believe that the failed state there could ever be preserved in a neocon instilled democracy. The divisions in its population do not share enough of a civic culture to live together in peace without dictatorial suppression by a local tyrant or a foreign occupier. The British and American publics, however, do not have the stomach, patience, or cynicism to play that second role.
It was, after all, the British who carved the state of Iraq out of a jumble of conflicting peoples following WWI, and handed it to an Arab leader whom they made king. At one time, British intellectuals and politicians had enough power at their disposal to protect what needed to be in place in Iraq for the maintenance of order. Now the only world power is the U.S., and the U.S. administration is powerless when faced with media-savvy humanitarians, neocon philosophers and warfare-seeking industrialists on whom financing for its political existence depends.
The British, of course, have reached this conclusion before, most notably and tragically in India. But the whole West resigned itself to the breakup of Yugoslavia more recently, and there is no sanctimony to holding unfriendly neighbors together in unworkable states, democratic or otherwise. It was not clearly worthwhile to invest limitless financial and human resources into overthrowing Saddam. It is certainly not worth continued investment to pursue ephemeral democratic ideals in a political entity that will self-destruct in the absence of a strong authoritarian regime.
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