When I first saw this Fox caption capture from Media Matters linked at Surfdom, I thought it was some sort of aberration. But the idea that civil war in Iraq would be a good thing has already made it into the opinion pages of the Oz, propounded by Daniel Pipes. The same from James Joyner and Vodkapundit, though Glenn Reynolds demurs mildly.
Meanwhile, as Tim D notes, doublethink is SOP at Fox. As far as I can tell, the official pro-war position now emerging is
* there is no civil war in Iraq
* there will be no civil war in Iraq
* if civil war comes, it won’t be our fault
* when civil war comes, it will be a good thing
Unfortunately, at this point there’s not much anyone can do. The US and Uk have long since lost control of the situation, and the dynamic has gone beyond the control of any individual or group in Iraq. We’ll just have to hope that the Iraqi leaders (Sistani and Sadr on the Shia side, and the various groups contending to represent the Sunni Arabs and Kurds, among others) can pull something out of the fire between them.
John Quiggin 
John you are skillfully identifying a viewpoint (‘denialism’) and asserting your view of the situation (‘its hopeless’ but you ‘just have to hope’). Currently I do not believe there is civil war in Iraq. Just Iraqi people who can co-exist, who are fairly westernised, and who mainly reject terrorism and sectarianism. Basically they couldn’t care less about ideology if they can get on with their lives. If the US acts, as Bush in Salon today suggests he plans to act, there will be a major bloodbath in Iraq. As usual the left will sidestep its culpability for such a disater by asserting the (possibly correct though irrelevant) assertion that the Americans should not have been there in the first place. I think you leave yourself exposed if you put yourself in this loose-thinking camp. The US has a responsibility towards Iraq – they must help rebuild and establish a non-sectarian administration.
As for Daniel Pipes,who along with Richard peale is one of the most hard -line Zionist in the WEashington pack,it was said recently in “Counterpunch” that many of the “Likudniks” in Washington see civil war in Iraq,as suiting Israel’s agenda,which is to see the Arab world “balkanised” into small states(like the 3 states that would emerge from a shattered Iraq)none of which would present a challenge to Israel
JQ,
I suppose to be pedantic, there won’t be civil war in Iraq because the war won’t be located within the current Iraqi borders (after the first five minutes). Iran is the big winner now and in the looming war. They’ll get actively involved, plus they’ve got the American’s hostage while they stay in the Gulf. If that’s not bad enough, even more worrying for Washington is the Saudis will get dragged into it by domestic Shia revolt. Then the Jordanians, then the Syrians. And then the Egyptians will send troops. The thing is shaping as an Iranian Shia versus Arabic Sunni showdown. I don’t know how it can be averted. The only bright spark is that the Turks can be pressured into not invading the (soon to be) new Kurdish country. The EU carrot can see to that.
For Pipes to say civil war will be a good thing is incredibly stupid. This war could easily precipitate global depression.
Harry, I don’t quite get the ” left will sidestep it’s culpability” thing.
What culpabilty? (and what ‘left’??)
Harry Clarke says:
There is no such culpability.
The Bart Simpson defence – “I didn’t do it” – is a favourite of right wing crazies, but I think that nearly everyone is on to you now.
Just read the Pipes article. He’s a real wingnut!
US intervention in Iraq was a “glory of US foreign policy” and the ensuing push for democracy (so claimed) was an example of “American idealism”, drenched in nobility of purpose but, alas, unable to rehabilitate Iraq. Casting gloom to one side, a civil war will be good because it will prevent the emergence of a popularly elected, possibly Islamist, Govt in Iraq.
That US ‘idealism’ about democracy, ain’t it just grand.
It makes me wonder if The Aus. actually paid Pipes for that drivel?
A grade shiite.
Nils Axel Moerner is not a sea level specialist, if you are to believe the wiki entry on sea level rise. Talk about Orwellian censorship….
The printable page version of the Pipes article is, as usual with the Australian’s pages, far more readable even when browsing.
It is a sad reflection on the Australian thta an idiot and bigot like Pipes gets space in it.
I wonder if there has been a concious decision to encourage a civil war in Iraq? With the likely loss of control of the country to an Iranian ally it might be a logical, if morally bankrupt, thing to do.
Call me a conspiracy nut but we know that even though Fox News talking points can be Orwellian, they are not random.
The Oz is now only worth buying on Saturdays – and even then only for the Review section.
I think Harry’s point re: “left will sidestep it’s culpability” is that “the left’ has been cheering every failiure not matter big or small in Iraq as fulfillment of its own prophecies. Which it now continues to do, by almost extolling the eventuality of a civil war.
Seems to us, that the ‘civil war’ is being promoted by ‘the left’ as a outcome thereby proving the neo-cons wrong; but also by a radical fundamentailist insurgency which seems to not have any real or substantial support from the Iraqi people.
This is the reverse of the truth, WbyW. It’s the right that has cheered on every disastrous development in Iraq from the invasion itself, to the looting that followed, to the two campaigns in Fallujah and the mini-wars against Sadr. This has continued right up to the present as noted in the post above, with Pipes and others cheering on the civil war that appears only too likely.
But of course, regardless of any attitudes that might have been expressed, the left has no culpability for bad outcomes in Iraq (or responsibility for good outcomes) since it has had no influence on developments there. Taking Australia as an example, Howard not only ignored the opposition to the war in the first place, but sent more troops after the 2004 election, despite promises to the contrary. The same is true in other CoW member countries.
I’m not and was never a supported of the war in Iraq, but I think a civil war now might mean pain now for gain later, since it could lead to a division of the county whereby groups that don’t exactly think too highly of each other are separated finally. I therefore think there is potential upside to the final point.
The Orwellian reference is quite apt.
Pipes is a much-credentialed veteran of the Straussian “noble lie”. As a member of the so-called B-Team in the 1980s Pipes was instrumental in deliberately talking up Soviet military capabilities with a view to encouraging a US arms build up. This had good short-term effects, but so did the first few yells of the Boy Who Cried Wolf.
Let’s look at Pipes’s predictions. According to him a civil war in Iraq would:
1. “Invite Syrian and Iranian participation, hastening the possibility of a US confrontation with those two states, with which tensions are already high.”
Tension yes. But the US is now thoroughly gun-shy. As predicted, in Iraq the US has exposed its weakness and irresolution.
2. “Terminate the dream of Iraq serving as a model for other Middle Eastern countries, thus delaying the push towards elections. This will have the effect of keeping Islamists from being legitimated by the popular vote, as Hamas was just a month ago.”
So all of Bush’s blather about liberty and freedom can be consigned to the memory tubes!
3. “Reduce coalition casualties in Iraq.”
Does this imply that the COW will stay in Iraq while civil war swirls around them? Get Real! If they stay in Iraq, the COW will be drawn into supporting one side or another. (My prediction is a coalition of Kurdish and Sunni forces). This will result in more casualties.
4. “Reduce Western casualties outside Iraq.”
What can be less than zero??? How many people have died outside Iraq as a result of the War in Iraq.
At another level, is Pipes implying that the London bombings were provoked by the Iraq war? If so, then increasing violence in Iraq that will inevitably involve the COW and still more Islamists elsewhere are likely to seek to wreak revenge.
Actually the most perceptive critics of the invasion of Iraq were from the right.
Eagleburger and Scowcroft look positively prescient.
There has been no larger critic than the Cato institute.
“I think Harry’s point re: “left will sidestep it’s culpabilityâ€? is that “the left’ has been cheering every failiure not matter big or small in Iraq as fulfillment of its own prophecies. Which it now continues to do, by almost extolling the eventuality of a civil war.”
What a quaint notion of causality!
Perhaps the Left practised witchcraft causing the proponents of the war to be possessed by demons!
Spooky!
Prof. Quiggin says: “The US and Uk have long since lost control of the situation…”. But there is still a major card they can play. They can leave.
Some of the more extreme elements of the right have cheered, and Pipes’ is certainly extreme, but most of us on the right have been pretty dismayed by what has happened since the invasion.
Indeed. An observation that applies far more generally than Iraq. Why do you think that is jquiggin? Are we on the right just ignorant philistines who ignore the clear-thinking left at our peril? Or could it be that you lot have been advocating failed and/or unpopular policies for so long now that even when you might be right no-one listens to you?
The Orwellian parallel is sadly apt, it is like a certain writer who in a long book says 1) there were no massacres of aboriginals; 2) if there it was because Europeans were provoked and 3) anyway contemporary moral standards don’t apply to judgements of the past.
In Iraq good intentions, and I think they were there among many in the US administration, don’t make for good outcomes. The tragedy is that most Iraqis continue to believe that the overthrow of Saddam and the invasion were worthwhile and I dread for their fate if the current Iraqi government is overthrown. It is the welfare and freedom of the Iraqi people (the major victims of terrorism in the world today) that should be the priority. The question is not what to think but what to do.
See Pipes on Lateline. Very scary the way he can segue from saying that a civil war would be a humanitarian disaster … but we shouldn’t try to stop it.
‘As a member of the so-called B-Team in the 1980s Pipes was instrumental in deliberately talking up Soviet military capabilities with a view to encouraging a US arms build up.’
You’re not confusing Daniel Pipes with his father Richard, are you Katz? I thought they strictly stuck to their respective spheres of war-mongering.
“You’re not confusing Daniel Pipes with his father Richard, are you Katz? I thought they strictly stuck to their respective spheres of war-mongering.”
Whoops! Sorry.
Leaving now might precipitate a civil war, is that the preferred option?
The US has said they will leave if asked by a (legitimate) Iraqi govt and I think Bush said the decision to leave by the US would be made by the generals not politicians in Washington. No Iraqi govt has asked the US to leave.
The Right Wing is highly perceptive, and realise that NO cost is too high to defeat Emmanuel Goldstein.
Katz Says: March 3rd, 2006 at 8:43 am “Perhaps the Left practised witchcraft causing the proponents of the war to be possessed by demons!”
So why is the far-Left so protective of Islam? Karl marx and opium and all that! http://weekbyweek7.blogspot.com/2006/03/socialists-defend-religion-high-on.html#links
Dogz wrote
Indeed. An observation that applies far more generally than Iraq. Why do you think that is jquiggin? Are we on the right just ignorant philistines who ignore the clear-thinking left at our peril? Or could it be that you lot have been advocating failed and/or unpopular policies for so long now that even when you might be right no-one listens to you?
There has been a failure of leftit/progressive ideas to make changes where change is required. The ME is a good example. There have been decades of repressive government (of all sorts) that can only be viewed with dismay. Despite recent posturing over democracy and freedom by Bush et. al., the views expressed by the extreme D. Pipes are pretty much what the right sees as the way forward.
They are all for freedom for others, as long as that freedom is about wanting what the US wants them to want.
Is it simply a matter of being ineffectual? Afterall, even the Bush/Pipes crowd general feel the need to pay lip service to those ideals. It isn’t enough to blame them. People who know there is a better way have to make the arguments convincingly.
Not that it’s quite as desperate as Dogz suggests. The overwhelming popular opposition to the Iraq war and the degree of mendacity needed to be employed by it’s supporters, indicates that progress is being made.
JQ,
I’m probably being a bit thick, but is there somewhere on your blog that gives instructions on how to format a reply. I haven’t a clue.
Cheers.
“There has been a failure of leftit/progressive ideas to make changes where change is required. The ME is a good example. There have been decades of repressive government (of all sorts) that can only be viewed with dismay.”
There are many “Lefts”. In fact the Left is notorious for splittist fratricide. So whatever Dogz correctly says about one variant of the Left will be wrong about another variant. Let’s not forget that Albert Langer, a Leftist’s Leftist, supported the Iraq War.
Let’s talk about my sort of Left: Left Libertarians. We tend to believe that violence is often counterproductive, especially when violence is bound up with identity–religious, racial, class, sexual. Nevertheless we tend to be optimistic that the historical record indicates that the various tribal and cosmological atavisms that have driven humanity for so long are in a long process of decline. Bellicosity and insensitivity tend to fan these flames, as is the case with Islamism today. Patience, sensitivity and the judicious application of gentle ridicule will do more to achieve sustainable outcomes than any amount of “Shock and Awe.”
Wingnuts and Jihadists are having their season right now. They live in a mutually supportive but unsustainable symbiosis with each other. Eventually, the people will tire of them and a season of sanity will follow.
History is going in the right direction, but it is taking a crooked path.
it was said recently in “Counterpunch� that many of the “Likudniks� in Washington see civil war in Iraq,as suiting Israel’s agenda
yes it was but it goes back much further than that, this is from a paper written by Israeli journalist Oded Yinon (formerly also of thier foreign ministry) as far back as 1982
The dissolution of Syria and Iraq later on into ethnically or religiously unique areas such as in Lebanon is Israel’s primary target in the long run, while the dissolution of the military power of those states serves as the primary short term target, he writes. Iraq, rich in oil on the one hand and internally torn on the other, is guaranteed as a candidate for Israel’s targets, says Yinon. Its dissolution is even more important for us than that of Syria. In the short run it is Iraqi power which constitutes the greatest threat to Israel. Every kind of inter-Arab confrontation will assist us in the short run and will shorten the way to the more important aim of breaking up Iraq into denominations as in Syria and Lebanon. In Iraq, three or more states will exist around the three major cities: Basra, Baghdad and Mosul.
http://cgi.stanford.edu/group/wais/cgi-bin/index.php?p=2248
i think pipes is an idiot, but he is very close to the powerful idiots and gives clear insight into the current thinking,
that he is carried by so-called mainstream media is disgusting
Watched the lateline interview on tv last night – boy was I screaming at Daniel Pipes – so smug and just so morally and intellectually corrupt. I guess this is why he is shilling for Bush enthusiasts / Howard Foreign Policy enthusiasts.
Good to see a journalist having good follow up questions.
rog says “The US has said they will leave if asked by a (legitimate) Iraqi govt”
We already know from the Palestinian (and Iranian) experiences that legitimacy has no causal relationship with democracy. Legitimacy can only be acquired by unquestioning acquiescence with the bidding of the US. So a government whose defining characteristic is autonomic performance of the bidding of the US will ask the US to leave. Milo Minderbinder would be proud of that logic.
Even more reason to leave that decision to the generals…
Michael H.
this page uses the text (delete all spaces) type of language (eg insert B then text then /B for text or I text /I for text )
Try again, enclose function in then text then end function
I give up, try http://webmonkey.wired.com/webmonkey/reference/html_cheatsheet/
rog, you’re dead wrong. More than that, this Repub talking point is typical of the evasiveness which that lot have dealt with hard questions about Iraq – they don’t believe it themselves.
For a start, war is always far too important to be left to the generals. Its the *political* outcome we’re trying to maximise; the military situation is (in the language of microeconomics) the budget constraint rather than the objective function. For a second, the generals know better than to deliver politically unwelcome advice, at least publicly (Shinseki, anyone?). And of course this admin has a contempt for expert advice anyway.
Katz, while “history” is meandering, we are all dead. Just who is this “history” guy, anyway?
“Katz, while “historyâ€? is meandering, we are all dead. Just who is this “historyâ€? guy, anyway?”
Valid questions Gordon.
1. To believe that we should expect to achieve fulfilment before we die is an egotistical conceit. There is no avoiding the challenges of living in “interesting times”. Our sense of fulfilment should take into account circumstances beyond our control. In that sense, fulfilment should be measured by how well we play our hand rather than in the achievement of whatever utopia, shangrila, workers’ paradise, thousand-year reich we might wish to achieve “at the End of History”.
2. I apologise for the shorthand use of the word “history”. As you imply, history is a discipline, a method of addressing evidence, rather than the thing observed by that discipline. In other words, “history” is not “the past”.
Thus, when I misused the word “history”, what I meant was something like, “the predominating past trends in world political, cultural, scientific thought”.
(The biggest source of pessimism for me is the slowness with which humans are adjusting their thinking about human mastery over nature to the looming scarcity of important natural resources, most notably, the ability of the earth to rid itself of heat, the universal by-product of human ingenuity.)
‘Are we on the right just ignorant philistines who ignore the clear-thinking left at our peril?’
Admirably concise, nails it in fact – thanks. You might want to have a chat with Bill Buckley, George Will, Francis Fukuyama (and more with every passing week) who have all written columns in the last week that regurgitate, almost plagiarise, the arguments me and my fellow nutjob leftists were making on the No War Blog in 2002. The sort of arguments that those nice people on the right were insisting gave support and comfort to Saddam Hussein. Soft over hard power, avoid meatheaded uber-violence toward innocent civilians, utilise muliti-lateral institutions (UN anyone?) over unilateral pre-emption etc etc. If they keep coming to their senses, at some point you will too.
‘In fact the Left is notorious for splittist fratricide.’
While the right is a hotbed of narrow conformity. That is the essential difference, the fact that the left can handle the sort of complexity and dissent that characterises real world situations, while the right demands a limiting fidelity to ideology and, sadly, to The Leadership. Not even the Leadership right or wrong any more, they don’t admit the possibility of wrong. They’ll even try to shift the blame leftward, a la Harry above. Eternal smoke and mirrors, relentless evasion, co-ordinated choirs of predigested argument; that’s the right today. The roles were to my mind almost exactly reversed at times in the last century, when the left was militantly on message and the right housed the sensible, skeptical middle ground. I would have been a ‘conservative’ back then.
We can never move forward without allowing ourselves to doubt; Richard Feynman made this point with regard to scientific progress but I think it applies to progress in general. (I penned a ramble about this on Rob Schaap’s old blog, which supplies some of the points made here). It allows an open channel for solutions that certainty can never provide. The left’s intrinsic apprehension of this is why we seem unable to match the potency of the enforced unity of the right. Their approach better suits the all-important 5 second grab and happily for them aligns neatly with the interests of the corporations that have quietly stolen a march on our political institutions in recent decades.
‘Wingnuts and Jihadists are having their season right now. They live in a mutually supportive but unsustainable symbiosis with each other. Eventually, the people will tire of them and a season of sanity will follow’
I’m with you, but more in hope than expectation. What hope I do have is boosted I have to say by these high level defections. Dissent spells health, counterintuitive as it may seem, and if it keeps going, we will all reap the benefits.
DD Bush said that the decision to pull out would be made by the generals not the politicians in Washington – which is the right message to be sending the jihadists.
Notice how they dont decapitate on TV anymore?
“Bush said…”
Never mind what he said, Rog.
It’s a political decision, not a military one – just like the decision to go in was a political and not a military decision.
Katz, we share a major source of pessimism. But your idea of “history” as some kind of irregular progress towards your sort of shangri-la worries me. Historical materialism revisited (or revised)? Or is the ghost of Vico (as described in “To the Finland Station”) still haunting us?
I just don’t see anything inevitable about it. Repressive police states based on massive inequality are, history shows us, quite stable over long periods. Floods, famines and endless misery have been, for the most part, dumbly endured by uncounted millions of people. The remarkable prosperity created by Europeans through industrialisation is unprecedented, and may not last. Indeed, the increasing social inequality we now see in the old “First World” countries may mark the beginning of its decline.
So if you have good reasons for believing in some kind of “inevitable” progress towards a better state, I would love to know what they are. For my part, I’m afraid I see what progress there is as resulting from continuing efforts by individuals and groups to grapple with specific problems at specific times in specific situations. This includes everything from the foundation of big movements like Greenpeace to Morris and Steel deciding to give McDonald’s a run for its money to some anonymous judge somewhere refusing to accept the proffered bribe. It is a constant struggle against a sort of social entropy.
Well actually I think Pipes has come to a conclusion I came to some time ago, which the doomsayers/naysayers about Iraq never really considered and to be fair neither did I for some considerable time. That was probably due to the immediate fascination with the history unfolding. What Pipes is asking the anti-war crowd to do is take a step back and consider the broad sweep of events from the Bush/Blair/Anglo perspective. Put aside your bias for one moment and step into their shoes. Play Devil’s Advocate.
Assume your motives and intentions were always honourable. After Sept 11 ‘you’ are both convinced the greatest threat to world peace lies in the ME and it’s time for your BOL theory to be implemented. (There are ample speeches and utterings, particularly from Blair, that this was the position of this new ‘special relationship’ a priori) The inner sanctums are convinced and entirely as one on the future direction. Diplomatically they are picking up camp followers from COW countries as diverse as Oz, Japan, Netherlands, Poland, etc, albeit the usual opposition occurs. Iraq is the ME target chosen as the BOL for some obvious reasons which you begin to sell publicly, particularly the threat from the WMD angle, which you firmly believe, but in your eagerness to stick to the KISS principle you err in drinking your own intelligence bathwater. Not politically fatal as it turns out because your opponents and doomsayers make as many clangers- New Europe should shut-up and respect its elders, to forecasts of Stalingrads, Vietnams, millions of refugees and then casualty forecasts, outrunning supply lines, Iraqis won’t greet you, not enough troops, yada, yada. Whenever your opponents make some headway with an Abhu Ghraib or whatever, Osama and Co indulge in another beheading, Beslan or Bali bombing to remind your punters why you led them there. Some nasty surprises with WMD and the state of Iraqi infrastructure, foreign fundies attracted like flies to Iraq, but through it all, you keep on track with your self imposed timetable for interim govt, elections, constitution, etc and the punters endorse your stand overall. Here we all are now in Iraq. Was the bombing of the Golden Shrine just a setback like the Berlin Airlift, or the presage of a full scale civil war? Is the Iraq glass half full or half empty? Well that remains to be seen. Perhaps the purple dye of the promise of a new Iraq is fading fast.
All water under the bridge, yet in the initial contemplation of Iraq as the new BOL in the ME, the decision to invade and regime change was not just a couple of men’s whimsical fantasies. It was in the final analysis the combined political decision of some very sophisticated military industrial complexes. No such military complexes go lightly to war without some serious soul searching and more particularly some unpleasant ‘wotif’ scenarios. Now the worst case wotif was highlighted by the first GW when Saddam was kicked out of Kuwait but there was a reluctance to chase him all the way to Baghdad, or help the Shia rise up against him for the same reasons and in any case it was thought a coup would most likely finish him. However you know what the clincher was for Iraq in the end? Worst case scenario was a bunch of thankful friendly Kurds with Sunni and Shia split like Protestants and Catholics of yore, going hammer and tongs at one another. Bit hard for Osama and Co to make mileage with converts to their true Islam when Islam itself is split down the middle, each half trying to convert the other half to its true vision.
Or as JQ so eloquently puts it-
“Unfortunately, at this point there’s not much anyone can do. The US and Uk have long since lost control of the situation, and the dynamic has gone beyond the control of any individual or group in Iraq. We’ll just have to hope that the Iraqi leaders (Sistani and Sadr on the Shia side, and the various groups contending to represent the Sunni Arabs and Kurds, among others) can pull something out of the fire between them.”
However it’s not quite true that the “The US and Uk have long since lost control of the situation”, because they always meant to hand control over to ordinary Iraqis. To do that you have to be prepared to accept that Iraqis may prefer to lose their self-control, in which case we’ll quietly withdraw and leave them to it, to more fruitful pursuits like trading weapons for oil to assist them in their Divine endeavours. Personally, I still prefer to think there’s a lot of sensible heads attached to those 10 million dyed fingers over there. They seem to have stood the test of the Samarra mosque bombing so far.
Thanks for your comments Gordon.
I’m a bit chary about expatiating on these huge themes.
Yes I do believe that, taking the long view, human existence on earth is improving. I don’t see this as entirely the result of technological fixes. However, these important developments can’t be ignored. More important is the growing world consensus (in the long term and allowing for many twists and turns) about what constitutes causation. God-kings have all but disappeared from the face of the world and no one burned for witchcraft any more. The spirit world has been all but divorced from human affairs. Now that almost everyone is in the same chapter of the Book of Causation, if not on the same page, over the issue of causation, the hard work of establishing a consensus view on human rights and responsibilities can continue.
I wish to distinguish these comments from any suggestion that I believe that “improvement” is “inevitable”. Atavistic and entropic forces do lurk in the wings and will continue to do this for the foreseeable future.
In my opinion there is no end to history. For anyone to declare that there is invites eye-rolling scepticism. For anyone to declare that the end of history has already been achieved invites a chorus of ridicule.
1. “the decision to invade and regime change was not just a couple of men’s whimsical fantasies. It was in the final analysis the combined political decision of some very sophisticated military industrial complexes.”
WRONG! Read the Downing Street Memos.
Here is “C”, the Head of British Intelligence on the state of thinking about post invasion Iraq:
23 July 2002,
“There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.”
http://www.downingstreetmemo.com/memos.html
The Bush Clique may have had their own private plans, but they didn’t share them with their most important “coalition partner”.
Whatever plans the Bush Clique did have turned out to be monumentally inappropriate.
2. “However it’s not quite true that the “The US and Uk have long since lost control of the situationâ€?, because they always meant to hand control over to ordinary Iraqis.”
Huh?
If that’s the case, why did the US invade Fallujah TWICE and fight TWO mini-wars with the Sadrists?
Why did the US employ a pre-law graduate to write a constitution for Iraq?
Why did the US design a natty new flag for Iraq. Remember the flag? Here’s a picture of it:
enjoy it while you can, because you’ll never see it fluttering in public.
The glum truth of the matter is that the Bush Clique completely underestimated the difficulties associated with “nation building” using Neocon ideas as the blueprint.
Now that the Chimp is pulling a dwindling 34% popular approval he’s scrambling to get out of Iraq before the coming catastrophe.
observa wrote,
“What Pipes is asking the anti-war crowd to do is take a step back and consider the broad sweep of events from the Bush/Blair/Anglo perspective. Put aside your bias for one moment and step into their shoes. Play Devil’s Advocate.”
How convenient for Mr Pipes to ask that now. Pity he didn’t do it himself earlier.
Pipes was a supported of military intervention to remove Saddam pre-Bush, as part of that “neo-con” crowd. And immediately after Sept 11 he jumped on the Iraq War bandwagon, writing an article glibly dismissing the critics of the emerging plan.
A “great catastrophe” in Iraq warn the critics – no way says Pipes.
It will “end….the international alliance against terrorism” – “So what?” (his exact words) wrote Pipes.
It will be destabilizing – “ridding the world of Saddam will stabilize every Arabic-speaking country”.
And now that Pipes is such a democratic realist on Iraq what did he say back then? “Better yet, the Iraqi National Congress (waiting in the wings) gives signs of setting up a democratic government and the Kurdish government in the north of Iraq (in power) has already done so.”
Civillian casulaties etc – “an attack on Iraq would be a humanitarian operation that the local population will celebrate.”
Saddam innocent of 9/11 – “Not so” lectures our friend. Do you think he’d considered ‘the broad sweep of events’?
observa wrote;
“Assume your motives and intentions were always honourable.”
So, observa, you want us to engage in an exercise of pure fantasy?
observa wrote;
“Worst case scenario was a bunch of thankful friendly Kurds with Sunni and Shia split like Protestants and Catholics of yore, going hammer and tongs at one another.”
Complete and utter bollocks.
Pipes had to specifically counter the argument that the planned invasion would be a “great catastrophe”, as Jordon and Syria warned.
It may be even a bigger picture than the one Observa draws, GWB has destroyed the myth that heads of state can commit atrocities on their own people without suffering the consequences.
When was the last time a head of state went to trial? Mostly they live out their lives in luxurious exile, or are shot by unknown assassins.
Slobodan Milošević? Augusto Pinochet?
Great post, observa. I agree with you on the Iraqi people; they seem to be very, very interested in working toward peace and democracy. They did themselves proud after the Samarra mosque bombing.
It seems that many people, for reasons unfathomable to me, actually believe that the US plans to stay permanently in Iraq, making it our 51st state (although I think Puerto Rico probably has dibs on that, if it ever wanted US statehood). The reason such thinking is unfathomable is that nothing in our history would lead anyone to such a conclusion. In fact, our history would strongly point away from such a conclusion. Yet the idea seems to persist, even without any evidence.
Along with rog, I believe the idea that a head of state can commit acts of atrocity against their own people has been destroyed, as no one can ever be sure again that the US and/or a coalition of like-minded nations won’t decide that they’ve had enough of such nonsense. And the idea that the UN exists just to pump out binding resolutions that everyone can safely and promptly ignore is gone forever. At least I hope that it is. The next “Saddam” won’t get 19 chances.
I guess that avaroo is too dim to understand the self-refutation. Complete and utter ignorance of the history of Puerto Rico, the Philipines, Guam and Hawaii could be the reason.