THE US, THE UN AND THE IRAQIS THEMSELVES, V. 7.0

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Juan Cole is Professor of History at the University of Michigan

On the Virtues of Changing the Mind

It is depressing for me to see George W. Bush on the stump doing a stand-up comedy routine about John Kerry, parroting the predictable line that Kerry has had more than one opinion about Iraq. Serious news reporters who have gone back over the record find that Bush's charge is without merit, and that Kerry has been consistent on his Iraq position.

The thing that most worries me is not when a politician's thinking evolves on a subject and he changes his mind. It is when a politician refuses even to consider changing his mind. Such inflexibility is almost always a sign of rigidity, which can be catastrophic in the most powerful man in the world.

So Bush vowed not to retreat in Iraq.

Bush has been refusing to retreat, or even to reconsider, for a long time now. At a news conference in the spring, Bush was asked if he had made any errors, and he replied that he could not think of any. Yesterday he said he did not regret his "mission accomplished" speech aboard an aircraft carrier on May 1, 2003, in which he declared the Iraq war over. Bush keeps saying that there are 100,000 fully trained Iraqi security personnel, and seems to think that there are hundreds of UN election workers on the ground in Iraq.

This kind of single-mindedness and refusal to even think about altering course reminds me of Lyndon Johnson in the Vietnam War.

It is indisputable that the Iraq situation is Fouled Up Beyond Repair, or FUBAR. The number of daily attacks has gone above 80. The Green Zone where the government offices are is taking mortar fire. Little of the country is actually under control, and it goes further out of control at the drop of a hat. Amarah was in full rebellion against the British in late August, forcing them to fire 100,000 rounds of ammunition in a major battle of which most Americans remain completely unaware. The country is witnessing a guerrilla war that is vast in geographical reach, such that the guerrillas struck British troops and National Guardsmen in the far southern city of Basra on Tuesday. Americans have little appreciation of geography, and still less of foreign geography, but let's put it this way. The guerrillas were battling in Fallujah and Basra on the same day. They are over 300 miles apart. This is like being able to strike in both Youngstown, Ohio and Baltimore, Md. on the same day. The guerrilla resistance is not small, or localized, or confined to only 3 provinces.

Many in the CIA have concluded that "There's no obvious way to fix it. The best we can hope for is a semi-failed state hobbling along with terrorists and a succession of weak governments."

When you are deep in a hole, the first rule is to stop digging. Whatever Bush has been doing in Iraq for the past 18 months demonstrably has not worked. He desperately needs a change of mind on these policies. He needs to try something else.

The image of him giggling about Kerry changing his mind on Iraq takes on a chilling aspect when you think of him as Captain Joseph Hazelwood of the Exxon Valdez. Hazelwood told the helsman to steer right and then went to bed. The helsman didn't steer far enough right, and plowed into the Bligh Reef and disaster. Part of the reason was that corporate cost cutting had left the ship without radar. If you think about it, in fact, a wrecked oil tanker is a good image of Bush administration Iraq policy.

Bush should stop slapping his thigh and guffawing about that flipflopper Kerry and being to think seriously about changing his mind on some key policies himself. Otherwise, an Iraq as failed state could pose a supreme danger to the United States, the kind of danger that the Bligh Reef posed to the Exxon Valdez.

Wed, Sep 29, 2004 1:15

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Very sad really, I think Blair thought he had no option.

That little word sad speaks volumes and expresses a profound weltschmerz that may be part of Tony Blair's soul and perhaps the soul of Britain. A friend from my seven years in London e-mails me often and we talk about what is happening between our countries. She marched with a crowd up Piccadilly against the war but has always tried determinedly to understand why Blair believed and acted as he did; she wanted to trust him. She knows now that both of us, in our own countries, were utterly deceived.

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Be informed

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DTOM wrote

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they also do not understand that "nation" is not so much to most middle easterners while tribe and islam is.

Your comment is spot on. But the idea is one most Americans do not comprehend. We think we can "change" tribal culture and entire peoples, twist whole millennia of culture to our way of thinking. We can do it by force, but no other way.

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From St Louis Today

Insurgents run rampant and Rumsfeld grows more stubborn. We're etching a big black mark across American history.

We do not need to recount yet again the history of the war in Iraq. It will go down as one of the most ill-conceived military undertakings in our history.

The recently disclosed July report of the National Intelligence Council to President Bush tells us we are in grave trouble. The Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Richard Lugar of Indiana, and another Republican committee member, Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel, concur. If the failures of former CIA Director George Tenet justified throwing him overboard, then Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, the godfather of this Iraq disaster, should have been chained to Tenet.

President George W. Bush often asks, rhetorically, "Isn't the world better off with Saddam Hussein out of power?" The answer is no, no, no. Saddam, a brutal dictator, is in jail. That's good. But we have paid a bloody, awful price; a price we will be paying for years to come. The Iraq we created now is an international menace, a citadel for terrorism far more dangerous than the declining Saddam regime we deposed. Sometimes, the cure really is worse than the disease.

The next president will do a "song and dance" routine with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. He will ask for combat troops, and that request will be refused, of course. The dying in Iraq is and will be left to us.

The next president will then ask NATO to undertake and pay for a massive training program of Iraqi soldiers and police. But the United States is the cash register for Iraq and will remain so. That, at least, makes it possible that NATO would play a role in such a training program - but on our credit card.

Remember the Nixon-Kissinger "peace with honor" policy in the Vietnam War? While that administration dithered creating a South Vietnamese army that was - on paper, anyway - the fourth largest, best equipped force in the world, 15,760 U.S. soldiers were killed in action. Yet most analysts, even at the time, knew that the policy amounted to a velvet "cut and run," an empty gesture to provide face-saving cover for an American withdrawal.

That won't work in Iraq. There can be no finger-crossing or winks. Our blundering, horrid misadventure in Iraq has to succeed, and it will take years and years.

Pay no attention to Bush and Rumsfeld when they say "We expected this" or "The insurgents are desperate" or "Things are improving" in Iraq. It's pure drivel. The insurgents have an inexhaustible supply of suicide bombers. Our army, the still-pitiful Iraqi army and the people of Iraq are getting clobbered.

Fouad Ajami and Francis Fukuyama, distinguished academics at Johns Hopkins University who once advised Rumsfeld that Iraq could become a democracy, have had second thoughts. Princeton's Bernard Lewis, the most acclaimed Western scholar of the Muslim world, now ventures to say that perhaps Iraq should be a monarchy headed by someone from the Hashemite line.

One thing is certain: Rumsfeld will join Robert McNamara as the two most disastrous defense secretaries in our history. McNamara has spent the last 37 years doing mea culpas around the world. Do not expect that from Rumsfeld. He never has been wrong. He will go to his grave self-described as the man who "liberated" Iraq.

Thomas F. Eagleton was a Democratic U.S. senator from Missouri (1968-1987). He served on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board.

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ican711nm wrote:

SOME BACKUP EXCERPTS PREVIOUSLY POSTED HERE

NBC News, 3/02/04

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As NBC News reported, "Long before the war, the Bush administration had several chances to wipe out his terrorist operation ....According to NBC, "Military officials insist their case for attacking Zarqawi's operation was airtight, but the administration feared destroying the terrorist camp in Iraq could undercut its case for war against Saddam."

okay. so i had it right then. ansar al islam and/or zarqawi was within the reach of the bush administration, but opted to blow off that bit of the "war on terror" to pursue another agenda.

so then, does it not follow that the invasion of iraq has nothing to do with the war on terror ( a stupid and incorrect label. we are in a war against islamist extremists ), but had everything to do with an agenda layed out years before 9/11 by a neo-conservative group.

we should think about the meaning of that statement while remembering those that have been, and will be, kidnapped and beheaded by zarqawi.

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One thing seemed to have been missed in the whole - what was the connection between Saddam and Al Queda - discussion and that is the kind of country Iraq was in the years between the wars. Saddam's control and command of the area where Ansar al-Islam emerged wasn't strong. The whole Northern hump, if you will, of the country was controlled, not by Bagdad, but by two factions of Kurds who fought against each other about as much as they fought to keep some kind of control over each's territory.

We are not talking Ohio and Indiana here. We are talking about people (Kurds) who have been living semi-automously for generations and whose object in life is mostly to be Kurds. They have found themselves stuck between Turkey, Iran and Iraq since the British divided up the Middle East and they don't want to be part of any of the three. They'd like to have Kurdistan back from the Turks and they don't want a full Islamic state (though they are Islamic) like the one sought by groups in Iran and Ansar al-Islam.

When Ansar al-Islam emerged in the summer of 2001, they fought against both groups of Kurds, something that must have pleased Saddam but he didn't have much to say about it one way or another. In that part of Iraq, Bagdad is a distant bother. Before the Second Gulf War, whole groups of armed miltias with varying degrees of loyalty to each one and to Saddam moved around the country solidifying their own control bases with or without the consent of Saddam.

Some have made much about Zawquari's medical visit to Bagdad, but it was more like any other gangster moving around the territory, these things are arranged based on tribal linkages and generations-old scores and alliances, not necessarily because Saddam had full knowledge.

So just because Ansar al-Islam was in Iraq doesn't make them Saddam clones or drones, they got their money from some Al Queda sources and those sources were in Saudia Arabia.

Oops, there's our ally and friend again with dirty fingers.

Joe

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Joe Nation wrote:

Saddam's control and command of the area where Ansar al-Islam emerged wasn't strong.

hello joe! whaddaya know? i believe you are correct, sir. as an example; was nixon protecting the simbionese liberation army? after all they were in the united states. how about the sds? uh, the weathermen?

the kurds were most likely more concerned about the turks and saddam's army to give a damn about a couple of dozen religious zealots.

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Good post (again) Joe thanks.

What really worries me is that Bush does in fact know what he's doing. He must know (or if he doesn't someone will explain) that his actions in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere will cause an increase in global terrorism. But he is willing to take that risk. (Actually willing for us to take that risk). There is method in his madness. What we have to do is peel back the layers of obfuscation, the excuses, the lies to get to get at what is at the bottom of it all. But I'm not going to preach, I have my own ideas.

Meanwhile just how much risk is the American elite prepared to face (the other way)?

How about a suicide Islamist team detonating a nuclear weapon based on a Pakistani design with fissile material purchased, believe it or not, from a sheep pen in Kyrgyzstan?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1315847,00.html

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expresses a profound weltschmerz

I don't think I've ever expressed one of those before, but having done so, and having found out what it is, its cheered me up immensely. Smile

thanks K

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...Princeton's Bernard Lewis, the most acclaimed Western scholar of the Muslim world, now ventures to say that perhaps Iraq should be a monarchy headed by someone from the Hashemite line. ..

McTag, this is a view I have held since we made the mistake of occupying Iraq. Very few people support it because it doesn't put the false face of "democracy" on the country. There is no democracy there now -- order is being kept by the US forces. There will be no democracy there for many years.

I did not read the Bernard Lewis piece. Do you have a link? I have always thought that a viceroy or suitable figurehead (king, revered chief, whatever...) backed up by 350,000 US and Brit troops was the only way to maintain order in Iraq until tribal and ethnic rivalries died out from attrition over the next 10-15 years.

Good post, Joe.

Steve Smile

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BUSH MISLEADS ON SCOPE OF VIOLENCE IN IRAQ

President Bush and his allies have insisted that violence in Iraq is limited to a few isolated pockets of resistance. President Bush said last Wednesday that there are a "handful of people who are willing to kill in order to stop the process."[1] The next day, Interim Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi told reporters at a press conference in the Rose Garden "there is nothing, no problem, except on a small pocket in Fallujah."[2] Information in a secret report compiled for the administration suggests that Bush and Allawi are misleading the public about the scope of violence in Iraq.

According to data collected by Kroll Security International for the administration, there are about 70 attacks a day on U.S. and coalition forces, compared to 40-50 attacks a day before the transfer of authority to the interim Iraqi government.[3] Moreover, the data indicate attacks in "nearly every major city in central, western and northern Iraq."[4] Allawi, in a speech to Congress last Tuesday, described Baghdad as "very good and safe."[5] But the Kroll data reveal that, in recent weeks, there have been an average of 22 attacks per day on troops in Baghdad.[6]

Sources:
1. "President's Remarks in "Focus on Education with President Bush" Event ," The White House, 9/22/04, http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=3382691&l=58489.
2. "President Bush and Prime Minister Allawi Press Conference," The White House, 9/23/04, http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=3382691&l=58490.
3. "Violence in Iraq Belies Claims of Calm, Data Show," Washington Post, 9/24/04, http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=3382691&l=58491.
4. Ibid., http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=3382691&l=58491.
5. Ibid., http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=3382691&l=58491.
6. Ibid., http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=3382691&l=58491.

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Kara wrote:

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...Princeton's Bernard Lewis, the most acclaimed Western scholar of the Muslim world, now ventures to say that perhaps Iraq should be a monarchy headed by someone from the Hashemite line. ..

I did not read the Bernard Lewis piece. Do you have a link?

Sorry Kara, no can do at the moment. That piece came from a article in the St Louis Sentinel, I think it is called, and was sent to me yesterday by a friend in Indiana....still with me?

Maybe googling that name could provide the info you seek.

Yours, McT

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The thing is that the Iraqi interim government including the interim president, who will probably be elected the permanent president, do want democracy in Iraq and do believe it is possible. The president was in New York and Washington this week and spoke to the U.N. He understands that democracies don't just happen because a majority of the citizens want them. They happen through heavy investment in time, blood, treasure, and strength of will. Ours did. The U.K.'s did. Everybody's does.

The European and Canadian press is almost universally anti-Bush if not anti-American and neither are receiving any alternative points of view such as can be found on Fox News and a few other sources. The resulting caterwauling that it's all going down the drain is giving infinite encouragement to the terrorists who believe if they just keep up and intensify the pressure, we'll fold our tents and go home to leave them in charge.

The majority of American people believe it is important to stay the course and give the Iraqi people a chance for freedom and they believe a free Iraq is in the best interests of America and free peoples everywhere.

The faint of heart, the naysayers, the negative nabods are not helping and, I and others believe, are making the process much more difficult and costly in all ways.

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Fox,

I gotta take this point by point.

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The thing is that the Iraqi interim government including the interim president, who will probably be elected the permanent president, do want democracy in Iraq and do believe it is possible. The president was in New York and Washington this week and spoke to the U.N. He understands that democracies don't just happen because a majority of the citizens want them. They happen through heavy investment in time, blood, treasure, and strength of will. Ours did. The U.K.'s did. Everybody's does.

Did you ever stop to ask if the Iraqi people actually wanted a democracy? If they would support that form of gov't? You cannot foist what YOU believe to be the best system on people who do not share your beliefs.

My guess is, noone has asked this question to the Iraqi people. We just arrogantly assume that our system is the one they want. Not a good idea.

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The European and Canadian press is almost universally anti-Bush if not anti-American and neither are receiving any alternative points of view such as can be found on Fox News and a few other sources. The resulting caterwauling that it's all going down the drain is giving infinite encouragement to the terrorists who believe if they just keep up and intensify the pressure, we'll fold our tents and go home to leave them in charge.

Please. The problem isn't that the media is against Bush; it's that the facts are against him.

I don't know if Bush lives in a fantasy world or what, but his constant refusal to recognize the situation in Iraq for what it is shows him to be seriously out of touch with reality. The fact is that stations such as Fox News exist for the express purpose of supporting the republican party. It's like an official gov't channel - they say the things the politicians can't or don't want to be recorded saying. If you don't believe me, Fox, go see Oufoxed, please!!! It's for your own good.

Besides. I hardly think the terrorists are sitting at home and crowing to each other every time they see a piece criticizing Bush. And even if they were, that doesn't mean such pieces should not be said!!! America is about the freedom to say what you feel. You don't believe that is true, because what many feel is opposite to what you feel, and therefore those who disagree with you are 'helping the enemy and should be silenced.'

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The majority of American people believe it is important to stay the course and give the Iraqi people a chance for freedom and they believe a free Iraq is in the best interests of America and free peoples everywhere.

Yes, but is it in the best interests of Iraq? Do you consider people who live in Iraq to be actual people? Do you consider the effects that this occupation is going to have on their perception of the US? Because it sure seems as if the destabilization we have brought to the region is getting worse....

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The faint of heart, the naysayers, the negative nabods are not helping and, I and others believe, are making the process much more difficult and costly in all ways.

Typical republican response. Call everyone who disagrees with your unrealistic worldview 'negative' and 'naysayer.' What would you have us do? Play our violins as the ship sinks, with smiles on our faces? I think not.

Cycloptichorn

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Here ya go Cyclop as to 'what do the Iraqis want'.

http://aei.org/news/newsID.19153,filter./news_detail.asp
http://messopotamian.blogspot.com/2003_11_01_messopotamian_archive.html
http://www.deanesmay.com/archives/004881.html
http://www.chronwatch.com/content/contentDisplay.asp?aid=7735&catcode=13

And before?
http://portland.indymedia.org/es/2002/10/27123.shtml

As for your other points, I disagree emphatically and really think you should rethink what you're saying.

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Several pages back, I asserted that I had encountered zero evidence that the tvc (i.e., terrorist vermin culture) was synonomous with Islam.

This morning I read a frightening article in today's (9/30/2004) Wall Street Journal titled, 'EXHIBITION KILLING' by Amir Taheri. "Mr. Taheri is an Iranian political commentator in Paris. If what he alleges is true, then I have for the first time encountered a piece of evidence that the tvc are synonymous with Islam.

Excerpt from the article:

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A survey of Muslim views over the past weeks shows overwhelming, though not unanimous, condemnation of the Beslan massacre. But in all cases the reasons given for the condemnation were political rather than religious. Muslim commentators assert that Russia, having supported "the Palestinian cause," did not deserve such treatment.

Sheik Yussuf al-Qaradawi, a sunni Muslim scholar based in Qatar, was among the first to condemn the Beslian massacre. At the same time, however, he insists that a similar attack on Israeli schools would be justified because Israeli schoolchildren, if not killed, could grow up to become soldiers. (Sheik Qaradawi also jusifies the killing of unborn Israelis because, if born, they could become soldiers.)

...

Implicit in all this is that killing innocent people in the lands of the "infidel" is justified for as long as the victims are not citizens of states sympathetic to "the Arab cause," whatever it happens to be at any given time.
...

Ayatollah Sadeq Khalkhali, one of the founders of the Islamic Republic in Iran ... wrote: "Among those we seize hostage or kill, some may be innocent. In that case, Allah will take them to paradise. We do our job, He does His."

Perhaps a way for reducing your apparent potential for being murdered by the tvc is to become a Muslim.

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Why? Can you give me a reason why I should rethink any of that?? I doubt it.

America was built upon freedom. Not just freedom when it's convienent for the Gov't. Those who disagree are patently unAmerican.

Cycloptichorn

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Cycloptichorn wrote:

Did you ever stop to ask if the Iraqi people actually wanted a democracy? If they would support that form of gov't? You cannot foist what YOU believe to be the best system on people who do not share your beliefs.

Did you ever stop to ask if they don't want democracy? We'll probably learn the answer one way or the other within the next four months.

Which would you have: The culture of death or the culture of life?

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I think we're learning right now, Icann.

Cycloptichorn

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THE US, THE UN AND THE IRAQIS THEMSELVES, V. 7.0

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