Comments on: In Handbasket: Iraq; Apparent Destination: Hell

By: Robert Lyman

Robert Lyman — Thu, 08 Apr 2004 17:35:29 +0000

no preference, you have only identified one point which is relevant here: “the occupation itself has not gone well.” All the other stuff was evident (or, according to my belief not evident, and indeed false) before the war started. Those arguments haven’t changed a bit in the last 12 months. There is no need to rehash them now. And my point is that the occupation is going as well as I expected it to before the war began; thus, what, exactly, about it would have caused me to change my mind?

By: No Preference

No Preference — Wed, 07 Apr 2004 20:59:48 +0000

So no, it has not changed my thinking on foreign interventions. Sorry to hear you say that. There was a large and obvious down side to the Iraq invasion even before it began – a heightened risk of terrorism; the erosion of international law; our plunge in international esteem; and the exacerbation of tensions with Muslims worldwide. The occupation itself has not gone well. Yet you don’t appear to see these problems, nor the evidence that our leaders misled us about the necessity of going to war. You are ready to follow their lead again. That is hard to understand.

By: Rajeev Advani

Rajeev Advani — Wed, 07 Apr 2004 20:49:35 +0000

Just when I thought I was done posting on this thread, I noticed Belle had linked to a particularly vexing article by Juan Cole that I had commented on earlier. Before he revised the post, Cole had openly flirted with the theory that the Neocons provoked the fight with the Sadrists in order to partition Iraq into three parts for the benefit of Israel. Needless so say, his willingness to demonize the Neocons to such an absurd extent made me lose nearly half my respect for him. Thankfully he has since revised that post, reducing his accusation against the Neocons and qualifying his remarks more thoroughly. Still though, he refuses to give up his handwavy theory that the Neocons pushed for invading Iraq solely to defend Israel. What he doesn’t realize is that, as Max Boot always stresses, the neoconservative movement is less a fragment of the Likud party and more just a general expression of hard Wilsonianism. While I love Juan Cole’s analysis of Iraq, he’s much less thorough, and much less impressive, when he discusses US politics.

By: Robert Lyman

Robert Lyman — Wed, 07 Apr 2004 19:19:56 +0000

Excuse me for taking Bush at his word and believing that we would be down to 30K troops last September and be out by June. Cite and link, please. If Bush said that, he was dreaming and his judgment is seriously questionable. In the meantime, will you support similar interventions around the world, or has our experience in Iraq changed your mind about that? Iraq has gone as well as I had hoped, better actually. So no, it has not changed my thinking on foreign interventions.

By: No Preference

No Preference — Wed, 07 Apr 2004 18:06:33 +0000

we couldn’t ease the containment system without giving more power and freedom of action to S.H. Freedom of action to do what? His neighbors were not afraid of him. The notion that he would have molested them after what happened in 1991 is extremely far-fetched. If after 7 years we don’t have a strong, successful democracy in Iraq, then I’ll say the invasion was a bad idea and I regret supporting it. In the meantime, will you support similar interventions around the world, or has our experience in Iraq changed your mind about that?

By: Tripp

Tripp — Wed, 07 Apr 2004 17:20:54 +0000

Robert, I’ve heard over and over the ‘didn’t you KNOW this would take a long time?’ question. Excuse me for taking Bush at his word and believing that we would be down to 30K troops last September and be out by June. Excuse me for thinking “Mission Accomplished” meant mission accomplished. I was misled and possibly lied to, and it is disingenous to now ask why I believed the lie.

By: Robert Lyman

Robert Lyman — Wed, 07 Apr 2004 17:16:11 +0000

John Q., You’re right. It was Chris, not you. Sorry. My point though: I still think the timetable was a fair one. And I don’t think the 12-month timetable is fair.

By: Troy

Troy — Wed, 07 Apr 2004 08:36:45 +0000

Rajeev: I agree. Echo chambers are like that. My overall outlook on how Iraq is going to turn out in 2 years time hasn’t really changed since before the ground invasion started. I assumed we’d “take Baghdad without much hubbub” (actual quote from me in early march 2003), but securing the country against “extremists” would prove to be very challenging. I identified the carpetbagging nature of the occupation to be the main drivespring of resistance, and Chalabi and his corhorts to be one of the tenpins that could topple, leaving US interests/leverage weakened by the exercise. Other fundamental mistakes need to be corrected before a stable civil society can materialize over there. The good outcome is going to be some sort of Musharraf enlightened despot / Turkish military balance of power, and one of the not so good outcomes will be federalization, terrorism like that seen during the postwar India/Pakistan partition, and a shiite republic bordering Iran. Basically everything the DoD has done has been rather wrongheaded I’m afraid.

By: Rajeev Advani

Rajeev Advani — Wed, 07 Apr 2004 04:52:56 +0000

Troy: Sorry about that misinterpretation. I disagree about the “turning point” of the intervention; the most convincing argument I’ve heard is that the intervention took a dive after the White House failed to embrace Sistani. I enclose “turning point” in quotations because—as Robert Lyman pointed out above—the doom and gloom is awfully thick right now, and it’s difficult to tell in the heat of the moment if something truly has “turned.”

By: John Quiggin

John Quiggin — Wed, 07 Apr 2004 04:06:33 +0000

“John Q. gave a 7-year timetable for admitting he was wrong” I think you must be confusing me with somebody else. I gave several conditions (e.g. the discovery of nukes) under which I would admit I was wrong, but none involving a 7-year timetable.

By: troy

troy — Wed, 07 Apr 2004 02:44:15 +0000

rajeev: I meant “go down” wrt intervention in the past perfect tense, eg. 2000 – 2003, not events of the past year. This intervention was basically doomed after Bush’s failure to follow up on his “show their cards” comment about seeking a final vote at the UN. Or perhaps it was doomed when Bush, Blair, and Aznar had their pre-invasion rally on some god-forsaken rock in the middle of the Atlantic. Nobody wanted this war outside the profiteers (and Kurds). I find Hitchen’s most recent argument somewhat persuasive, but feel intervention needed to be finessed like NATO’s into Kossovo. Pehaps it needed to be staged, first liberating Basra and Mosul, some sort of French “oilspot” strategy. http://college.hmco.com/history/readerscomp/mil/html/ml_012800_counterinsur.htm

By: W. Kiernan

W. Kiernan — Tue, 06 Apr 2004 23:43:42 +0000

I'm not trying to be offensive, Belle, but how old are you? Seems to me anybody - well, anybody halfway smart (you're obviously twice that) - my age who lived in the U.S.A. through the sixties, knew better. Someone must have studied the degree to which age is correlated to support for the Iraq adventure, don't you think?

By: David Sucher

David Sucher — Tue, 06 Apr 2004 20:15:48 +0000

The seven year time-frame is realistic. The only problem is that we let ourselves into this war without hearing such a schedule. And if there is anything about Vietnam and about which both left and rigfht might agree that is a very very very bad idea to enter America into a war without some substantial consensus. There is no way in the world that this country will hold out for seven more years of what is happening now. I am not advocating but merely observing what is.

By: Robert Lyman

Robert Lyman — Tue, 06 Apr 2004 19:43:48 +0000

BTW, I didn’t mean to say that I endorsed apparent incompetence or military reliance on private contractors. I just think the gloom-and-doom is getting a bit thick at this rather early juncture.

By: Robert Lyman

Robert Lyman — Tue, 06 Apr 2004 19:41:15 +0000

I’m having a hard time understanding why anyone thinks the whole country should be perfect after a year. John Q. gave a 7-year timetable for admitting he was wrong. As a war supporter, I’ll take the same timetable. If after 7 years we don’t have a strong, successful democracy in Iraq, then I’ll say the invasion was a bad idea and I regret supporting it. In the meantime, thuggish behavior which echoes, on an extreme scale, the LA riots and the killing of James Byrd does not mean that there is no hope in the long run. These events make me sick and frightened, but the rational part of me tries to put it in perspective. Really Belle, what did you expect? Violence and brutality were predictable and should have been expected. I wish things were perfect, but we’re a long way from Slaughterhouse Five or Apocalypse Now here, so let’s not freak out, OK?