March 24, 2006

Original Sin in Iraq

Three years ago, President Bush could have had me. I could have been convinced that going to war in Iraq was the right thing to do. I could have been told that Saddam Hussein, a genocidal menace, must be removed immediately before he could inflict any more harm on the Iraqi people or anyone else. I could have been told that human rights are human rights and they belong not only to Americans, but to Iraqis. I could have been told that as the world's superpower, the United States had the singular ability to protect human rights and had the responsibility to do so. Had I been told these things three years ago, I would have stood up and said, "Let's go protect those human rights in Iraq! And let's go to Sudan and protect those human rights, too!"

But, of course, I was told none of those things. Instead, I was fed an unending diet of overhyped intelligence about weapons of mass destruction. I was misled by constant intimations by the Vice-President that Saddam and Osama were in cahoots. I was told that invading Iraq was necessary to protect national security and I was told that winning in Iraq would be a breeze. I was given a menu of reasons to support the decision to go to war, but nothing on that menu was ever argued consistently or convincingly. Instead of a coherent "reality-based" argument, I was given a charade of decision-making about a decision made long before.

I didn't believe the things I was told three years ago and so I did not support the President's decision to invade Iraq. I did not think invading Iraq was automatically a bad idea. I thought invading Iraq as we did was a bad idea. I felt that the administration abused the vulnerable national mood that followed September 11, deliberately misled the nation about a national security threat in Iraq that did not exist, and squandered an opportunity to build an international coalition for an intervention based on the humanitarian threat that did exist. To me, this was the original sin of the Iraq war and we continue paying the price for it (literally and figuratively)

Because I hold the President responsible for the original sin in Iraq, I find it difficult to trust him on anything else related to Iraq. The fact that almost every aspect of the Iraq endeavor has been bungled -- troop levels at the outset, predictions of rosy greetings, prison abuse, an insurgency most certainly not in its "last throes" -- only reinforces my anger about that original sin. Three years ago, President Bush could have had me, but today, he most certainly cannot.

But all of this ought to be irrelevant. The reality is that we are in Iraq today whether I like how we got there or not. The reality is that it would not be in our best interest to disappear from Iraq immediately even though doing so would save American lives that I think should not have been put in harms way in the first place. The opportunity to hold the administration accountable for the decision to go to war came in November 2004, but the President survived. The "I told you so" argument does not help solve the problems we face today.

Yet it is impossible to separate the original sin from the current state of Iraq. It is impossible to discuss the current situation without tossing in a line about the tainted origins of the war. It is impossible because, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, the administration continues to act as though the decision was well-informed, well-thought out, well-executed, and well-received. The President's recent flurry of Iraq speeches is not about humbly admitting a transgression and reaching out for help in finding solutions, but about re-criticizing all doubters and re-asserting that his judgment on Iraq should be trusted. Despite thousands of lives lost, billions (maybe trillions) of dollars spent, and a continuing sense of uncertainty about the future stability of Iraq, President Bush continues to act as he did in hyping the war -- blindly confident, dismissive of opposing viewpoints, and oblivious to realities on the ground . His critics, myself included, thus remain stuck on the President's original Iraq sins. These positions strangle useful debate and have prevented the reasoned and nuanced solutions required in Iraq to gain any momentum.

This is an international tragedy because we had an opportunity after September 11 to reshape the world for the better. That could have started in Iraq had the endeavor been undertaken with honesty or proper planning or preferably both. We could have demonstrated the power of American ideals and our willingness to protect human rights globally. We could have established a model in the Middle East without alienating much of the world. Three years ago, we could

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

My apologies, but I am a little confused by your recent article, "Original Sin". Are you saying that you would have supported the war in Iraq if it were only about protecting the human rights of Iraqis and its neighbors from Saddam? Are you saying that America should become the policeman of the world with regards to protecting human rights in places like Darfur where our national and strategic interests are limited? Do you feel that we would get more support from Europeans and others if human rights were our primary focus in international interventions? Without the support of others would you be willing to act unilaterally?

These are some of the questions your recent article raised for me. In the spirit of openess I admit that I am a supporter of Bush and the Iraq War. This doesn't mean i am not critical of many things this President has done including the way the war has been conducted. But, I also find much of the criticism of Bush to be over the top, bias, politically motivated, and influenced by a pre Presidency dislike for him that colors the objectivity of his critics.

Uneven Kiel said...

I agree 100% that much of the Bush criticism is over-the-top and based not on anything beyond a visceral dislike for him that prevents some critics from seeing good in anything he does. I'd argue on the flip side, however, that much of the Bush support is over-the-top and based on a fictional version of what he has done for our country. A year ago, I lived in Boston and saw lots of knee jerk anti-Bush argument and discussion. Now, I live in Memphis and I see a ton of knee jerk pro-Bush support - it seems like 1 of every 4 cars in East Memphis has a "W. The President." bumper sticker. It is truly bizarre. I believe that the percentage of people who have a mind open enough to see both good and bad in this president is small (though perhaps it is larger than I sense, but such people are not the ones talking loudly). I like to think of myself as being in this group and I would include you in it as well. My most recent article was a bit of a confession of my own anti-Bush hangup - I wish that I could get over the deep feelings of disappointment I have about the way we went into Iraq, but I cannot. And this isn't helped by the fact that Administration refuses to move off their political talking points and engage in real dialogue which means the opposition can't move off their political talking points and on and on and on...

As for my take on Iraq and the US role in the world, I think that I would support the things that you propose. I would have supported an Iraq venture that was about protecting human rights of Iraqis and neighbors. I would not mind the US being the world's policeman, even in places where our strategic interest appears small. However, my definition of "strategic interest" is quite large and I think it is in our strategic interest to nip situations like Darfur in the bud. I would support acting unilaterally to protect human rights - if we were doing right (by my definition, admittedly), I wouldn't much care for what the rest of the world thought. Certainly, having the support of the rest of the world is helpful, but I agree with Bush that the rest of the world should not dictate how we make our decisions. I simply wish we would make decisions and execute them in such a way that would not tick off the rest of the world so much.

It is because I believe in these things that Iraq is so sad to me - I am not one who believes that it was an automatic bad idea to invade Iraq. I would support a venture with goals of a) stirring up the Middle East and possibly helping move that region forward, and b) getting rid of a blatant human rights abuser. Such a bold step appeals to the human rights advocate in me in the highest regard. However, that is not the war we were sold and, quite frankly, that is not the war that we are fighting. And as a result, since humanitarian intervention and democracy-building have been dragged in as (more or less) after-the-fact reasons for the Iraq war, I fear the chances of future bold action for genuinely humanitarian reasons is nil.

I doubt that the majority of Americans are with me on this one which leads me to a more interesting question: if the only way to really do an effective humanitarian intervention is to sell it as a war of necessity, is it OK to mislead the public to get there? This is a question of ends justifying means and may be a subject of a future column. We'll see. It is a question I have a really difficult time answering.