After U.S. President George W. Bush's address this Wednesday, Americans who vote Democrat (about 50%) think the President still doesn't get it. I think they may be right -- albeit for a different reason.
Democrat-supporters think Bush doesn't get it because he still fails to see that America shouldn't have gone into Iraq. I think he doesn't get it because he fails to see that America should have come out of Iraq at least three years ago.
U.S. troops could start pulling out tomorrow, secure in the knowledge that they've accomplished a plausible and honourable mission: they removed a hostile tyrant and his bloody regime from the world's stage. But U.S. troops could stay in Iraq until the Persian Gulf dries up without achieving the implausible mission of turning Iraq into a western-style pluralistic democracy.
I left out "honourable" for a reason. I don't, of course, consider it dishonourable to promote democracy anywhere in the world, only I'm not convinced that exporting democracy at the point of bayonets, or Cruise missiles, is either desirable or feasible. Post-war Germany or Japan aren't examples to the contrary; the Allied war aim was to defeat them -- indeed, annihilate them if they didn't surrender unconditionally -- and their subsequent democratization, though promoted and supported by the (western) Allies, was their own doing. America may have led the exhausted horses of the former Axis powers to the waters of democracy, but the parched nags drank all by themselves. America and its allies didn't make them.
The difference between leading a horse to water and trying to make it drink is enormous. The first is a breeze, relatively speaking, the second a frustrating exercise in futility. Unfortunately, having achieved the first, it's the second that Mr. Bush has been trying to accomplish in Iraq for the past number of years with disastrous results.
His Wednesday speech indicates he's still trying.
There's little doubt that, had Bush pulled out of Iraq in 2003 after Sadam's capture, saying to Iraqis: "It's all yours now; make the most of it," he would have been seen as a victor, even if he had been severely criticized for the sectarian chaos and mayhem that would likely have followed. But America staying didn't prevent the chaos and mayhem. The only difference is that, were Bush to pull out today, he'd be viewed as a loser. Timing is everything,
But this, unfortunate as it may be for Mr. Bush's footnote in history, isn't sufficient reason to throw good money after bad, and press on with a failed policy. Sending in another modest contingent of troops is tantamount to signing the death warrants of yet another thousand or so young Americans for no foreseeable benefit. Perhaps, just perhaps, an elephantine occupation force might be able to quell the insurrection by sitting on all warring factions until they run out of breath, but this isn't the plan, and a Democrat-dominated Congress probably wouldn't let it happen if it were. The current plan simply sacrifices more lives and limbs on the altar of a failed god called nation-building (which, as a candidate, Mr. Bush wasn't supposed to worship at all).
The Bush-administration has been admonished by critics across the political spectrum for going to war with former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's slimmed-down "army lite" approach, and without assembling a huge force to sit on Mesopotamia afterwards, like democracy's giant paperweight. But Mr. Rumsfeld's lean forces were more than sufficient to rout Saddam and to depose him, which should have been America's only war aim in Iraq.
But somehow, someone convinced Mr. Bush that his invasion to eliminate Saddam and his belligerent regime needed to be legitimized by turning Iraq into a democracy. Why? Search me. Saddam signed his death warrant when, having tried to annex Kuwait and having been repulsed, he continued playing games with arms inspectors, UN resolutions, keeping the stability of the region hostage to his whims. There's nothing illegitimate about crushing an aggressive enemy regime that keeps threatening you and your allies. It's one reason nations have gone to war for, whether kingdoms or republics, since time immemorial. America's right to eliminate a threat to itself or its allies isn't conditional on a commitment to democratize a defeated enemy nation, especially one that doesn't wish to be democratized.
Who won the war? Well, that depends on what the war was fought for, doesn't it? If it was to eliminate Saddam and his dictatorship, America won it almost right out of the starting gate. It was certainly all over by December 2003, when the fiend was dragged from his spider-hole. But if the America war aim was to erect a City on the Hill, a shining beacon to democracy between the Tigris and the Euphrates, Saddam may yet triumph, if he hasn't already, even if he's no longer around to enjoy it.
By the way, has anyone heard of a chap named bin Laden, lately? First name Osama, I believe. A friend of mine has been asking about him. Is he being looked after, do you think?
© 2007 George Jonas
Printer-friendly version
Email this item to a friend