The Necromonger Way
Think Iraq was a mistake? What about Iran? Or is everything a mistake? The McClatchey Newspapers reports (hat tip, Winds of Change):
Washington - In an echo of the intelligence wars that preceded the U.S. invasion of Iraq, a high-stakes struggle is brewing within the Bush administration and in Congress over Iran's suspected nuclear weapons program and involvement in terrorism.
U.S. intelligence and counterterrorism officials say Bush political appointees and hard-liners on Capitol Hill have tried recently to portray Iran's nuclear program as more advanced than it is and to exaggerate Tehran's role in Hezbollah's attack on Israel in mid-July.
The challenge of Iran is forcing Washington to face the same type of questions it faced in 2003, before OIF. How should it act in Iran or has that now become an impossible question to answer because of the controversy over Iraq? One way to dodge the issue is to argue that any position toward Iran has been precluded by Iraq. Or put another way, confronting Iran would have been possible if only we didn't ruin everything by first getting involved in Iraq. This is a specific version of the more general belief that the West is precluded from acting on anything because of its historical burden of guilt. Got it wrong for the start and therefore need to earn the right to begin again. Therefore the crazy emphasis in modern politics on expatiation as a way of acquiring the "moral authority" to act in the world. How this moral authority can be acquired without actually doing anything becomes a recursive problem. It also reduces politics to a kind of perverted theology. One day people may discover liberalism is actually a primitive form of Necroism, after a fictional religion in the Chronicles of Riddick Universe. "The Necromongers practice a religion known as Necroism. The primary belief of this religion is that life in this universe is a mistake which must be corrected." And so the Necromongers go through the galaxy destroying everything because it's all tainted in the hopes of eventually attaining the Underverse, where everything gets recreated perfectly.
But unfortunately for us, we are midway through the test of life. Are we all ready to tackle question No. 4, however we fared in question No. 3? Or should we throw it all away because we didn't do it perfectly? But how can we say that if we don't the correct answers yet? That's history's trick question.
posted by wretchardthecat at 9/18/2006 05:51:00 PM
37 Comments:
"confronting Iran would have been possible if only we didn't ruin everything by first getting involved in Iraq."
In a sense, I think you're quite right here. The lies, the sheer BS that our administration put forth in order to make the case for Iraq have, quite simply, devastated the administration's credibility and the credibility of the United States. There's really no getting around this.
And you can't blame the left for this. Nor the UN. Nor clueless Europeans. Ultimately, the responsibility for the outcome of Operation Iraqi Freedom lies only with the administration.
And in this sense, Operation Iraqi Freedom has been a catastrophe. A catastrophe that goes far beyond the tens of thousands of dead, the thousands of limbs blown off, and the rapidly approaching $1 trillion dollar price tag. Beyond all of this, the US has been left with very little credibility.
When you run around on the world stage and kill a lot of people and juice it all up with fine sounding phrases about bringing democracy and human rights or ridding the world of dangerous weapons... and you do NONE of those find sounding things BUT manage to destroy tens of thousands of lives... people do tend to become skeptical.
And so now, when confronted with the spectre of a nuclear Iran the chickens really come home to roost, don't they? Now, it would appear as if a country REALLY IS persuing WMD and we might want to do something about it. But after Iraq, why should Europe or anyone else want to listen to this administration's claims about WMD? Why on Earth would any Americans, for that matter?
Historical burden of guilt has nothing to do with it. The invasion of Iraq was, by all appearances, a fundamental raping and pillaging of one nation by another for the financial benefit of a small number of American corporations. It may have been for other reasons, but there is certainly no evidence of that.
Let's look at the evidence: friends of the administration got lots of money. None of the original war aims were achieved.
And now, when we look at Iran, we can believe the administration's unsubstantiated BS about uranium enrichment. Or, like the rest of the world, we can take a look at all the glorious business opportunities awaiting us in the Caspian basin. And if we look purely at the track record of Iraq, what are we to believe is the real motive in all of this talk about Iran?
james kielland wrote:
"The lies, the sheer BS that our administration put forth in order to make the case for Iraq have, quite simply, devastated the administration's credibility and the credibility of the United States."
I know. I lie awake at night trembling that the Congolese & the Sudanese & the French may no longer trust the US.
There is only one answer -- OJ showed us how the guilty ought to behave. Under the leadership of the New York Times & their political arm, the US should take the US hostage. Get those nuclear-armed bombers in the air; turn those nuclear submarines around to face the US-- then tell the world that the US will nuke the US unless they all start playing nice.
If I had a dollar for every time intelligence got it wrong, I'd be a rich man. Hitler's WMDs. The poor eyesight of Japanese pilots. The safety of Seoul in 1950. The unwillingness of the Chinese to cross the Yalu. The safety of the Pueblo in International Waters. The safety of Marines in Beirut. The unlikelihood Saddam would invade Kuwait. The power of the Shi'ites to rise against Saddam. The Sudanese aspirin factory. The location of Osama Bin Laden before firing 100 cruise missiles. The impregnability of Manhattan. The statesmanship of the Hezbollah.
And when does a mistake "wear off", if mistake there was? Unfortunately the pitcher keeps pitching and you have to keep swinging, or leave the game.
The comment by jk leaves me nearly speechless. Actually, astounded by the abilities of jk to throw out complete sentences which are divorced from reality. WOW!
Liberals were always able to get 'do-overs' from their teachers... they can't believe that the Mullahs won't give us the same chance, if we're nice to them.
Duh.
There's really no use even talking to someone like JK, he's chasing ideological ghosts.
Ed:
I'm sorry you're speechless. I was going rather light, merely reiterating what many people around the world feel to be true.
Wretchard,
You make a great point in bringing up the previous intel failures. I sympathize with the case I believe you're trying to make when you ask, "when does a mistake wear off?" And unfortunately, what I think or how I would respond to that really doesn't matter.
Due to how the administration pitched and handled this war, it lost credibility. We might be able to insist that the rest of the world was unfair in their judgments. But I suspect that, increasingly, in our contemporary world fueled by hyperactive global communications, that the management of public opinion will continue to be an exceptionally important strategic arena. It probably won't matter how many enemies divisions are destroyed, how many bad guys are tortured, or how many potential nuke sites are set back a few years... if you find yourself more isolated and less free to act then when you started.
There seems to be a certain insistence in many of your posts that the Left is just too demanding or the Europe doesn't get it, and that if only we could overcome their crazy ideas of moral equivalence or whatever, we'd be free to act more effectively.
But the left, or liberals, or public opinion in European countries is a strategic reality. They are, quite simply, an actor in the contemporary battlespace. Sustained warfare requires diplomacy and alliances. The best and most capable allies are democracies. Democracies require high levels of leadership and trust in order to gain cooperation. The administration appears to have entered into a war without much of a plan on how to deal with this strategic reality which is really as elemental as the weather.
As you of course know, war is an extension of politics. But war, and politics, are also extensions of technology and values. The vast body of military history does not tell us how to lead hyper-connected democracies through highly trying times. Once, we had censors and limited methods of communication. Once, no one knew what was going on in other countries or what the real reasons for war were. The management of public opinion was a simple affair, the establishing of alliances could be managed by diplomats simply making good deals behind closed doors.
That's just not how it is anymore. War has become much more complicated than many on the right seem to be willing to face. The real face of network centric warfare isn't found in such things as FCS. It's found in places like Al Jazeera, CNN, BBC, and all of these other places. Unfortunately, it's a domain where nothing sold by Raytheon or Lochheed seems to help us.
JK,
Saddam was in violation of 12 UN resolutions (of course they profited by this) and violated the terms of a cessation of hostilities. The WMD issue was window dressing for the Europeans and knuckleheads like you. It wasn’t lies. It was a waste of time because the administration does not owe the likes of you an explanation.
The party that got egg on it’s face was the CIA who proved, aside from being inept, to be a bastion of partisan whores. The president doesn’t actually run the spy agency. Doesn’t analyze the data. Who would have expected that the agency entrusted with giving every administration since the fifties an intelligence briefing was incapable of doing just that. A total failure. Where is the breech of confidence? In your demented mind no doubt.
The CIA has no credibility but Saddam got what he deserved… unfortunately the Iraqi’s are not getting theirs, which is a big fat nothin’.
Some people are just plain prejudice… so we must cater to their sordid outlook just to play nice.
JK your strategic alliances could as easily be made with al Qaeda. Why don’t they like us? Who cares, the EuroSnobs are pissed because they couldn’t affect the outcome of our elections and won’t be happy until we reasonably elect Hillary. The Jihadists wont be happy until we elect Hillary and she dons a Hijab.
Al Jazeera, CNN, and the BBC will respect us about the same time as Al Qaeda will respect us.
Now, it would appear as if a country REALLY IS persuing WMD
All evidence found (and we're still digging it out of Saddam's extensive files) indicate that he HAD WMD programs, he hid them from inspectors, and planned to start them up as SOON as sanctions were lifted.
The mullahs don't even have to wait; too many countries, (especially Russia, China and Venezuela) are only too willing to sell them whatever they need to finish their programs.
My greatest fear (and I realize it's irrational) is that the huge amount of publicity concerning Iran's "nuclear" option conceals their successful chemical or biological weapons program. If you want to wipe out a certain group of people (i.e., Jews) then these are much more affordable options, and they also make for easier cleanup afterwards, to allow you move your friendly "Army of G-d" into the vacated area when finished...
Iran can be and should be held to it's words.
Iran states that israel should be wiped off the face of the map, as the USA should as well. We should declare war asap based on that and only that.
Once the infrastructure of iran is laid waste, we ask, "can you live in a world with the usa and israel?"
If they say no, then more bombing.
if they say yes, we stop bombing
If at anytime iran does anything, including using hezbollah or issuing fatwa's, bombing will commence.
Once every electrical device, dam, bridge, and any building over 1 story has been destroyed a complete mining of all borders will commence.
rinse and repeat with any country that will not grant the right to the usa and israel to exist in peace as per the UN charter.
any country that will do murder to destroy the usa or israel as of october 1st 2006 will be destroyed.
sounds harsh?
listen to the president of iran and his words
listen to the mullahs of arabia
listen to the mullahs of britian
take iran at their words and NOTHING else.
James, James, James.
For you and your party affiliates, GWB lost his cred when he won an election in 2000.
Three words.... Get over it.
W is the first world leader to show the cajones to actually recognize a war that our enemies have been waging against us for decades.
They continue to get stronger.... one day they will have the ability to wage nuclear war unless something is done.
You differentiate between Iraq & Iran. The jihadis do not. they are one agianst the great and the little satan.
Save your energy for the real enemies of civilization.
James Kielland continued to write:
"It probably won't matter how many enemies divisions are destroyed, how many bad guys are tortured, or how many potential nuke sites are set back a few years... if you find yourself more isolated and less free to act then when you started."
That gets it exactly backwards. The more isolated the US becomes, the freer the US becomes to act independently in its own narrow best interests. And those narrow best interests could take the form of pre-emptive nuclear attacks on perceived threats, or of simply walking away.
The almost deliberate inability of all those big brains in Europe (a.k.a. "the world" in New York Times theology) to recognize this simple fact suggests that some of those big brains are not functioning so well.
Remember that the EU imports just as many barrels of oil as the US -- and imports more of them from Middle East. The EU gets most of its gas from Russia & Algeria. The EU imports much of the coal it uses. The EU is very, very exposed -- which may explain their doctrine of pre-emptive surrender and their distaste for US willingness to face up to threats in this world.
Now, remind me why the US should be concerned about getting isolated from the Europeans?
You're talking about cultural pessimism- the belief that our culture is so bad that it would be better for it to be destroyed than to save it. It's got a long history all the way back to Plato, via Oswald Spengler, Nietzsche, Marx, etc.
An organic view of society often leads to the idea that a problem is so bad that you cannot solve it without changing the whole society.
A mechanistic view is that problems are seperate entities that can be solved, and that society is a collection of individual people, whose attitudes can be changed without the whole society needing to be transformed or rebuilt from the ashes.
Americans tend to be mechanistic in their outlook, and thus are far better at solving problems than people who can't confront a problem without condemning their whole society first.
The ropes that JK is trying to wrap around the United States are the last tactics of the left. They have lost every single debate and election and now must hope that the United States will hobble herself by worrying about world opinion.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Pierre,
It's really striking to me how you and so many others have missed the basic point. You insist that I'm a part of the Left and that I'm necessarily trying to hobble the US. And that this is somehow a "last hope" strategy on my (or the Left's) part.
And yet, implicit in Wretchard's post is the notion that the US has indeed been hobbled. Certainly I, nor the left, need not take any additional action here.
And the fundamental problem that many other people on this thread haven't grasped is that I'm merely giving voice to an opinion which is quite common throughout the world. And since few people here seemed to have understood it, I'll say it again:
Operation Iraqi Freedom has 1) cost more than it was advertised as costing, 2) hasn't come anywhere close to achieving the promised results. This is widely believed by many people around the globe and to make a strong case for it all one need do is take the comments/promises/predictions of various Bush administration appointees or defenders and compare them with the reality on the ground.
Secondly, and quite related to the above, the way OIF was carried out, from the basis on which is was sold to the continuing outcome, resulted in a significant drop in popular feeling towards the US in several regions around the world.
The previous paragraph is fairly evident and I would say that it's hard to refute. If the US's credibility and esteem was high, there'd be little worry about the world taking the US seriously in regards to Iraq. Unfortunately, it seems clear that many, many countries around the world, as well as many populations, are essentially unmoved by Washington's claims regarding Iran's nuclear program.
I would argue that the Administration's handling of Iraq has led to the PR problems that we are now facing and will continue to face in Iran. And on that basis I would consider the Iraq campaign to be, at this time, a "loss."
Perhaps I'm completey wrong. If that were the case we would be left with the notion that somehow the US's esteem, credibility, and diplomatic/military power are now greater than they were prior to the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom. I find that viewpoint tremendously hard sustain.
Kinauchdrach insists that the US need not be concerned about being diplomatically isolated from Europe and that being diplomatically isolated would lead to greater freedom of action. I would argue that there is more than Europe involved here. Secondly, an individual, state, or organization's power is largely shaped by the network it forms. Other nations have things that they can offer us in the fight and it's not at all necessary to assume that constraints imposed by various relationships must make the relationship a net loss in capability or freedom of action. I'll simply refer you to John Boyd.
Secondly, some seem to have taken an amusing offense to my suggestion that various members of this administration and their supporters profited handsomely from this war. I believe that is indisputable. Let us take a close look at those individuals officially in the administration and those who were operationally close to it. Let us look at their claims for this war. Let us realize that for the most part they were completely wrong. And then let us recognize, with a large sense of disappointment, that many of those individuals profited greatly from this war. And, it seems, were the only people to profit from this war.
Readers are free to dismiss such things as coincidence or even free to deny them. But these things have been quite documented by the global media even if the US media refuses to cover it. You might like to believe that the vast profits made by those close to this administration were purely coincidental. Unfortunately, many people around the world are not so sanguine. And the fact that they do believe it is, in and of itself, a strategic failure on the part of this administration if you believe that it is important for the US to act as a global leader in regards to WMD, Islamic Terrorism, and so forth.
Perhaps I'm completely wrong. Maybe the rest of the world actually does believe the line spouted by Fox News. But then again, if the world did have more trust in the US then we most likely wouldn't be engaged in a thread dedicated to a post which explicitly addresses how events in Iraq are limiting our options in Iran.
jk writes:
...an opinion which is quite common throughout the world
This is widely believed by many people around the globe...
...drop in popular feeling towards the US in several regions around the world
...there'd be little worry about the world
...many, many countries around the world
...documented by the global media
...many people around the world
...if you believe that it is important for the US to act as a global leader
...the rest of the world
...if the world
as Possumtater might say, "i reckon dis heah knucklehead gotta be one of dem trans-whatchamacallem's. you knows what i be's talkin bout, one o dem fools what's tinks de rest of de world be votin' heah. i jus aint got time to ejucate his junkie ass bout dat not bein de case, so les some otha possum be willin ta do it, i guess we gone havta let him keep on makin a fool outta hisself.
John Mearsheimer, Stephen Walt and Cedarford discuss "the thrust of US policy in the region derives almost entirely from domestic politics, and especially the activities of the ‘Israel Lobby’."
What the US should do is take the skeptical view and force the EUtopians to cook the intelligence and sell us on the idea of going to war. After all, it's their neighborhood. But they couldn't even take care of a little mess in Kosovo without the Americans leading them all the way.
Kielland does not distinguish reality from talk about reality. Indeed, for him, public opinion about reality is itself a crucial part of reality, so much so that it is the core test by which modern war can be measured. He is quite explicit. As long as we lose the "exceptionally strategic area" of "public opinion," then "[i]t probably won't matter how many enemies divisions are destroyed." Kielland is an idealist, of the party of Bishop Berkeley.
Such lack of discrimination is foolish. The US has actual interests it will actually defend and pursue. How other people will think and talk in reaction to our actions on behalf of those interests is to us finally trivial.
As regards Iraq, Kielland ignores the main point. The US decisively prevented Iraq from gaining WMDs. That strategic goal is settled.
It is only an extraordinary narcissism that could find that achievement of no moment as compared to his own opinion about American policy.
Kielland had better imitate Samuel Johnson and kick a rock, and soon, lest he find himself refuted one fine morning by an Iranian rock kicking him.
David Joslin
The end goal of intervention in Iran is regime change. Who says there has to be any other stated reason? Tell the American people, that a tyrannical regime exists in the region and is waging war on America through its proxies ever since the Embassy takeover under Carter. The Administration should make the case that its been over 25 years since then and 'enough is enough'. We are going in to give the majority of Iranians who are under the age of 20 an opportunity to enjoy a free society and at the same time end this war against the USA and its allies by a fundo regime of Muslim Fascists. End of story. NO need to talk about WMD, or anything else. These people want you dead and have declared war already. Whether you like it or not, their War WANTS YOU!
James Kielland is a hoot. The world hates America? How does he know this? He reads the newspapers?
You can bet on the laziness of people who throw out the trope that "the world hates America!"
America-hatred has been standard fare for European and 3rd-world media and intellectuals since after WWII.
Meantime the world (the world that hates America, remember?) is screaming to get over here to live and work.
With a tiny bit of effort JK could go over to the US Citizenship and Immigration website and look up the statistics of the peoples and nations granted US citizenship over the past ten years (hint: the numbers go up). And keep in mind: behind those granted citizenship are millions of applicants waiting for citizenship, and behind those applicants are millions of applicants for permanenet residency (the famous Green Card).
JK, lower the footrest on your mental easy chair and haul your bloated easy-chair moulded intellectual carcass outside for some excercise...
"Sustained warfare requires diplomacy and alliances." -JK
Why? I don't buy it, and never have. Why the insistence on holding so tightly to the idea that we must have our allies along for the ride whenever we act? It's nice, to be sure, but are we never to act without months or years of trying to cobble together some sort of coalition first?
"Democracies require high levels of leadership and trust in order to gain cooperation."
I don't believe this is true either. All a democracy needs to cooperate is a foe that is clearly identified. Our nation was fractious over WWII until we were attacked. Many would argue we had strong leadership then, but didn't cooperate on the issue of war until a clear foe presented itself. Unfortunately, our greatest ideological foe is currently being played with the soft hand by the media, clouding our perception of an enemy that most certainly does exist, and which is most urgently seeking our destruction, and the destruction of our allies.
As Necroism states, "You keep what you kill!" And perhaps its time we retain the trophies of this bloody and unneccessary conquest. The virtue of Empire was that it resolved cultural divides by eliminating them. The fear of tempting the ogre of Empire was enough to beg deference beyond the frontier. When the Incas, for instance, conquered a region, they enslaved the adults and transported the children to another region and made them citizens. I submit that if we are forced to kill the serpent that is radical Iran, we keep it! Then we'll see how Syria, Lebanon, and Venezuela resolve their belligerent committments.
JK, lower the footrest on your mental easy chair and haul your bloated easy-chair moulded intellectual carcass outside for some excercise...
That's quite a picture--thanks. Saved a lot of words, and is *exactly* right.
6+weeks and Hassan Nasrallah is still in hiding.
If Bush had any balls Ahmadinejad would be arrested in NY and sent to gitmo.
yep, we got a chance at Hitler.
Take note of the increasingly popular Iraq war.
The Opinion Dynamics poll two weeks ago showed 51 percent of Americans support "the U.S. war in Iraq."
A majority supports the war.
The new Gallup poll shows that 49 percent of Americans do not believe the Iraq war was a mistake. 49 percent also call it a mistake, but this is the first time since December that the percent calling the war a mistake was not a majority.
great posts, sfrcook & navydoc. And thank you for your service, Doc!
Doc, I think the Philippines insurrection was the closest thing to the Iraq war today. 1906 and 2006 are eerily similar.
It wasn't pretty, taking on the Philippines. Rudyard Kipling admired the project, but Mark Twain called it imperialism.
With U.S. help, the Philippines, which easily could have been swallowed up by the aggressively imperial Japan, had the first elected parliament in Asia. Unfortunately, independence and full democracy took decades.
Let's hope it all comes together faster in Iraq.
And remember when Bluto became Brutus? What was that all about?
More redundant Cedarford drival:
"enormously powerful Jews inside and outside Palestine and the inexorable numbers and will and strength of the Arabs". Sounds to me like things are already balanced. Why would you want to weaken Israel more while while its sworn enemy is seeking the capacity to anhilate it in one moment in time? Hmmmm.... I wonder why???? Using my average IQ it's crystal clear to me. With friends like you who needs enemies... or wait you described the Arabs as having "inexorable will and strength"; you're not even a bad friend but simply following the "enemy of my enemy" concept. Guess what C4 explain to my why you don't have to be a Jew or Christian Zionist to consider Israel a friend, like myself? Guess what, I don't care what kind of skewed stats you may be able to drudge up from your well, there are more pro-Israel, non-Zionists than you think (yeah, you can be pro-Israel without being a Zionist).
"Drivel"
Meant to do that because i knew you would go out on a limb with your input.
So far, I've seen great reasons for going to war with Iraq coming from conservatives or right-wingers here, and I meant that with in a sardonic tone.
Iraq violated UN resolutions. How the hell does that justify a poorly planned and poorly executed invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq? If you consider yourselves realist, then that's a pretty poor standard for a casus belli, without taking into account that states like Israel and the US have also violated UN resolutions (the former more than any other state).
And you don't compare reality with a trivial game. Wake up children. Reality is much more complex than baseball or any other sport. You have had too much O'Reilly spin up your...
And I'm not even going to start with the mentality of the left. The left aren't exactly great at grasping reality either. Alliances. Pfft. It's not the end all be all of international politics.
The fact is, Iraq is and was and will always be a mistake. And seeing as you right-winger consider explaining the motives of the Iraq war to the left to be pretty much a waste of breathe, so do I consider trying to enlighten you why the Iraq war is a mistake to be a waste of time too.
BUSH SHOULD HAVE GONE AFTER IRAN, NOT IRAQ.
Post a Comment
<< Home