Well, the last Iraq war funding supplemental of 2008 passed, as I expected it would. The pathetic attempt of Congressional Democrats to tie the funding to something, anything, that would eighty-six Mr. Bush's pet war project was, also as expected, stripped out to avoid...oh, I don't know...actually showing some sort of spine, I suppose. We're on track for a war-filled 2008. Also as expected.--
I know I said that I was done with this fucking disaster. I am, really. There's no hope that anything will change, and nothing will change. But before we last leave the House of the Dead, it might do well for us to look at the simple facts as they confront those of us who, unlike the loyal Bushies, don't make our own reality.
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Why is Iraq a failure?
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1. The U.S. government - including both political parties - has no clue what the strategic purpose of our military engagement in Iraq, or the Middle East is.
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2. As Clausewitz points out, without a guiding hand of political strategy to design a plan of campaign, the spiraling violence of war will consume its progenitors, eventually developing an internal dynamo that will lead it places that it's originators may never have intended it to go.
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3. We're clearly at that point now; from "smoking guns/mushroom clouds" through freedom and democracy to stability to whatever warlord of the month will fight for our pay...the original objective of an American ally/Israel-friendly/free-market model for the Middle East is dead as the passenger pigeon.
- Given the political and social history of the "country" of Iraq, no amount of foreign blood and treasure were ever likely to produce the originally stated outcome.--
1. An ethnicly and politically divided former Ottoman province was never a good candidate for "democratization". Once the Baathist lid was removed the Iraqi pot was almost sure to boil. By promoting sectarian, "Divide and conquer", politics we ensured that it would.
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2. Iraq is now effectively a failed state or nearly so. The "central government" does not have a monopoly on violence and is unlikely to have in the immediate future.
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3. In fact, the only institution that our Occupation has succeeded in strengthening is the Iraqi Army. Expect a military coup in Baghdad within a decade.
So...why won't we just declare victory and leave, then?
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The Bushies equate leaving with losing. Absent a U.S.S. Missouri-like surrender, they will not leave, ever.
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The neocon/PNAC/Cheney wing of the GOP still refuses to believe that we cannot subdue and occupy Iraq indefinately as a "central position" in the Middle East to cow their enemies Iran, Syrian and non-state actors like Hezbollah as well.
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The Democrats have no clue but fear being tagged by the Republican C.H.U.D.s as "traitors"...and they have no strategic Middle East plan, either.
What should we do?
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Well...keep in mind there are NO good outcomes here. We lost that hope the day the first scout crossed the LD from Kuwait. There are only bad and worse options.
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We need to stop fighting a land war in Asia. Get the ground forces out ASAP. They are like Cadmus warriors; sewing muj like dragon's teeth just being there.
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We need to accept that we have made Iraq a failed state. Oh, and Afghanistan is, too, but it always was. Now Iraq will be, and we need to make the political and strategic accomodations to deal with that.
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We need to begin seeing the Middle East for what it is: the politically crippled, fading economic engine of the soon-to-be-over Petroleum Era. The Middle East should be a peripheral theatre. Right now it's distracting us from the real potential geopolitical dangers: resurgent Russia, the rise of China, and the hollowing of our own economy and social contract.
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We need to accept that there are no military solutions for religious and moral arguments. The Thirty Year's War should have taught us that. We cannot bomb the jihadis away. Only our good example, and the unwillingness of Middle Eastern kids to listen to Taliban rap and wear Punjabi sneakers, will this.
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We need to accept that we cannot unconditionally bankroll Israel forever. IT's not good for us, or for them.
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We need to assemble what Pat Lang calls a "Concert of the Mddle East" to deal with the issues that make this region such a cockpit, including:
- Israel: the Palestinians must give up the "right of return" in exchange for Israeli retreat to the 1967 "Green Line". Jordan should absorb the West Bank, Eqypt Gaza. The Golan to return to Syria with an American force ensuring neutrality. Shebaa Farms to Lebanon, and major economic support for the Palestinian areas.
- Iran: recognized as the regional Power in return for stability of relations in the Gulf, neutralization of nuclear aspirations and demilitarization of support for Hezbollah.
- Iraq: acceptance of soft partition or such arrangements as are worked out by the internal factions. Replacement of American occupation with Islamic troops to prevent civil war.
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Will It Work?
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Probably not. Too many players conspiring against the common good and for their own advantage. More generally, the West was only spared this kind of confessional and sectarian fighting after the Enlightenment took religion out of politics. I do not see any hope for a similar, near-term Islamic Enlightenment. And without out a similar intellectual revolution the sad Middle East is dependent on the kind of "leaders" it has always had...men with little ideas, little hates and little fears. Men like Muktada al Sadr...and George W. Bush.
Nope. We - and the Iraqis - are just fucked.
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