Wednesday, 03.26.08
The Stakes In Iraq
Photo by David McNew/Getty Images
The Shiites hit the fan
26 March 2008
Andrew Sullivan comments and gathers responses on the upwelling of violence.
In the mire
26 March 2008
Matthew Yglesias explains why the outbreak "seems to be a fight in which we have no dog."
Place McCain's speech side by side with the address Barack Obama delivered last week, on the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, and you don't just have two divergent takes on the war in Iraq. You have two completely different prisms through which to view the conflict.
Obama's speech cast the Iraq War as a financial sinkhole, draining billions or even trillions of dollars from America's coffers. He rolled out a litany of domestic goals that could be pursued with the money the United States is spending trying to stabilize Iraq, and cast the debate over whether to withdraw as a choice between an ruinously expensive nation-building effort on the one hand, and universal health care, affordable college education, tax cuts for the middle class, and "protecting Social Security today, tomorrow, and forever." McCain, by contrast, spoke the language of honor, duty and obligation, and cast the question of whether to leave Iraq in starkly moral terms: "To walk away from the Iraqi people and consign them to ... horrendous violence, ethnic cleansing and possibly genocide," he argued, would represent "an unconscionable act of betrayal, a stain on our character as a great nation."
To a war-weary nation, Obama's cool pragmatism has obvious appeal, but on a fundamental level McCain's calculus is the right one. America's responsibility for the current stability and future prospects of Iraq -- a poor, tyrannized nation that our policies have plunged into bloody chaos -- can't be waved away by pointing out that we could be spending those billions on ourselves instead. If Obama wants to claim the moral as well as the political high ground, he can't just make the case that Americans will be better off if the United States withdraws from Iraq; he needs to mount a persuasive argument that Iraqis will be better off as well.
Ideology exposedDan Balz says that McCain's moral commitment to Iraq underscores the fundamental difference between him and Obama: conservatism and liberalism. |
A muted gainPeter D. Feaver, one of the surge architects, explains in Commentary magazine how victory is now plausibly in sight, though it may take decades to get there. |
Sisyphean warThe surge's putative gains may be unraveling, writes Hilary Bok in a round-up of the day's bad news from Iraq. |
A war too costlyHarvard professor Linda Bilmes and Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz explain how the war will cost Americans $3 trillion, all told. |
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I see; we can recklessly rush into Iraq, under false pretenses, but it is verboten to leave in the same way. We can allow ourselves to be held hostage by a disfunctional Iraqi goverment, but it is verboten to put a limit on it. We are morally obligated to spend another trillion without any guarantee that it will be effective, and we must load all the debt on our children, but they don't deserve a college education. Of course, only Iraq deserves these benefits (not Darfur or any other non-oil producing region). Yes, this is wonderful logic.
Mr. Douthat:
You must be joking.
"[Obama] needs to mount a persuasive argument that Iraqis will be better off as well" if the United States leaves Iraq, you say.
Well, let's start with at least a gradual end to the body count that is an everyday occurrence in Iraq, one we're almost inured to in the U.S., despite our role in many of between 80,000 and 200,000 Iraqi deaths. Then there's the opportunity (one it's high time we exercised) to witness the Iraqi government doing what it has to do without us, sooner or later, as a freestanding nation: govern.
Then there's the inevitable entrance of businesses, advisers, diplomats and the United Nations better poised for rebuilding a nation than 150,000 combat troops would be.
And then, ironically enough, there's the way in which our own military, once withdrawn, would have a chance to rebuild itself, the better to protect other global hot spots — and Iraq, should the need arise in the future.
A "persuasive argument"? Because the Iraqi people can never truly be the Iraqi people until we do leave. The surest sign of the viability of a democracy is what happens when you take away the guns you need to start one. If those principles of democracy take root, they will take root according to the faith and belief of the Iraqis who live there, on their terms.
If those principles don't hold, they were never meant to. And no occupying army will force that to happen. Ever. Not in five years, or fifty or even a hundred.
Persuasive enough? It should be.
Interesting. Though I do not agree with the core of Douthat's argument, lets accept for a second that Obama needs to "mount a persuasive argument that Iraqis will be better off as well" without US presence. How can he possibly do that? And even if he does try, would war supporters accept it? Seems like rather difficult task.
And, moral views of Mr. McCain notwithstanding, shouldn't the argument be - will US be better off? Can our strategic interests in the region be preserved without current level of involvement? Perhaps this is the argument that Obama needs to keep making to American people.
There is no way the Iraqis can be "better off" if we stay, or if we go. The damage has already been done, and will continue.
People who want the US to act "responsibly" don't want the world seeing another gigantic US foreign policy failure. Th world already sees that, it's too late. Staying will merely make it worse.
After the then-dreaded dreaded "bloodbath," Vietnam stabilized quickly and its communist economy eventually failed. End of the Red Menace that drew us into THAT mistake. Now, it has a stock market and does outsourcing for US firms.
There will be more fighting in Iraq than there was in Vietnam after we withdraw, but the responsibility for creating some sort of stability in their region will fall on Iran and Saudi Arabia. After all, they don't want oil sales to stop either. Oil will flow, prices eventually may fall. The US will have to adjust to the more powerful Iranian power it created by nullifying Saddam.
There is no way the Iraqis can be "better off" if we stay, or if we go. The damage has already been done, and will continue.
People who want the US to act "responsibly" don't want the world seeing another gigantic US foreign policy failure. Th world already sees that, it's too late. Staying will merely make it worse.
After the then-dreaded dreaded "bloodbath," Vietnam stabilized quickly and its communist economy eventually failed. End of the Red Menace that drew us into THAT mistake. Now, it has a stock market and does outsourcing for US firms.
There will be more fighting in Iraq than there was in Vietnam after we withdraw, but the responsibility for creating some sort of stability in their region will fall on Iran and Saudi Arabia. After all, they don't want oil sales to stop either. Oil will flow, prices eventually may fall. The US will have to adjust to the more powerful Iranian power it created by nullifying Saddam.
Obama overlooks two things: (a) if we were not spending the money on the war, it is far from clear we would spend it on his projects--there would be a strong effort to lower spending overall, and there would be plenty of fights over where to spend whatever could be spent, and (b) the costs to the nation of withdrawing quickly from Iraq--these include a great strengthening of our enemies.
McCain fails to do any cost benefit analysis, and, while his moral argument is right as far as it goes, in the end we should do what is in our best interests, taking all costs and benefits (including moral ones) into account.
Honor and religeous war have, historically, proven to be very poor guides to making good foreign policiy decisions. And they're usually used to avoid talking about the real reasons for war.
Our dirty little war in Iraq is a resource war; the resource is oil.
And McCain will be pulling forces out as quickly as he can, once he's assured that there will be maximum benefit to the oil interests in this country. There's nothing about democracy in that calculation. It's all about oil.
Spending the amount it cost to wage that dirtly little war for a month or two on developing viable alternatives -- hydrogen cars, wind/solar sources -- on the other hand is good sense.
Admitting that it's a resource war would be the real honorable thing to do. I'm still waiting for the day a Republican can show that kind of honor.
John McCain argued that the U.S. has a "moral obligation" to fulfill
Hmm. No mention of a war crimes tribunal, tho'. That is where I would start.
There's a remarkably consistent tradition of using the language of moral obligation to justify imperialist occupations. That's all McCain is doing.
So let me get this straight - a group of corrupt, self serving, self aggrandizing politicians and their handlers looking to reshape reality itself in their image take it upon themselves to squander the resources of the US and thousands of American lives for the purpose of invading a sovereign nation, deceiving the American people into believing it is somehow in our national security interests and destroying the lives of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis in the process and somehow, the onus is on us, the American people, to pour hundreds of billions more dollars into this nightmare and sacrifice even more lives with no prospect of any kind of a decent outcome? Will there ever come a time when there is anything like personal accountability and the expection of personal responsibility in our leaders? So all the rest of us suffer, the economy is destroyed and more people lose loved ones for the indefinite future all because we had the misfortune of electing delusional leaders? It would be one thing if we actually, in any meaningful sense, chose our leaders - the media sees to it that we never actually do that. I guess this is the price we pay for all of eternity for being a truly stupid people.
So, why don't we do a cost-benefit analysis of fulfilling this "moral obligation" of staying in Iraq until . . . until when again?
That's right, no one arguing to "finish the job" can say how long we'd have to be there, let alone remotely attempt to quantify the costs of this supposed "moral obligation" which seems to consist of having to support whichever militia nominally "runs" the government. This week we're helping the "good guys" the Iraqi government/Badr Brigade/SIIC v. the "bad guys" the Mahdi Army and Muqtada Al-Sadr. I don't believe this to be morally righteous and how exactly does this help stabilize things in Iraq and lead to our graceful and eventual exit. I have no F------ clue. And neither do you.
fact is, if John McCain advocates "staying" then he must at least articulate some remote semblance of a credible plan upon which he approximates the ultimate costs of staying. Otherwise McCain is arguing to attach the United States to an unlimited liability.
I for one would rather let the Iraqis sort out their own issues and let America deal with our financial mess instead of throwing all this $$$ out the window for no financial, or frankly national security, return on our investment. That used to be considered the "Conservative" point of view.
Sorry, but the "morality" of this war has been bogus from the start, so for McCain to claim any sort of higher moral ground in debating its continuation is just as bogus.
Preemptive war is not moral. Killing people for oil is not moral. Giving billions to Halliburton and friends of the administration while Iraq falls to ruin and the US treasury is sucked dry by these leeches are morally indefensible acts too.
Please Ross, if we are to discuss this in moral terms lets take off the flag pins and put it all on the table, then take a good hard honest look.
When you're in a hole, stop digging.
There, that wasn't so hard.
" he can't just make the case that Americans will be better off if the United States withdraws from Iraq; he needs to mount a persuasive argument that Iraqis will be better off as well."
The same for McCain, can he make a persuasive argument that the Iraqis will be better off if we stay?
Seems to me, the improved conditions in Iraq that recently ended were not so much due to our presence, but due to the Sadr ceasefire and our paying off the Sunnis.
We can pay off the Sunnis from here. And if we weren't paying to keep troops there, we might actually make the payments to the Sunnis that we promised, rather than stiffing them.
"(a) if we were not spending the money on the war, it is far from clear we would spend it on his projects--there would be a strong effort to lower spending overall, and there would be plenty of fights over where to spend whatever could be spent, and"
Just avoiding the incurred debt and interest payments would be a boon, even if we didn't spend the money on anything else.
" (b) the costs to the nation of withdrawing quickly from Iraq--these include a great strengthening of our enemies."
They were strengthened when we took out Saddam. It's too late to put that genie back in the bottle, especially when we've weakened the military so badly.
So John McCain -- the "maverick" realist -- is playing to our emotions, while Barack Obama -- the idealistic cult leader -- is presenting the facts? I think I'll take the cool pragmatism.
The best thing that the US can do for Iraqis is leave them alone. We have this Rudyard Kipling complex that not only can we fix other people's problems, we must.
Instead, we are more like Henderson the Rain King: arrogant, blundering, morally superior and creating more damage with our superiority complex than we can help.
The best thing we can do for both nations is leave them alone. Will there be blood shed and civil war? Of course, but we knew that going in and all we are doing is providing a temporary damper. Once we leave, whether is it today or 100 years from now, the bloodshed will return. At some point, they need to solve their own problems. Instead, they are focusing their hate and violence at us for interfering where we don't belong.
Ross, you're making a blanket assumption that by staying in Iraq, we are fixing it. Is there an iota of evidence that this is true? What is it?
I believe that when we leave Iraq, the country will descend into complete choas. An all out civil war leaving hundreds of thousands dead, with Iran eventually sweeping in (by supporting one of the Shia militias) to take control. Alternatively, Iraq could end up a Somalia-like disaster. I still think this is superior to us spending hundreds of billions (or trillions) more to continue the disaster there, since I see no evidence that our current actions will affect what happens when we do leave.
Responsibility has its limits, we should only commit to stay if we have a reasonable expectation of repairing the country, since we do not, we should vacate as soon as possible.
The winner of the argument is whomever gets to frame it their way by putting the onus on the opposition to justify their strategy. Because Iraq is well and truly screwed, and is likely to get worse no matter what we do. So it's all about what you view as the de facto course of action going forward, and what is the aberration which requires justification.
If the proponents of occupation can require those who want to leave to prove it will make things better, they'll win. Because things almost certainly won't get better if we leave.
On the flip side, if those who want to leave can require those who want to stay to prove that things will get better if we stay, and justify spending $150 billion per year in perpetuity, then they win. Because things are unlikely to get better if we stay, and certainly won't be getting $150 billion/year better.
So, is the default situation one where the US should stop occupyinhg a foreign country and spending $150 billion/year for no discernible gain? Or is it one where "we broke it, we bought it," and so need to stay in the middle of the war even though there's little evidence we have any power to shape events there or solve their problems?
How remarkable for a supporter of continuance of the war to concede that it is not in the interests of the United States but only of Iraq. Certainly the initiation of the war as being for their sake not ours could not have been sold to the American people, and I doubt if it can be sustained now on this basis.
But the notion that American power serves the Iraqi national interest is presumptuous and erroneous, as is the notion there's anything noble and altruistic in what our soldiers are about in Iraq today. Consider that Mr. Maliki is friendly to Iran and that he would fall from power were it not for the presence of American troops. Consider that he must prefer a continued American presence in Iraq. Then consider that Mr. Sadr dislikes Iran and opposes the American presence. Which of the two is the more authentic nationalist and would improve the future prospects of Iraq? And who are we to say?
The mere fact America props up a thuggish ruler, and portrays him as an exemplar of the rule of law and democratic ideals, doesn't make him more legitimate that his rivals.
The fact, political, legal, moral, is that no sovereign nation can assume responsibility for the stability and prospects of another. That is the business of the people of the nation themselves, and none of ours. Those who continue to presume otherwise will in the end only add to the misery of the Iraqi people even as they concededly do nothing to serve the interests of the United States.
It would be a stain on our honor, Mr Douthat and Sen McCain tell us, to do what is so obviously the best thing for our country.
Honor, huh. Do they actually believe after the last 6 years of lies and stupidity and venality that there is 'honor' at stake in Iraq? Do they really?
Amazing. It would be inspiring in a way if it were not juvenal, adolescent and stupid.
If our 'honor' were at stake we would be opening our doors to Iraqi refugees of whom millions now exist because of the ignorance and sinful pride of this conservative cabal. If they had any 'honor' they would be fixing water systems in Iraq so that tens of thousands of Iraqis would not have cholera. If they had any 'honor' they would have found some way to admit that every reason advanced to justify this war in it's beginning was either an obvious bone-headed error or an out-and-out lie.
Honor?! Sir, a mature and healthy sense of honor has nothing to do with it. What you suggest is the counsel of the First Deadly Sin. You speak from Pride. And your pride has resulted in the fall of a great many fine things not least of which are constitutional guarantees of privacy and precious rights like habeous corpus.
Honor?! Oh my God you people are amazing!
I'm sorry, but can we once and for all dispense with this ridiculous notion that America has some sort of moral compass?
Please. The list of atrocities committed by this "great nation" is rivaled only by the list of our hypocracies. A most recent case in point: we trained Bin Laden to kill Russian civilians when the Russians were in Afghanistan. Is what we trained him to do any less terrorism than what he turned around and did to us? No.
America does good. America does bad. And just like all big, powerful nations throughout history our ends justify our means.
Vietman was a collosal fuck up and the sooner we left the better. Same with Iraq. Starting those wars was the mistake. Ending them is the solution.
To pretend otherwise is to be an idiot. End of story.
James Brown Los Angeles
ps: I'd love to see some sort of listing of Mr. Douthat's moral acts that he feels gives him the right to speak on the behalf of morality. In my experience the people who talk the moral talk walk a very immoral line.
I shouldn't have said that Sadr simply dislikes Iran. Such is the weakness and pentrability of Iraq today that could hardly be so. Here's how Michael Ware sees it: "Al-Sadr is involved in a very complicated relationship with the Iranians," said CNN Baghdad correspondent Michael Ware. "The Iranians do provide funding and support for his militia, yet at the same time they're trying to rein him in and get him to adopt a certain political agenda, which from time to time he resists."
Ware said Iran wants to use al-Sadr's populist base to advance its agenda in Iraq. "However, they don't want to see him get too big for his boots or to rise to a position where they can no longer have sway over him."
Iran has weakened al-Sadr by encouraging dissension within his Mehdi Army and backing hardliners -- known as the Special Groups -- who break away and keep up the fight against the U.S. occupation, Ware said. "Iran's very good at putting pressure on you, forcing you to split, and anything that squeezes out the side, Iran picks up and turns into hardline factions," Ware said. "That's exactly what's happened to Muqtada. He's had purge after purge after purge of belligerent commanders, and they've all been swept up by Iran.
"And now the most lethal attacks on U.S. forces, the most coordinated attacks on U.S. forces, the most daring attacks on U.S. forces in the country are committed by Iranian-backed breakaway elements of Muqtada's militia faction." http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/03/27/basra.analysis/
Of course Iraq would be better off without us! Who put them in this mess to begin with? Our good intentions won't make it any better than they already have.
Senator McCain is right about the moral obligation. Whether he's right about how we fulfill that obligation is subject to question.
Posted by Jean Chevreille | March 26, 2008 7:33 PM