Politcal framing is characteric of this administration, but with regards to Iraq, the administrations never-ending search for garnering popular and core partisan support for the war is undermining our efforts.
The incessant need for holding onto political power of this administration are yet again brought into light. Currently I am watching on C-SPAN a wonderful and highly enlightening speech by Jim Dobbins at the New America Foundation. The need to paint a pleasing portrait for the American public of the so called "war on terror" is yet again shown to be a juvenile and perilous effort.
He describes the topologies and architecture given to us by the Bush administration as those of a military background, rather than what they are: loosely organized, factional leadership. Terms like "insurgency" and "generals" are used to simplify the debate, but these are merely analogies and have no relation to actually structural realities, serving to further misinform the public and frame the debate to a military one (Republican favored) rather than a diplomatic and nuanced one (Democratic favored). Also, he descibes the logistics and framing of Iraqi reconstruction as that based on Japan and Germany after WWII, rather than the nation building in Kosovo and Bosnia in the nineties. The rationale for this, he argues, is political: it is easier to frame the debate as one based on the popular WWII model, rather than the Clinton model.
This is completely disturbing, for me, as I watched it. First of all, the White House is seeking to avoid a nuanced and sane approach, even a somewhat successful one (look at Bosnia) for the main reason of denying the Clinton White House the "pleasure" of being right. This is preposterous. Seeking to model nation-building in Iraq on Germany and Japan is insane and ludicrous. Germany and Japan were first-world industrial powers, homogenous in population, and desparate after years of ravaging war. Iraq, on the other hand, is much closer to Kosovo: a highly heterogenous population, mired with massacres and despotic rule, but not ravaged by externally-driven, conventional warfare. The models were for completely different circumstances and fundamentally cannot be conflated in the way as the Bush administration has. The main reason for this is political.
This analysis leads one to seriously consider the policy decisions made by the Bush administration as mistakes by disregarding the Kosovo precedent. First, the US government must engage the neighbors of Iraq, and even Lebanon. With Kosovo, Clinton and the Europeans were able to negotiate peace by including Milosevic and the other agitators of the conflict in settlements. Rather, Bush has yet to do so in neither Iraq nor Lebanon. Even the Israeli foreign minister is organizing a team to meet with Assad, with even the possibility of allowing the Golan Heights to be ceded to Syria. But, according to Daniel Levy, who worked with Israeli peace talks before, the main reason these talks might not succeed is because in his experience, many times the US government would not allow such concessions to its "enemies." The Bush administrations failure to engage the neighbors of Iraq and Lebanon are costly, and directly contradict successful efforts in the 90s at "nation-building."
Furthermore, the US government and the media has continually framed the conflict in Iraq as a military "occupation," choosing again to frame the issue in WWII military terms, rather than the nuanced approach necessitated by the conflict. It seems the administration fails to realize the fact that the only "occupation" the people of the Middle East are familiar with is the Israeli occupation of Lebanon. This blunder is probably due to the fact that, according to Dobbins, the speechwriters on foreign policy and affairs have been integrated into the domestic policy speechwriters under Bush. Rather than write speeches tailor-made for each place and contingency by the NSA and experts in each area, speeches, essentially, and being written for domestic consumption, disregarding the needs of nuanced approaches to each place and issue. Again, this is a politically motivated approach, to provide a simple, consistent frame for foreign policy, regardless of its impact in the region.
Simple framing is costly, but makes politics easier, it seems. The entire "war on terror" argument is an example. First of all, the entire notion of this is ridiculous, as many have said. Semantically, it becomes a war on a tactic, but we are seeing it is becoming merely a war on regimes in the Middle East, which is horrifying when considering the consequences. But, with regard to "terrorist" groups, we should also realize that it is also misinformative and dangerous, as well as historically inaccurate. First of all, many of these groups, unlike the portrait painted by the Bush administration, are nationalistically driven rather than a pan-Muslim conspiracy against the US being portrayed. The KLA was supported by the US was a styled "terrorist" group seeking to overthrow the government, as was the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan. Yet, we sided with them. Sometimes, it is in our best interests, in fact, to co-opt these nationalistic groups, such as those in Iraq, rather than let Al-Qaeda and other parasitic networks attach themselves. Dobbins said today that most of these groups would much rather have American support than Al-Qaeda support in their nationalist efforts. Furthermore, the framing of the "war on terror" does not acknowledge the real culprit in all of this: Pakistan. As Dobbins states, Pakistan is were people go learn and train, Iraq is where people go to die. OBL is there, the schools are there, the safe harbor for these organizations is there. But why is Iraq framed as the base for these terrorists. Because, possibly, there isn't an easily framed, military option in Pakistan. They have nuclear weapons, they refuse to allow troops there, an invasion would be catastrophic. So what can we do about it? Engage them diplomatically, provide educational resources to counteract the influence of the radical Islamic schools, engage neighbors of the country. Yet, this is a diplomatic one, and as we all know, that is not politically viable for the cowboy president. This "war" is not a military one, as the Pakistani example shows, it's a diplomatic one. But this conflict can be pre-empted, dipomatically.
The Palestinian-Israeli conflict fits perfectly into the pre-emptive "strategery" of the administration. Why not seek a diplomatic and viable solution to the conflict? This would completely pre-empt much of the rantings of the Iranian goverment. A viable Palestinian homeland would deflate much of the arguments of Iran and other nations, and would grant us a better position in negotiations and diplomacy with radical Islamic goverments. Persuing diplomacy with the DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED Hamas government in Palestine is in our, and Israel's, best interest.
These are just some thoughts put down after watching Dobbins speak. Regardless of your perceptions of RAND, Dobbins was right on the money with nearly everything he said. And his choice for who could get us out of this mess created by Bush: James Baker.