It's not enough to merely oppose Rumsfeld, though it's an important first step.
As Democrats, we're getting slapped around for not having a strategy of our own. While that's not true, this diary attempts to provide some analysis and generate talking points for what might constitute an effective Democratic strategy.
We're going to need a policy on Iraq, and soon. I'm sure this will generate some disagreement, but it's a start, and I don't see anything like it on Kos currently. Such a strategy must be larger than Iraq, and encompass a historical view.
Lots more below the fold.
I've been writing about Iraq for some time, translating Arabic newspaper articles. What follows may seem to be Repub Talking Points, they're not. They're Iraqi talking points.
Consider what happened when the USSR fell, after seven decades of Communist tyranny. Consider the Balkans after the death of Tito, essentially the same story.
Consider our own republic between the Treaty of Paris which ended the war with the British, and the signing of the Constitution in 1789. Pandemonium reigned supreme, culminating in Shay's Rebellion, pitting the rich Boston lenders against the poor farmers. Even during the Revolutionary War, most of the casualties were the result of atrocities and disease: Tories and Yankees burned each others' farms with a vengeance. We don't like to remember that phase of our own past. It's there, ugly as homemade sin.
Iraq is a mess, no denying it. As with Tito, and Gorbachev, the removal of one tyranny did not guarantee sweetness and light would dawn over the newly liberated countryside.
What inevitably happens, in these cases, is what I call the Science Project phase. Fundamental underlying political issues and feuds were suppressed and attenuated under the past tyranny, like old leftovers in the Tupperware of history. He who opens that Tupperware will find a fetid Science Project. In the case of Iraq, for the first time since Saddam's ascendancy, the Kurds, Shii, Turkmen and other tribes have the liberty to be themselves. There is a free press. Within both the Shii and Kurdi communities, ancient blood feuds erupted, for neither is a united community. Naturally, the Sunni, like the Serbs of the Balkans, are attempting to reassert control over their erstwhile dominions. And as in the Balkans, large numbers of refugees are on the road, moving toward ethnic enclaves where they will feel safer. Seems irreparable, doesn't it? Ecch, maybe. It's reality. It's the Science Project phase, and it's a necessary part of the process.
The Bush administration failed to superimpose the model of the Balkans onto their Iraq strategy. Lord knows what model they wanted to use, perhaps they thought of France liberated by the Allies in WW2. Even Vichy France didn't quite subsume into the model of Flower Tossing at Marching GIs: Paris did, because the Germans were such inept and offensive conquerors. Further south, where antisemitism was stronger, and the culture less cosmopolitan, the French had willingly participated in the shipping of Jews to the death camps, and the racist and xenophobic Front National continues to raise hell to this day.
Even in Germany and Japan, where democracy had once existed, the occupation went on for ten years. The last time flowers were tossed at invading troops was in Lebanon, when Sharon's troops were greeted by a population sick and tired of predatory PLO gangsters. Even in the case of Lebanon, it is instructive to note the joy did not last, for Israel wore out its welcome with random precision, and was obliged to withdraw when the costs in lives grew too high. And as in Lebanon, Israel's Lebanese allies would revenge themselves by brutal murders in the Sabra and Chatilla camps, though in fairness it should be pointed out many of those victims were guilty as hell. We're seeing the same thing in Iraq now, as the Shii and Kurds imprison, torture and murder their erstwhile tormentors.
No, the Balkans or Lebanon was the correct model for the war in Iraq in every respect. A complex, multi-ethnic society, governed ineptly, fallen to pieces, with an invading army on its soil. Bush and Rumsfeld's greatest error was not the overthrow of Saddam, nor was Sharon's error driving off the PLO. The error lies in attempting to stick around without the say-so of the conquered. Armies cannot govern, nor can they do police work, nor rebuilding, nor any other good thing. They are an irritant, necessary perhaps in the early phases, but unless the conquered country can be effective pacified, the invasion turns into a lobster trap for the invader.
Worse, Bush ignored the Sun Tzu Bing Fao, required reading in every military officer corps in the world.
When you engage in actual fighting,
if victory is long in coming,
then men's weapons will grow dull
and their ardor will be damped.
If you lay siege to a town,
you will exhaust your strength.
Again, if the campaign is protracted,
the resources of the State will not be equal to the strain.
Now, when your weapons are dulled,
your ardor damped,
your strength exhausted and your treasure spent,
other chieftains will spring up
to take advantage of your extremity.
Then no man, however wise,
will be able to avert the consequences that must ensue.
Thus, though we have heard of stupid haste in war,
cleverness has never been seen associated with long delays.
The dynamics of Iraq are truly no different than the Balkans. But consider, why did we not lose men in the Balkans, and why has the continuing occupation of the Balkans fail to elicit the anger we see vis-a-vis the Iraq situation, either domestically or in the Balkans? Answer: Clinton knew there would be a Science Project phase to his war in the Balkans. There were no Good Guys, in the Balkans, they're all Bad Guys. Clinton didn't get UN approval for his war in the Balkans, either. Remember, he did this under NATO's aegis. Clinton also listened to his generals, and delegated the war to them. Wesley Clark studied the Balkans, realized he could never wage an effective ground war, and waged an air war instead, fighting from the high ground, and from a position of strength.
Tell you what, there aren't any Good Guys in Iraq, either. They're all bad guys. Moktada Sadr: bad guy. He's trading on his ancient and honorable name, but he's murdering other Shiite clerics. Hakim is another nogoodnik, he's only interested in power, and he's colluding with Iran. The Iraqi government is a sham, not because the people involved are particularly awful, though many are, it's because the government is confessional, divided along religious and ethnic lines. This is a recipe for disaster, for Lebanon was another country so divided and so governed. When Israel invaded, Lebanon's house of cards collapsed, and it would be the Syrians who would take advantage of the situation, as they are doing in the west of Iraq, secretly funding and supplying Sunni warlords. Iran is likewise interfering with Iraq's new government, fomenting strife among the Shii. Support for terror is growing within Iran: Ahmedinejad openly invites Hizb'allah to his conference, and calls them an instrument of revenge against America.
If a Democrat comes to office, there's a 100% likelihood we'll still be in Iraq. We'd better get our shit together, and formulate an effective Iraq policy now. Should we withdraw entirely? I dunno, I wouldn't withdraw wholesale, the resulting mess would be even more dangerous than what we're seeing now. Domestic pressure forced Israel out of Lebanon, and the situation got positively worse. The real enemy, the Hizb'allah, Iran's creation, continues to thrive in Lebanon, and should we attack Iran, it will be the Hizb'allah who will strike back at the USA. Iran might be in a box, the Hizb'allah is not. They're all over the world.
The so-called War on Terror is a contradiction in terms. War is one thing, terror another. They have separate objectives: warriors conquer land and fight armies, terrorists do not. Terrorists can only irritate, they cannot conquer. Their only hope is to foment enough trouble to drive off the invader. A true War on Terror would be fought by policemen, by intelligence operators, financial specialists, linguists, and small teams of counterterrorism soldiery, who do not expect to completely eliminate it. Policemen do not believe they will ever eliminate crime completely. Intelligence operators do not believe they can suss out every terrorist. Even in the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave, we have not made much of a dent in the gangs, who rule our prisons and control America's largest cash commodity, the drug trade.
Liberals, listen well and hearken unto me. Do not be deceived by Chicken Littles. We have a failed strategy at this point, and Rumsfeld is its author. He must go, and so must all his worthless subordinates, cronies, carpetbaggers and toady generals. The war in Iraq is merely one phase in a war which may last for a century, and we must come up with a strategy of our own.
We must come to terms with the Islamic world, cease our support for the vile dictators who fund terror behind our backs with our oil money, and open a frank dialogue with the terrorists themselves. For terrorism, at its core, is politics gone awry. We do not see much terror in the USA, but it is instructive to consider the terrorists who have arisen from among us, in particular Timothy McVeigh. Tim McVeigh was inspired by the bungled Waco Siege, which smacked of Jack Booted Tyranny to many in this country. John Brown was inspired to arm the slaves by the injustice of chattel slavery. Such men exist everywhere, alienated and subverted by ideologies we might personally find repulsive: we must have an alternate ideology which freely acknowledges where we have gone wrong, but which is based on the Rule of Law and the Rights of Man. As with religion, people will only accept our doctrines if they see us living them out in our own lives. After 9/11, Bush gave Lady Liberty a reflexive kick in the crotch, because he's a fearful, timid AWOL puke whose idea of effective leadership is revenge. He and his followers have played into the hands of the terrorists, as neatly as a Fool's Mate in chess.
This will be a long chess game, folks. Islamic ideologies are sprouting up like mushrooms on the dying trees of tyranny everywhere. We are well within our rights to wage a Real War on Terror, and as Democrats, our chief talking point is this: We Democrats will wage a real war on terror, and ensure the safety of American citizens, but we promise not to impinge upon our rights as free citizens in the prosecution of that war. We promise to fight the real enemy, not fake enemies. We promise to learn from history and apply its lessons. The Republicans are fearmongers, their solutions have gone awry. We have a solution.
What that solution is, well, I'll leave that to y'all in the comments section.
