May 7, 2004
PUTIN'S RUSSIA WASN'T BUILT IN A DAY:
Iraq through a rearview mirror (Paul Greenberg, May 7, 2004, Townhall)
Looking at Iraq a year after the formal war ended while the informal, decisive one continues, there is no listing all the multiple mistakes made there, but some stand out like a mountain range, casting long shadows:- It becomes clearer as the Rumsfeldian mirages are dispelled that the old Iraqi army should not have been disbanded but reformed under leaders capable of being rehabilitated.
By dissolving the Iraqi army, the occupying authorities in one brilliant stroke assured high unemployment, created a critical mass of injured pride and deep resentment in the Iraqi population, and loosed bands of well-armed freebooters to roam the country - much like the German Freikorps that bedeviled the Weimar Republic after the collapse of the Kaiser's empire at the end of the First World War in 1918.
- Order should have been more strictly imposed - instead of violence being tolerated in the name of freedom. Our own General Shinfeki had warned that it might take some 200,000 American troops to occupy Iraq. At the time he may have seemed alarmist to the civilians running the Pentagon like any other high-tech, low-manpower, outsourcing corporation; now he seems prophetic.
- Established religious leaders should have been given greater sway, imported secular ones held in check. Democracy should have been given room to develop in accordance with the culture, not pitted against its Islamic basis.
Next to these massive misjudgments, American successes may not be the stuff of headlines, but they are just as real and impressive - from a remarkably successful three-week military campaign a year ago to the peace and progress that generally reigns in Kurdish territory. Freedom of the press, individual rights, the liberation of Iraqi women . . . all are signal contributions to this new-old Iraq.
But it is the mistakes that stand out in hindsight (they always do) and are brought home with every casualty report. Yet in hindsight it also becomes clearer that the greatest mistake of all would have been to allow Saddam Hussein to stay in power, and to think/hope we could somehow contain his mad plans without a showdown at some point. The sooner it came, the better for America and the world.
Much of our difficulty so far seems to be a function of how much we underestimate the damage that totalitarianism does to a society. Even the peaceful fall of the Iron Curtain did not immediately usher in normalcy, so there's no reason to think a violent regime change would. Totalitarianism by definition tries to destroy all non-party institutions so in its aftermath you have to depend on the few that exist. In Iraq that likely means the Shi'a clergy, a de-Ba'athified (at least at the very upper levels) military, and the like. Unfortunately, hysteria over working with religious leaders and over past actions like using former Nazis after WWII made that a difficult reality to accept. But the test of the Iraq War is a decade or two away and a few mistakes in the early months of its new history may be painful but aren't fatal. Posted by Orrin Judd at May 7, 2004 8:14 AM
It's nice to see the war supporters starting to think like men instead of utopians. I have my doubts that Islam is even compatible with democracy, but I would be happy to be proven wrong; and at least that debate has commenced in earnest, despite various attempts (including, alas, here at this blog) to paint all doubters of democracy as racists, reactionaries, or knaves.
As regards the damaged totaliatarianism does to a society, I wrote about that here.
Posted by: Paul Cella at May 7, 2004 9:06 AMWe have a SMALL contingent in Iraq that's causing us trouble right now.
Leave Saddam's Baathists thugs in charge of the army (there is no Easter Bunny, and the idea they could have been "reformed" overnight suggests a belief in the Easter Bunny), and you have the potential for another Baathist strongman to emerge as soon as we "hand over" sovereignty -- not to mention Shiites AND Kurds turning on America, and the real potential then for civil war. Not the relatively small problem that we have right now.
Hindsight is fine, but it ought not be a blurry as Greenberg's. Glaucomic, really. I hadn't read Greenberg as an anti-Rumsfeldian before, but this column's little digs suggest he is. Still, he might at least get the anti-Rumsfeldian General Shinseki's name right if he's going to cite him approvingly.
Posted by: kevin whited at May 7, 2004 9:26 AMWhat are the unemployment numbers in Iraq right now? I don't think I've seen any stats on that. I have seen stats on household income (which has nearly doubled) and it appears that in general the Iraqi economy is going to very well.
Posted by: AML at May 7, 2004 9:34 AMI have seen it said, but not explored much further, that the “disbanding the Iraqi Army” charge may have merit, but fails to address, as always with smug hindsight, some basic realities on the ground.
The US did not disband the Iraqi Army….. The Iraqi Army did.
The spring invasion was SO successful, and of such overwhelming and sudden evisceration, that the Iraqi Army itself blew apart at the seams, and scattered to the wind. They went home…. Basically all of them. The soldiers pay and supply pipeline obviously vanished, command ceased to exist, in essence, the Iraqi Army fell to dust.
So, the US did not “disband” anything. MAYBE it was an option for the US to literally round up all the pieces, give them US orders to report for duty to their bases, then rebuild command, control, supply, and finance of the IA basically thin air, and thus have an active IA working for us.
Maybe. In hindsight, I see the argument.
But to gripe about a “bad decision” here is like, well, pardon a tasteless analogy, but it is rather like saying that the World Trade Center was “disbanded” by the US government when said government simply looked at it and said “It’s gone, that’s all she wrote, we move on from here”.
Building a new one (WTC / Iraqi Army) from scratch certainly seems a logical choice when the old one has already ceased to exist, and one is simply dealing with the reality on the ground.
Paul:
The doubters are racist knaves. In different times they'd have said Catholics were incapable of self-governance, then aboriginals, then blacks, then women, then Slavs, then Asiatics, then Latinos, now Arabs.
Posted by: oj at May 7, 2004 10:35 AMThe first book ever written about the transition from degradation to freedom is the Torah (the Books of Moses). You may recall that the Jews had to spend 40 years in the desert and that Moses was not allowed to enter the Land. And whatever you think of Bush and his team, the Israelites had better leadership with direct access to the ultimate authority on eveerything.
Posted by: Robert Schwartz at May 7, 2004 10:58 AMAnti-racism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.
"...a few mistakes in the early months of its new history may be painful but aren't fatal."
Yes, unless you happen to be one of the nearly 10,000 civilians who received the blessed help of our holy bombs.
Exactly, Orrin, in your efforts to save the Iraqis from racism, what number of innocent Iraqis would you be willing to kill in order to save them?
Posted by: Derek Copold at May 7, 2004 11:48 AMDerek:
All. Islam will adjust to liberal democracy or perish. However, I'm not anti-racist. Indeed, I am racist. I expect other peoples to have a difficult time achieving liberal democracy because of their cultural deficiencies. But they'll get there.
Posted by: oj at May 7, 2004 12:15 PMAll? Nice.
At any rate, noting cultural differences, even disadvantages, does not make you a racist. Indeed, it's the opposite.
Posted by: Derek Copold at May 7, 2004 12:20 PM>...you have the potential for another Baathist
>strongman to emerge as soon as we "hand over"
>sovereignty...
Which would suit the State Department just fine ("stability", you know) as long as the new Baathist Fuehrer was good at diplomatic cocktail parties.
-----
Problem with 30+ years of Autocracy and Serfdom is it gets the people thinking in only those terms. Autocrat at the top or Serf at the botton, Saddam in his Palaces or Uday's next play-toy, nothing in between. When freed, they won't think in terms of "I'm Free!" but "I'm free! NOW I CAN BE THE NEW SADDAM!"
Because with only the choices of slave or slaveowner, being free means becoming a slaveowner.
Posted by: Ken at May 7, 2004 12:30 PMDerek:
History is over--folks no longer get to choose totalitarianism.
Posted by: oj at May 7, 2004 12:32 PMDid anybody every choose totalitarianism? From my reading of history, it was always forcibly imposed either at the point of a sword or barrel of a gun.
Posted by: fred at May 7, 2004 1:14 PMfred:
Where the people don't accept it they get rid of it. It happened in Eastern Europe and is unfolding now in Iran. They don't "choose" it in the first place, but no one can maintain it once the people decide against it.
Posted by: oj at May 7, 2004 1:19 PMIt was a conscript army with no effort made to indoctrinate the conscripts into a 'nation.' Of course they went home.
The ex-officers can be likened to the ex-tsarist officers who made up the White armies.
I wouldn't expect them to be anything but useless, particularly if opposed by a committed opposition, which is certainly what will oppose them. Not merely committed to an ideology but to a religious ideology.
Now you've got yourself into the position of trying to square the circle.
Didn't we learn anything in Vietnam?
Posted by: Harry Eagar at May 7, 2004 2:41 PMIsn't that something of a totalitarian proposition in itself? One based on nothing more than a unproven belief at.
With the very best of intentions, you're following the same line of logic as every totalitarain who's preceeded you.
Posted by: Derek Copold at May 7, 2004 2:57 PMDerek:
Universalst and imperialist, not totalitarian. That's why I'm a racist. The system arrived at by white Judeo-Christian men--and it only could have been arrived at by them--is the only one folk will be allowed to live under and claim sovereign legitimacy. Their cultural distinctions be damned.
Posted by: oj at May 7, 2004 4:06 PMI cannot detect any difference between the universalism that you describe and totalitarianism.
Looking back in history, your system led to despotism.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at May 7, 2004 8:35 PMYes, the Japanese and Germans who we did just this to now labor under totalitarianism after their brief epoch of liberty.
Posted by: oj at May 7, 2004 8:42 PM15,000 civilians killed in one year is still far fewer than were dying under the UN sanctions, and many of them were done in by terrorists, without any participation from US troops.
Posted by: Michael Herdegen at May 8, 2004 4:14 AM