Year-end thoughts on Iraq
I haven't blogged about the War in Iraq much lately. There are a couple reasons for this.
First, to be honest, I don't even know what to say about it at this point. During 2002 and early 2003, I was against the war mostly because of what could happen. Invading Iraq without just cause could damage our standing in the world, it could leave a divided wasteland torn by sectarian violence, it could cost way more in American lives and tax dollars than it would be worth. Half a decade later, everything I thought could go wrong has gone wrong (I actually assumed that it would go better than this), and while most Americans have come around to agreeing that it was a mistake, there's very little evidence of any "lessons learned" on Capitol Hill.
The President's still in office, and the other officials responsible for the war are either still working for him, or they've moved on to private sector jobs that seem to reward them for their involvement in this whole mess, like teaching foreign policy courses at Georgetown. [Washington Post] Most of Congress voted for the war, and that crowd isn't known for admitting mistakes publicly. Conservative commentators act like there should be absolutely no accountability or admission of mistakes, and have resorted to pitiful tactics like blaming the media every time it reports an attack or bombing (which are the kinds of things it should cover during a war - after all, that's what history books of past wars cover), and saying things like "the anti-war crowd wants us to lose in Iraq."
To the contrary, watching the War in Iraq spiral out of control has easily been the least satisfying "I told you so" I've ever experienced. It has taught me that being right about something can be just as frustrating as being wrong. Every American death hits me in the gut, and seems to underscore how powerless citizens are when it comes to our Nation's foreign policy.
Fortunately, while Capitol Hill and conservative commentators won't admit that Iraq was a mistake, most of the American public has come around, and it is becoming increasingly clear that President Bush's legacy will be an incredibly negative one. At this point, instead of dwelling on the mistakes that were made, and the frustration of having no voice in the process, we should focus on the future. I have tried to forgive President Bush and the neocons to the extent that I can (don't worry, I mean "forgive" and not "forgive and forget"), and to remind myself of how lucky I am to have been out of harm's way. The Americans who have truly felt the brunt of the war are our troops and their families, and one thing we can do is to promise to remember what they've been through for the rest of our lives.
This leads me to the second reason I've avoided blogging on the Iraq War lately, which is that I've been of two minds on the surge. A few weeks ago, Congressman John Murtha sparked a controversy when he told reporters that he thought the surge in Iraq was working. As recently as July 12, Murtha had called President Bush's surge policy "delusional." [Politico]
Does this make Murtha a "flip-flopper," as some have suggested? I don't think so. Being rational requires looking at the facts and making your decisions based on them, and not your personal ideology. So if recent visits to Iraq have convinced Murtha that the surge is working now, I would argue that he is obligated to tell us the truth, and change his view.
More broadly, I don't think there's anything hypocritical about having been against the war, and now supporting the surge. The surge actually corrects one of the biggest criticisms of Rumsfeld's handling of the Iraq War, which is that he underestimated the size of the force we would need to stabilize Iraq (in some cases, ignoring advice from generals who thought we would need a much larger force).
One of the most compelling lines in Bob Woodward's Plan of Attack was Colin Powell's "Pottery Barn rule" of foreign policy, which he used to warn the President about the dangers of invading Iraq: "You break it, you own it." [Int'l Herald Tribune] Well, we broke Iraq, and now we own it.
I was against the war, and initially, I was against the idea of a surge. But now it is underway, and if it can help us leave the country in better shape than an immediate pull-out would, it's worth a shot, because leaving Iraq completely destabilized would only exacerbate violence in the country, and further inflame anti-American sentiment in the Middle East and the rest of the world. So while I seriously doubt anything could happen which would change my mind about the initial decision to invade, I am open-minded about the surge, and I'm following it with hopes that I was wrong about it.
First, to be honest, I don't even know what to say about it at this point. During 2002 and early 2003, I was against the war mostly because of what could happen. Invading Iraq without just cause could damage our standing in the world, it could leave a divided wasteland torn by sectarian violence, it could cost way more in American lives and tax dollars than it would be worth. Half a decade later, everything I thought could go wrong has gone wrong (I actually assumed that it would go better than this), and while most Americans have come around to agreeing that it was a mistake, there's very little evidence of any "lessons learned" on Capitol Hill.
The President's still in office, and the other officials responsible for the war are either still working for him, or they've moved on to private sector jobs that seem to reward them for their involvement in this whole mess, like teaching foreign policy courses at Georgetown. [Washington Post] Most of Congress voted for the war, and that crowd isn't known for admitting mistakes publicly. Conservative commentators act like there should be absolutely no accountability or admission of mistakes, and have resorted to pitiful tactics like blaming the media every time it reports an attack or bombing (which are the kinds of things it should cover during a war - after all, that's what history books of past wars cover), and saying things like "the anti-war crowd wants us to lose in Iraq."
To the contrary, watching the War in Iraq spiral out of control has easily been the least satisfying "I told you so" I've ever experienced. It has taught me that being right about something can be just as frustrating as being wrong. Every American death hits me in the gut, and seems to underscore how powerless citizens are when it comes to our Nation's foreign policy.
Fortunately, while Capitol Hill and conservative commentators won't admit that Iraq was a mistake, most of the American public has come around, and it is becoming increasingly clear that President Bush's legacy will be an incredibly negative one. At this point, instead of dwelling on the mistakes that were made, and the frustration of having no voice in the process, we should focus on the future. I have tried to forgive President Bush and the neocons to the extent that I can (don't worry, I mean "forgive" and not "forgive and forget"), and to remind myself of how lucky I am to have been out of harm's way. The Americans who have truly felt the brunt of the war are our troops and their families, and one thing we can do is to promise to remember what they've been through for the rest of our lives.
This leads me to the second reason I've avoided blogging on the Iraq War lately, which is that I've been of two minds on the surge. A few weeks ago, Congressman John Murtha sparked a controversy when he told reporters that he thought the surge in Iraq was working. As recently as July 12, Murtha had called President Bush's surge policy "delusional." [Politico]
Does this make Murtha a "flip-flopper," as some have suggested? I don't think so. Being rational requires looking at the facts and making your decisions based on them, and not your personal ideology. So if recent visits to Iraq have convinced Murtha that the surge is working now, I would argue that he is obligated to tell us the truth, and change his view.
More broadly, I don't think there's anything hypocritical about having been against the war, and now supporting the surge. The surge actually corrects one of the biggest criticisms of Rumsfeld's handling of the Iraq War, which is that he underestimated the size of the force we would need to stabilize Iraq (in some cases, ignoring advice from generals who thought we would need a much larger force).
One of the most compelling lines in Bob Woodward's Plan of Attack was Colin Powell's "Pottery Barn rule" of foreign policy, which he used to warn the President about the dangers of invading Iraq: "You break it, you own it." [Int'l Herald Tribune] Well, we broke Iraq, and now we own it.
I was against the war, and initially, I was against the idea of a surge. But now it is underway, and if it can help us leave the country in better shape than an immediate pull-out would, it's worth a shot, because leaving Iraq completely destabilized would only exacerbate violence in the country, and further inflame anti-American sentiment in the Middle East and the rest of the world. So while I seriously doubt anything could happen which would change my mind about the initial decision to invade, I am open-minded about the surge, and I'm following it with hopes that I was wrong about it.
posted at 8:16:00 PM | permalink
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