“Tough love” in the Arab world
Richard Fernandez of Belmont Club applies his thoughtful and complex mind to the question of the pace of attitude change in the Arab world.
Fernandez offers evidence that one of the side-effects of the Iraqi war–and have no doubt of this, it was an intended effect–is that many of the Iraqi people are starting to think in fresh ways, rather than to march in lockstep with the propaganda rife in their part of the world.
He bases some of his assertions on a fascinating post at Iraq the Model, which points out how Iraqi opinions on Hamas and the Palestine/Israel question differ from those of their neighbors:
The reactions I gathered were posted on an Arabic forum on the BBC Arabic website. About three dozens of comments were made by Iraqis both inside Iraq and in exile and all these comments were supportive of Israel or at least against Hamas as far as the topic is concerned except for only three comments; that’s a 10:1 ratio while as you probably have guesses, the opposite ratio is true about the comments by the rest of Arabs.
Fernandez believes that the experience of taking responsibility for one’s own political life has had the ripple effect for Iraqis of enhancing their ability to make objective judgments. I would caution that, in the particular instance of Iraqi attitudes towards Palestine and Israel, one other factor is operating: during the Saddam years Palestinians were encouraged to come to Iraq and were resented for having been given special privileges by the hated regime
But I still believe Fernandez is onto something. It’s true in family life, as well: taking responsibility for oneself, bearing the consequences of one’s decisions, is a good way to enhance learning and encourage more thoughtful future decision-making. Every parent knows that, although it can be very hard to let a child start doing this. But eventually, it’s necessary.
Ah, but what if the decisions made are wrong, wrong, wrong? When to step in? What if a child is doing drugs, for example, or prostituting him/herself? How to prevent tragedy? Can one prevent tragedy? These decisions are hard enough in the relatively simple case of the family.
But countries are not children. And tough love has even larger consequences in the international arena than it does in the more personal environment of the family. In Palestine–a country that’s never really been a country, and that for years has been treated as a sort of child by the international community–the Hamas victory is a case that might be likened to a dose of “tough love” after decades of a combination of enabling (Palestinians being on the perennial UN dole) and tyranny (the Arafat regime as harsh parent). In the last election, the Palestinian people were encouraged to take charge of their own destiny. The results, unfortunately, seem to have enhanced their tendencies for destruction, both of themselves and of others.
I wrote earlier that there was some evidence that, in that Hamas election, many Palestinian voters didn’t take their responsibility as seriously as they might have, and voted for Hamas as a sort of protest and a game, not ever thinking the group could actually win. When all the possibilities in an election seem deeply flawed (and what election isn’t like that, if you think about it?), that’s a danger, and not just in Palestine. But in Palestine the flawed options were, unfortunately, far more deeply flawed than in most other countries, due to its especially sad history and deep marination in hatred, dependence, and tyranny.
The alternative to democracy in the Arab world so far has been dictatorship, tyrannical or at times relatively benign. Every dictatorship is a sort of infantalizing of its people, whether the parent be cruel or kind.
The Iraq war set up an experiment in something very different. Like all experiments, the outcome is as yet unknown. Democracy was initially an experiment in this country as well, although the special circumstances of its birth favored a good outcome. The birth pangs in Iraq have been bloody, but, along with Richard Fernandez, the brothers at Iraq the Model, and Michael Yon, I am encouraged by signs that the Iraqis may indeed be–as Fernandez puts it–engaged in “constructing a future for themselves, which…will eventually be rational and intelligent.”
Or, as rational and intelligent as one can hope for when we flawed specimens, human beings, are involved.
I share the opinions expressed in this post, and the posts of Mr. Fernandez, Iraq the Model, and Mr. Yan. I share those opinions b/c we all have a similar concept of what the threat is: tribal/religious melding which encourages cultural stagnation, a sense of victimhood, and violent resolution of problems.
You put that together with the world’s emerging weapons technologies, and the high birthrate amongst the world’s Muslims, and you’ve got a serious threat.
Many lefties will read this post as if it is written in Mandarin Chinese. They will not have the slightest idea what this post is talking about. They will have virtually zero conception of what we perceive as the threat. Their politically correct cult will never allow them to consider, for even a moment, that what we believe is the threat might actually be the threat. To consider that might be a threat, even long enough to reject it’s legitimacy, will, for them, comprise some type of immoral, unethical act of thought.
the last sentence of my comment: doh! Calling rewrite!
What is the THREAT? Has anybody here, especially you experts on Arab culture, ever read Orientalism by Edward Said?
A society cannot follow Islam and at the same time enter the modern world. Islam is a medieval prison of the mind. Anyone who escapes is doomed to death as an apostate.
It is difficult to find Islamic countries that are happy and prosperous. What prosperity you find in Islam is largely the incidental result of petroleum, and the utilisation of foreign engineers and foreign companies to do the actual work of extraction, refinement, and marketing.
Islam is a dysfunctional totalitarian philosophy that further handicaps a society already disabled by backward tribal customs and clan traditions.
fish,
That is hardly a crushing argument, a naked citation of a single author. Some probably have read Said and rejected his theses as did I since they did not not fit observable reality.
Islam, in general is a Death Cult whose basic tenants are a threat to all non Muslims all over the world.
Has someone read “Occidentalism”? I hear it’s more interesting and certainly more a propos of the realities of our time than Said’s opus.
gcotharn
“Many lefties will read this post as if it is written in Mandarin Chinese. They will not have the slightest idea what this post is talking about.”
Yeah, for one they want to live in a world where decisions are made for them…
A substantial majority of Iraqis could be expected to despise the Palestinians. Palestinians, by and large, are Sunnis. Most Iraqis are Shi’ites. The two branches of Islam are deeply suspicious of one another, when their adherents aren’t actually fragging each other.
Iraq will eventually right itself. It’s populated by human beings, and humans sooner or later find a way. It might even find some equilibrium in one piece, as opposed to collapsing into three mutually hostile mini-states; hard to say at this stage. When it’s all over, we’re all going to have to take a long, fresh, open-minded look at this neocon assumption that brought the war about in the first place: That it is the business of the US to remake to Middle East to suit our vision of a hospitable world.
Iraq was really the first direct stab at this on the part of the US. What’s the score now? Four years of foreign occupation, a quarter trillion dollars (virtually all of it borrowed, of course) and counting, your choice of body-count statistics, occasional electricity and running water in large areas of the country, and a fragile government struggling to tamp down sectarian civil war.
Even if Iraq does manage to find its feet, can you realistically suggest that the people in other despotic Middle Eastern states will be anxious to go through what the Iraqis have gone through to achieve Democracy?
Is intervention in these countries a realistic project for a country staggering under the weight of its incapacity to deal with its own natural disasters, the largest debt the world has ever seen, and an electorate in which a clear majority believes even the Iraq invasion was a bad idea?
It is, admittedly, nice to know some Iraqis are thinking in fresh ways. As we tick off the accomplishments of the last five years of US policy, I’ll happily put that one on the plus side of the board.
The point is, that if the US hadn’t built up Saddam Hussain during the 1980s by supplying him with political support and military aid, Iraq would not have been in a mess to begin with.
“when Saddam poisoned Halabja, he was America’s ally against Iran. And some of the strongest Administration advocates of the invasion and occupation of Iraq this year were key figures in the 1980s US-Iraqi partnership.
For example, Donald Rumsfeld was President Reagan’s special envoy to the Middle East, and played a vital role in courting Saddam. Even before Rumsfeld’s first visit to Baghdad in 1983, the Reagan Administration removed Iraq from the list of terrorist states and began providing intelligence for Saddam’s use in the Iran-Iraq war. Rumsfeld’s missions were followed by the restoration of diplomatic ties and a dramatic expansion of the relationship.
The Reagan Administration gave Iraq billions of dollars in loan guarantees and agricultural credits; approved the sale of technology useful for weapons of mass destruction; winked when other countries supplied US military equipment; and later went as far as sharing highly sensitive satellite intelligence. And although the Reagan Administration knew Iraq was waging chemical warfare against Iran, the US prevented the United Nations from singling out Iraq for using these forbidden weapons.
These policies continued under President George H.W. Bush – whose Secretary of Defense was Dick Cheney, and whose Undersecretary of Defense for Policy was Paul Wolfowitz – even after the Iran-Iraq war ended. And the National Security Advisor to President Reagan in 1988, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under the first President Bush, was Colin Powell.
This alliance sheds a whole new light on the US response to Saddam’s murder of thousands of men, women, and children with sarin, tabun, VX and mustard gas. After the assault on Halabja, the Senate tried to impose trade sanctions and restrictions on technology transfers to Iraq, but according to the non-partisan Congressional Research Service, “…the bill died in the House under Administration pressure…Similarly, in May through July of 1990, just before the first Gulf War, (Bush) Administration pressure helped block action or defeat several measures in both Houses that would have restricted U.S. sales credits, loan guarantees, insurance support in international lending institutions, and trade preferences for Iraq.” ”
— Congressman Bill Delahunt,
http://www.house.gov/delahunt/halabja.shtml
Edward Said — lol
Neomythus,
What do you have against Edward Said?
This is what The Economist has to say about Said:
“But Mr Said himself was a punishing critic of the sordid, totalitarian Arab regimes that litter the region. “It is the role of the Arab intellectual”, he wrote, “to articulate and defend the principles of liberation and democracy at all costs.”
Among sordid regimes, he came to class Yasser Arafat’s Palestinian government. In the 1980s, Mr Said, a member of the Palestine National Council at the time, was influential in urging Mr Arafat towards the two-state solution in which Palestine and Israel could coexist. But he grew disillusioned with a leader who tolerated corruption and ineptitude, marginalised some of the finest Palestinian minds, and who, in 1993, signed up to an agreement that Mr Said saw as certain disaster for the Palestinians, in that it offered the Israelis security while they colonised more land. ”
Obituary of Edward Said in The Economist,
http://www.economist.com/people/displayStory.cfm?story_id=2099643
About Said: I didn’t like his love/hate association with the PLO – even though he felt that Arafat betrayed him in the end, despite his intellectual capacity [or intellectual gap] he was a stubborn supporter of terrorism and was therefore in the wrong.
***
the people in other despotic Middle Eastern states will be anxious to go through what the Iraqis have gone through to achieve Democracy?
I think it’s a scabbing-effect. When the central wound heals [Iraq] the other little wounds around it will heal up pretty quickly or risk amputation. I would hope for the former.
The “central wound” is the illegal occupation of the Occupied Territories, I think. That is the source of most of the resentment and anger in the region. Iraq is probably not the “central wound”.
Country’s got a good slant, but I don’t think it is good enough.
Ace wrote a good post on identity politics on the Left. One of his few long ones. You can find it on my blog, and since I’m not posting at home, I don’t have the links to get it for you.
The “central wound” is the illegal occupation of the Occupied Territories, I think. That is the source of most of the resentment and anger in the region. Iraq is probably not the “central wound”.
Fine
Nate, you are wrong. It is not the “occupied” land. It is Israel itself. Period.
“…it’s a scabbing-effect. When the central wound heals [Iraq] the other little wounds around it will heal up pretty quickly or risk amputation….”
Excuse my moonbatty sentimentality, but just a quick reminder here: Each of these “little wounds” you’re referring to would involve thousands of human beings, the supposed beneficiaries of this grand transformation, being disappeared, raped or blown to bits, often in front of their own children, for the sake of what is even to the most worldly Arabs an abstraction, and a foreign infidel abstraction at that. The survivors will endure months, maybe years, of deprivation and economic chaos. Do you have the right to trivialize that suffering? And how would you address the question of what’s in it for them?
The Iraqis never welcomed us with open arms. The Syrians, or Lebanese, or Palestinians, will know in advance what’s in store for them. I doubt that they’ll strewing flowers at our feet.
What, actually, do you mean by amputation, anyway?
Mr. Congressman:
I never thought I would have to point this out to a member of Congress but all the instances you mentioned occured during a significant era in world history called “The Cold War” and the collapse of the Soviet Union when the stakes were nothing less than global destruction. The priority was to secure survival in a dangerous world and compromises had to be made as an alliance with Stalin was key to victory in World War II.
I can excuse a college freshman for being so ignorant of recent world history but not a sitting U.S. Congressman.
“When it’s all over, we’re all going to have to take a long, fresh, open-minded look at this neocon assumption that brought the war about in the first place: That it is the business of the US to remake to Middle East to suit our vision of a hospitable world.”
I’d say that it’s in the world’s interest, not just America’s, to see the Middle East peaceful and free of the nihilist, destructive ideologies causing their population so much pain. Not merely “remake the Middle East to suit our vision of a hospitable world”. In all due respect, that’s a rather cynical way of putting it, don’t you think? The US isn’t the only one involved in the Middle East, plus it’s hardly like the US is trying to create clones of itself. Much choice is left up to the Iraqi’s.
“Even if Iraq does manage to find its feet, can you realistically suggest that the people in other despotic Middle Eastern states will be anxious to go through what the Iraqis have gone through to achieve Democracy?”
No, of course not. But I’d hope they’d learn from those mistakes and not tolerate nihilists and murderers in their midst killing their own populations in the name of “resistance”. As many Iraqis are doing now in rejecting the Jihadists and working with the US military towards removing them. And I’d hope they’d realize the destructiveness of opening old sectarian wounds. It’s ruined the carcass of what was Yugoslavia, and it’s not getting the Shiites and Sunnis in Iraq anywhere they wouldn’t get if they worked politically.
Good post, sir.
Mondo:
At the risk of being tagged as the pot calling the kettle black, I have to say your pen name makes me a little wary about your sentiments toward ordinary Middle Easterners. Ethnic food jokes tend to be the way “other” people are belittled…Never mind. It’s not what I intended to comment on. You do at least seem thoughtful and articulate.
“The US isn’t the only one involved in the Middle East, plus it’s hardly like the US is trying to create clones of itself. Much choice is left up to the Iraqi’s.
When did the Iraqis get to choose whether their country was going to be torn down around them while we dismantled their corrupt and despotic but nevertheless functioning government, plunging them into a hot war zone for going on four years, to establish a new society modeled along lines drawn up by US neocon ideologues? I don’t recall us putting that to a vote.
“…I’d hope they’d realize the destructiveness of opening old sectarian wounds…”
I don’t mean to be flip, but who’s this “they” you’re referring to? Iraq is an uncomfortable stitching together of three distinct and historically hostile nationalities, each of which has its own leaders and agenda. The tendency is for each of these nationalities to think in terms of its own priorities first, and then, maybe, if they can be convinced it’s in their interest, “Iraqi” priorities. That’s why places like Iraq, Yugoslavia, the old Soviet Union and Indonesia all have enormous cultural and political forces pushing them toward fragmentation. Saddam tamped this tension down through brute repression, and it worked in a crude way.
Is there a friendlier way to hold Iraq together? I believe George H.W. Bush and his advisors at State and in the military understood how difficult, expensive and ultimately unlikely this was in the early 1990s, but he wasn’t driven by late ’90s neoconservatism the way his son is.
I also believe we’re witnessing not the failure of Bush II to execute the neocon program for the Middle East competently, but rather the futility of the entire concept.
It’s unfortunate that it’s cost tens of thousands of Iraqi lives, and the economic security of an entire generation there, to prove the point.
I’m always entertained by the folks who spout “racist” every time Palestinians are criticized, but then turn around and essentially claim that the “Arabs aren’t ready for democracy.” The condescension in the phrase “can you realistically suggest that the people in other despotic Middle Eastern states will be anxious to go through what the Iraqis have gone through to achieve Democracy? ” is really amazing in that context. If one were to believe that the “oppressed” and “occupied” Palestinians are willing to turn their children into walking bombs to “achieve peace”, why wouldn’t they be “anxious to go through what the Iraqis have gone through”?
That’s getting to be a pretty tired out talking point, stum. So, you’re saying the Palestinians’ willingness “to turn their children into walking bombs to ‘achieve peace'” is the sort of sacrifice we should be asking of the Iraqis? You seem to admire their pluck. Note carefully the type of peace the Palestinians seek: It’s an Islamic peace — Hamas being an Islamic party — defined in Islamic terms.
OK…I never said “Arabs aren’t ready for democracy.” What I meant was, if George W. Bush asked ordinary Syrians to immolate themselves so that they could transform their government into something designed by American rightist ideologues, I don’t think they’d be ready to do that of their own volition.
That’s racist? That’s condescending? *shrug* OK, I can live with that.
“When did the Iraqis get to choose whether their country was going to be torn down around them while we dismantled their corrupt and despotic but nevertheless functioning government, plunging them into a hot war zone for going on four years, to establish a new society modeled along lines drawn up by US neocon ideologues? I don’t recall us putting that to a vote.”
No, no, I don’t argue the fact that that this war came down upon them without their input. My point is that, after the overthrow of the Saddam government, they have elections, they have ability to put together the government they want. And to say “a new society modeled along lines drawn up by US neocon ideologues”… isn’t that somewhat of an overstatement? The Iraqi’s are putting together their own government, plus what changes is the US mandating for the rest of their society? I’ll spot the argument that, due to US actions, the Sunni’s are no longer monopolizing government and therefore no longer have the same level of societal influence, but that’s merely one point. A large point, granted, but merely one. What other societal changes do you see the US dictating?
Plus: “…nevertheless functioning government”. Due respect sir, given the depredations of the Saddam government on the Iraqi’s, calling it “functional”, however accurate – and yes, the government did function, I don’t argue that, nor do I mean it in a cynical or snide way – is not really the point. Saddam’s government, while functional, still led to the death of hundreds of thousands of people. The fact it provided structure is in no way any reason to allow it’s continued existence. As many problems as has occured under US control, there’s a way out. They have the opportunity to put into power a non-repressive government. There’s an opportunity for an end to the violence, something not possible under Saddam.
“I don’t mean to be flip, but who’s this “they” you’re referring to?”
The same “they” you were referring to: “…can you realistically suggest that the people in other despotic Middle Eastern states will be anxious to go through what the Iraqis have gone through to achieve Democracy?”
“I have to say your pen name makes me a little wary about your sentiments toward ordinary Middle Easterners. Ethnic food jokes tend to be the way “other” people are belittled…”
This is an online name I’ve used since before 9/11, let alone the Iraq war. It started from one online service insisting on assigning me a dumb first initial-last name-some number username, which I detest (It’s so AOL), so a friend and I tried the most ridiculous names we could come up with. I might have stuck with MeatPlow02 (because MeatPlow and Meatplow01 were, oddly enough, taken), but I didn’t like that name. “Hummus”, Pita, Gazpacho, etc. are names I routinely use for 1) Hard Drive partitions, and 2) Computernames on my own personal networks, at home and at work, so I tried “Hummus” alone and found that it was taken. So was “ElHummus”. I threw in “Mondo” at random, and it worked, so I’ve used it ever since. Don’t read too much into my selection of monikers. Insult of ethnicity did not play any part whatsoever.
The US dictated when the Baath dictatorship should be swept away, with all the attendant collateral damage…yes, leaving the Sunnis, Shi’ites and Kurds to sort out the enormously complex problem of how to reconstruct an Iraq. Whether to reconstruct an Iraq at all is not a decision we’ve left up to any of these peoples. Devolution into three separate states is actually a rational solution to the problem — but not one that we, the US, will allow to come into consideration, because it would constitute a failure of the US policy. Clearly, we will not leave an Iraq that is headed for such a break-up, even if Iraqi leaders choose this way out.
Let me say this as bluntly as I can: We offer Iraqis democracy as a way forward, but the Bush Administration will deem it acceptable to draw down troops only when we decide the Iraqis are ready to run a unified Iraq. Our decision, not theirs.
“Saddam’s government, while functional, still led to the death of hundreds of thousands of people. The fact it provided structure is in no way any reason to allow it’s continued existence.”
You’re saying you’re prepared for the US to make similar “investments” to take down the governments of Iran, North Korea, Burma/Myanmar, Syria, Congo Republic, Haiti, Sudan and several central Asian ‘stans, and should have launched similar invasions of Serbia, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Libya, Rwanda, and others when they were ripe for “educating”? That’s our manifest destiny?
All while we’re cutting taxes and falling short of our military recruiting goals?
While we’re on this train of thought…suppose we stand up a new Iraqi government, and it turns out not to be “non-repressive”? Who sets that standard, anyway? Do we have to certify the Iraqis as having a non-repressive regime before we’ll leave?
Finally, and for me most pressingly: Where did we get the authority to make these decisions, for the Iraqis or anyone else?
SC:
“That’s getting to be a pretty tired out talking point, stum.”
It may be tired out, but is it untrue?
“What I meant was, if George W. Bush asked ordinary Syrians to immolate themselves so that they could transform their government into something designed by American rightist ideologues, I don’t think they’d be ready to do that of their own volition.”
Then that’s what you should have said. I really don’t think that “ordinary” Iraqis are “immolating themselves”, do you? It’s die-hard Baathists, foreign rabble-rousers, and Iranian backed thugs as well as the normal criminal element that’s stirring things up in Iraq at the moment.
In L.A., we just had another drive-by gang shooting. Is L.A. a quagmire? Do we have a “government designed by right-wing ideologues?”
What would be your preference in Iraq and/or the Middle East? What’s your answer?
ElMondoHummus — ‘ethnic food joke’ was not the point. The point is to manufacture an off-topic assumption for you to waste your time explaining. It’s an old leftist head trip — when they can’t win arguments they create little nearly-impossible games for you to ‘figure out’ — it’s a ummm faux-elitism, voodoo babble, …MOONBATING … that’s the term I’m looking for.
Stupid: Finally, and for me most pressingly: Where did we get the authority to make these decisions, for the Iraqis or anyone else?
From the barrel of a gun, Stupid, what do you think? Where did we get the authority to reconstruct Japan and Germany a little while back? Hmm? But the right, and in fact the obligation, to make these decisions flows from the fact that we were the ones who removed the authority structure that had existed — which we did as part of a painful and costly decision, in the wake of 9/11, to forcefully reform a region of the world that was generating global terrorist violence. That’s the real and obvious objective — democracy, in the neocon view of the world, is an aspect of that objective, and the removal of specific tyrants and tyrannies is but a component of that aspect. It’s not about oil in other words — however popular that particular bumper sticker may be — and it’s not about a selfless pursuit of every bad guy on earth, however nice (but impossible) that would be. It is about changing the culture and expectations of a region that has been allowed to become a serious danger not only to themselves and their neighbors, but to the world at large.
“It is about changing the culture and expectations of a region that has been allowed to become a serious danger not only to themselves and their neighbors, but to the world at large.”
By no stretch of the imagination was Saddam Hussain “a danger to the world at large”. He was a regional bully (built up by US support, incidentally), but no danger to the world.
With the US invasion and the chaos that has been let loose in Iraq as a consequence, Iraq has now, however, that is after the invasion and because of the invasion, become a hotbed of terrorism and a danger to the world as a breeding ground of terrorists, thanks to Mr. Bush, Mr. Rumsfeld and Mr. Cheney’s mind-boggling myopia about the unintended consequences that their actions were going to have (as almost every sane commentator had predicted).
Tell you what Nate, Saddam stood atop a pedestal in plain view for a dozen years thumbing his nose at the world without consequence, thus encouraging the rest of the stateless terrorists to ramp up their courage against the impotent infidels.
After all, they surely thought, if Saddam faces no consequences when they know right where he is, what chance do the infidels have to take retaliatory action against us in our anonymous caves?
There is no cogent argument against taking out Saddam, but even if there were, it’s long past history and is not applicable today. So why keep whining about it?
The US is the world. Remove the US and the world collapes into free fall. A lot of people who study history shoudl ask themselves the question “why haven’t geographical borders changed so little in the past 50 years”. The answer is simple.
If the world wants to know what a “threat” is, just take out the US. Go ahead, we double dog dare ya.
What is good for the world is good for the US. What is good for the US, is good for the world. Pray you never live to see what else might happen.
Country and Nate sees the Middle East as a reflection of themselves, people just like them. But we all know that isn’t true, people are a product of their cultures, not just their own personal consciences. Their analysis is based upon the theory that Iraqis are like Frenchmen. They aren’t that decadent, they haven’t even started the decadence cycle yet.
“Tell you what Nate, Saddam stood atop a pedestal in plain view for a dozen years thumbing his nose at the world without consequence, thus encouraging the rest of the stateless terrorists to ramp up their courage against the impotent infidels.”
Well, the thing is that the stateless terrorists are not particularly afraid of retaliation, considering that they are willing to blow themselves up. So, the threat or proof (by demonstration) of retaliation or “consequnce” is not particularly effective against them.
The “consequence” that the invasion of Iraq has had is that it has convinced every potential rogue state in the world that it had better get nuclear weapons quickly (since the US doesn’t attack states with nuclear weapons, only those without them). Thereby, the world has become a much more dangerous place than it used to be before the US invaded Iraq. Just look at North Korea.
Zarqawi and Osama didn’t blow themselves up. Last time I checked, we blew Z man up, his lungs liquified btw FYI. Terroists just aren’t French action figures that Nate can move around at his whim.
Since Iran doesn’t have a nuke, Nate’s argument justifies the saturation bombardment of tehran and Iraq. But I don’t see that happening, maybe Nate’s just blowing smoke for the fun of it.
First, I want to congratulate Nate on using his own words to express his own opinions, rather than relying on cutting and pasting the words of some “authority” from The Guardian or The Independent or some such. But second, unfortunately, I have criticize his reading comprehension — he’s apparently under the impression that I said Saddam himself was “a danger to the world at large”. Now, I think Saddam would have liked to be a danger to the world at large, and with the ending of the sanctions regime, and renewed access to his oil riches, would certainly have tried to be such a danger, with unclear results. But that wasn’t what I said. I said, and meant, that the region itself, with its porous borders, its tribal and often medieval cultures, its destabilizing oil wealth, and its assortment of theocracies, thugocracies, and various other forms of weak, corrupt, or failed failed states — it’s the region as a whole that represents the threat to the world, as was clear not just with 9/11, but with the host of other terror attackes that preceded and followed that atrocity. Iraq was and is simply the keystone to that region.
It’s the old leftist dammed if you do and dammed if you don’t.
Pursue stability? US = bad
Vs.
Kick over the anthill to open up room for change? US = bad
Whatever course we pick, the usual suspects will attack it.
Nate says, “Well, the thing is that the stateless terrorists are not particularly afraid of retaliation, considering that they are willing to blow themselves up. So, the threat or proof (by demonstration) of retaliation or “consequnce” is not particularly effective against them.”
Think a bit, please. The stateless terrorist leaders are not willing to blow themselves up, they are interested in convincing others to die for them because they are the path to nirvana or whatever BS they think will sell the poor souls into giving their lives for nothing.
Being able to point to Saddam as an example of how weak the infidels are was a damn good recruiting tool: “See how they cower in the face of Saddam’s strength?, we will prevail if you will blow yourselves up!!”
This is exactly why they’re pouring their disposables into Iraq today. The left’s reaction? “Let’s cut and run and let them take over.”
Sad. Scary. But luckily, the left has no power and is unlikely to get any in the near future.
Stum:
Yes. It’s untrue.
My preference? It would have been that we concentrate on the actual perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks and not seize on general anger toward Arabs to launch an ideological campaign to single-handedly re-design the Middle East, using the utterly fictitious rationalization that this campaign has anything to do with reducing the terrorist threat to the United States.
At this point, it’s too late for that. But it is important not to lose sight of this: The core issue is not whether we are conducting the Republicans’ Middle East crusade competently or successfully. It’s whether we ever should have launched it in the first place, and whether it should be the basis for US policy after we’re finally rid of this administration.
Evidently, this is going to go on for a while. I’m having fun, but I do actually work for a living, so I’m going to have to give it a rest for a day. Later.
Stupid: My preference? It would have been that we concentrate on the actual perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks and not seize on general anger toward Arabs to launch an ideological campaign to single-handedly re-design the Middle East, using the utterly fictitious rationalization that this campaign has anything to do with reducing the terrorist threat to the United States.
Which is the standard and entirely predictable response of those whose political animus against Bush has obliterated all other concerns. And note that they assume their own sort of obsessive fixation is universal, so that they think it’s impossible for an entire nation and its allies to pursue two objectives at the same time — focusing on “the actual perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks”, as well as on the “root causes” of the situation. Of course, if the likes of Kerry had been in power, that kind of simple-minded fixation would no doubt have prevailed on the overt level, along with a more subtle and only half-conscious effort at appeasement — i.e., at giving the “militants” what it’s hoped they want (Israel, more oil, infidels out, etc.) — as their version of a strategic level.
But the problem is that the “actual perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks” are only the latest names to surface out of a noxious swamp that’s been breeding such deranged killers, large and small, for some decades now — before Bin laden there were others, and after him there’ll be more. At some point, that swamp has to be drained, and, as we’ve seen with this sort of thing before, the longer we try to avoid it the worse it gets.
Saddam stood atop a pedestal in plain view for a dozen years thumbing his nose at the world without consequence, thus encouraging the rest of the stateless terrorists to ramp up their courage against the impotent infidels.
This is why I appreciate my madcap colleagues who are constantly at odd with supervisors. They are a buffer zone of sorts. As long as they are getting away with their crazy behavior, I don’t have to worry too much about the little mishaps from my office – sailing paper airplanes across the room. My analogy is grossly disproportionate to terror, but it does clarify the solution.
The weird argument that the region should pursue nukes in order to defend themselves form the US, is the mirror image of the argument that the US should destroy those countries before they acquire nukes. This increases the possibility for war, it doesn’t decrease it.
People shouldn’t be taunting and nudging the Middle East to face off against America, we’re not the Israelis, we’re not going to be embroiled in a 50 year tug of war about a piece of territory about the size of a lake.
Country’s obviously someone who isn’t interested in liberating the great majority of humanity from suffering and despair. Doesn’t that mean he should call himself an isolationist Republican?
“At some point, that swamp has to be drained, and, as we’ve seen with this sort of thing before, the longer we try to avoid it the worse it gets.”
Sadly, that swamp has been declared “protected wetlands” by our multiculturalist superiors. Even leaving those wetlands alone is out of the question, because nature’s own means of keeping them in check might cause them to dry up. They must be expanded, into (other) peoples’ property, wherever possible.
The wetlands won’t be protected by anyone, cause New Orleans was as Democrat as you can get, and they threw away their so called wetlands.
Failed nation states do not deserve respect or consideration, especially when they turn violent like Saddam’s Iraq (killing over a million). Saddam punched his own ticket many years ago–it was simply a matter of time and pretense before the foregone conclusion of his removal was accomplished.
Treating violence prone undeveloped world dictatorships as if they were mature nations is the mistake of the United Nations and the multicultural industrial complex.
A wise and mature world would not need a nation like the United States to place itself in the forefront of dispensing “tough love.” In a wise world, the entire developed world would shoulder that necessary burden.
Instead, this world has incompetent idiocies like the United Nations and unrepresentative nascent tyrannies like the EU. The UN and the irresponsible incompetence of the multicultural industrial complex is setting the world up for some serious fallout.
Ymar wrote:
” Country’s obviously someone who isn’t interested in liberating the great majority of humanity from suffering and despair.”
You remind me of Travis Bickle in Scorsese’s “Taxi Driver”, determined to “liberate” the prostitute who didn’t want to be liberated, at least not in the way Travis suggested — yet Travis was determined to force his vision of “liberation” on her, through violence if necessary.
People liberate themselves, Ymar. You can’t force liberation on others — it is grotesque. You remind us of that US commander in the Vietnam war who supposedly said: “We had to destroy that Vietnamese village in order to save it…”
I expect that my vision of liberating the populations of the “assortment of theocracies, theocracies, and various other forms of weak, corrupt, or failed failed states”… (Sally) is rather more “muscular” ((Thanks TR) than limp wristed cant served up by others and accompanied by corrupt Blue Helmet thieves, pedos and rapists with their usual assortment of band aids, cookies and weak tea.
I don’t have much patience with the mincing nancies drooling monotonous talk filled with platitudes and
hypocritically pious language. And, we can all see that that particular shoe fits the global Left “progressives” to a T.
When a stable is filled with horse shit it’s time to grab a wide shovel; stop talking, to keep it out of your mouth; and get to work shoveling the shit out so the livestock have a healthy environment. But, straight talk these days just makes the delicates titter about the simple peasants.
Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats Mencken
People liberate themselves, Ymar.
No nation or people in the history of the entire human race has liberated themselves without outside help. Period. Try and take ancient human history.
“We had to destroy that Vietnamese village in order to save it…”
It’s a valid reasoning. There’s no reason you can bring up that everything can be changed through non-violent means.
Ymar wrote:
“The weird argument that the region should pursue nukes in order to defend themselves form the US, is the mirror image of the argument that the US should destroy those countries before they acquire nukes.”
The US can’t really destroy or invade some of these countries (such as Iran) because oil shock the resultant turmoil will cause, causing oil prices to go way, way up. (One Iraq has been enough of a shock in that regard). US consumers will get irate at the gas pump and refuse to vote for the administration in the next election.
So pretty much the only thing the US can try to do is to bring about “regime-change” by covert means in such situations. But this takes time — organizing coups require preparation, sometimes years. Governments like Iran’s are probably betting that they can get nuclear weapons before regime-change plans can bear fruit.
And once they have nuclear weapons, the US probably won’t dare to stage coups against them. Why? Simple. If the coup misfires and the regime does not change but is wounded, there’ll be one super-angry, wounded regime with nuclear weapons — a very unpredictable situation that the US probably won’t try risking.
This is why I was saying that, by invading Iraq, the US has singlehandedly painted itself into a corner in which it has very few options, while regimes are frantically acquiring nuclear weapons.
There’s the well-known story about the boy who cried wolf. The US cried wolf with Iraq (there were no weapons of mass destruction) and now that there are real threats, it’s discovering that it is left without good options.
That’s what crying wolf does, in the long run. But then, this administration has never cared about the long run. It can only see about two yards in front of it, so myopic it is. Almost blind, actually.
Well, I guess that people get the government they deserve. It’s a democracy, after all. It seems, though, that buyers’ remorse has set in already — only about one-third of the US population seems to approve of Bush these days!
The excuse of oil is simple to counter-act. Unrestricted Submarine Warfare checks Iran’s oil totally, because it takes the decision of prices out of their hands and puts it into ours. After we raid 90% of Iran’s oil shipments and put down the entire 101st Airborne Division on their oil fields, we will stabilize the international oil market and have China+Russia in our pockets. Oil isn’t a problem when you have a military in the class of the United States.
Regimes pursue nuclear weapons because they have few options in the world, and fewer still after the invasion of Iraq. They cannot attack America, they cannot tell Al Qaeda to attack America, and they cannot attack Iraq openly.
1/3rd of America supports Total War, and the other 1/3rd just wants Bush to kick someone’s ass like after 9/11. The only people who support Bush are those who just won’t give up.
Hmmm. Over the course of the day most of this has sunken to incoherent posturing. That’s dull. Sally, at least, seems to be able to put a sentence together, and seems to have clicked the link to my blog, which is where she might have picked up on my animus toward Bush — which, of course, I do have, in spades.
But it isn’t just Bush. He’s only the instrument by which the neocon program is being applied. As I’ve said a couple of times here, it’s the whole program that I oppose.
Draining the swamp seems, thankfully, to be beyond the capacity of the US military and the patience and tolerance of the US electorate. Barring an actual coup d’etat, it seems clear that that electorate would vote to rid itself of a Republican majority that endorsed repeat performances of the Iraq fiasco in other Middle Eastern countries.
I disagree with the assessment that Iraq was and is the keystone to the region. It was simply a convenient target — a wounded pariah, with a tyrant no one would seriously miss and no real capacity to resist the kind of conventional weapons onslaught the US military stages so telegenically. Had the aftermath of Saddam’s collapse gone according to the neocon plan, maybe there would be an appetite for further conquests.
As it is, with Iraq a burned-out husk of its former self, not even certain to remain in one piece in the long run, the role of keystone simply shifts to Iran. And there is zero probability that the US will take on an Iran invasion now — even the most hawkish on the Joint Chiefs of Staff would balk at that. Ain’t going to happen, plain and simple.
Fortunately, the neocons in government actually have to answer for the consequences of what they say and do. It is fun to beat your chests and bay at the moon, though, isn’t it?
My, my, look at the time. Just one more observation before I go:
“There is no cogent argument against taking out Saddam…”
Isn’t there? Evidently you and I have different definitions of the word “cogent.” If you were right about this, the Iraqis would have taken him out years ago, but apparently “It’ll cost us a bloodbath and we’re not willing to go through that” was argument enough for them. A clear majority of Americans seem to believe there is a convincing case that the invasion wasn’t worth it. You’re in denial.
Country missed something when he fabricated his logic trap. That something was called “America the superpower”. Everything Country says would be true, if America the superpower did not exist. Since we do, most of what he says is corrupted in on way or another.
I find it bizarre that neo-cons see it as their duty to point out that we face a threat from Islamic terrorism. Welcome aboard. Some of us got there some time ago – via witnessing the increasing brutality of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or the ridiculious rhetoric of Al Qaeda in the 90s. Maybe the bomb in the basement of the WTC was a clue. Just a thought.
No matter, we are all, well most of us anyway, on the same page now. That’s a start. OK so how do we counter this threat? How about a proactive approach. Let’s take the fight to the enemy, establish democracy in place of tyranny, take an interventionist approach. Be decisive. No more appeasement, just get the job done. Great, sounds good. So, how are we doing?
1. Iran. Nuclear programme back on. Situation worsening.
2. Korea. Dialogue pursued by the Clinton administration replaced by a more robust approach. Provocative missile launch just undertaken. Threat growing.
3. Palestine. Continued radicalisation of the people as evidenced by the election of Hamas. The roadmap in tatters.
4. Lebanon. Israeli troops back in the south of the country for the first time in years.
5. Afghanistan. Record opmium production. Osama bin Ladan not found. Incredibly, the wretched Taleban still active.
6. Iraq. 2500 US soldiers dead. A secular tyranny replaced by the world’s biggest training camp for terrorrists. Iranian influence growing. Islamism growing.
We can all mull over the nature of extreme Islam (or communism in the case of N. Korea) and I, for one, think that terrorist attrocities are to be blamed on, well, terrorists.
But may I suggest that, based on the above alone, the so-called war on terror is going nowhere. That is not what depresses me. Its the fact that all sensible people knew it would achieve nothing. To neo-cons, the largest ever political march in the history of the UK (and that’s a long history) was all lefties/liberals or whatever else you want to dismiss the non-neo-con majority as. Whatever they were, they were right to say “Don’t Attack Iraq”.
2500 US soldiers dead.
Maybe if the UK had 2500 soldiers dead, they might think twice about
No matter, we are all, well most of us anyway, on the same page now. That’s a start. OK so how do we counter this threat? How about a proactive approach. Let’s take the fight to the enemy, establish democracy in place of tyranny
Do these people think any other nation except America could have taken a proactive approach and not had the casualties in the hundreds of thousands, in attempting to establish democracy in place of tyranny? What are these people talking about, they’re talking about how America failed because we got 2500 fatalities, both combat and accidental, both in iraq and out of Iraq.
They just want a magical wand waved and democracy would flourish where tyrannies had lived before, is that it?
We’re definitely not on the same page.
Whatever they were, they were right to say “Don’t Attack Iraq”.
While the peaceniks were sitting on their arse smoking joints and talking about how righteous it is to institute democracy in Iraq, Bush actually did something about it, he actually sent people to fight for it, that would die for it. And the peaceniks are still sitting there smoking blunts and joints, and talking about how they would have done it better than Bush by “not attacking Iraq”. Total BS, and not ecstasy hallucination bs either. The real kind.
SC: And there is zero probability that the US will take on an Iran invasion now
That, at least, is probably about right, for now. If whatever version of islamist killers is current ever manage to perpetrate another atrocity on American soil — and remember that there were 8 years between their first try at taking down the World Trade Center and their second, successful one — then we’ll see, but otherwise it’s looking like the very Western politics that the islamists count on will undermine any attempt to deal with them on a strategic level. So the despised, hated Bush will have been thwarted, at whatever cost. “It is fun to beat your chests and bay at the moon, though, isn’t it?”
Oh well. Maybe without Bush the nasties’ll just go away, hmm? Not too likely, is it? Nor is treating them as though they were isolated, identifiable, criminal or even lunatic gangs going to do much to treat the problem (it’s been successful at preventing another attack in America, but only so far). Buy them off somehow? Throw Israel to them? Pull out of the region altogether? As far as we pull back, it would never be enough. The problem is generated by the friction between the modern world and Islam, and hugely exacerbated by the anomalous oil wealth of an otherwise premodern region that sits at the heart of Islam. Until that problem is faced and confronted — in Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Egypt, Somalia, etc. — it will continue to fester, and we’ll all just sit waiting for the next major eruption.
And after that? Well. The task certainly won’t be easier.
UK Derek: I find it bizarre that neo-cons see it as their duty to point out that we face a threat from Islamic terrorism. Welcome aboard. Some of us got there some time ago
Great, Derek — and so what have you smart or at least sensible people been doing about it? Hmm? See, thumb sucking doesn’t really count for much. You did have a march, I see, which is one thing you lefties can do — ah, but it was a march against doing something, wasn’t it? Other than marching, sounds like you’re a fan of the non-proactive approach — i.e., let’s NOT take the fight to the enemy; NOT establish democracy in place of tyranny; take a hands-OFF approach, be INdecisive, dole out MORE appeasement, and just leave the job UNdone. That about sum up the position of you “sensible” guys?
Maybe, as Ymar says, we’re not really on the same page after all.
Ymar wrote: “While the peaceniks were sitting on their arse smoking joints and talking about how righteous it is to institute democracy in Iraq, Bush actually did something about it, he actually sent people to fight for it, that would die for it. And the peaceniks are still sitting there smoking blunts and joints…”
The one smoking a joint here seems to be Ymar.
“The doctrine, to oversimplify, is that we have to believe the United States would have so-called “liberated” Iraq even if its main products were lettuce and pickles and [the] main energy resource of the world were in central Africa. Anyone who doesn’t accept that is dismissed as a conspiracy theorist or a lunatic or something. But anyone with a functioning brain knows that that’s not true. The United States invaded Iraq because its major resource is oil. And it gives the United States, to quote [Zbigniew] Brezinski, “critical leverage” over its competitors, Europe and Japan. That’s a policy that goes way back to the second world war. That’s the fundamental reason for invading Iraq, not anything else.
“Once we recognize that, we’re able to begin talking about where Iraq is going. For example, there’s a lot of talk about the United States bringing [about] a sovereign independent Iraq. That can’t possibly be true. All you have to do is ask yourself what the policies would be in a more-or-less democratic Iraq. We know what they’re likely to be. A democratic Iraq will have a Shiite majority, [with] close links to Iran. Furthermore, it’s right across the border from Saudi Arabia, where there’s a Shiite population which has been brutally repressed by the U.S.-backed fundamentalist tyranny. If there are any moves toward sovereignty in Shiite Iraq, or at least some sort of freedom, there are going to be effects across the border. That happens to be where most of Saudi Arabia’s oil is. So you can see the ultimate nightmare developing from Washington’s point of view.” — Noam Chomsky in Newsweek interview, January 9, 2006. For full text of interview, click here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10682403/site/newsweek/
Sally wrote:
“The problem is generated by the friction between the modern world and Islam”
Islam came to occupy center stage in these countries only because (and after) the secular, liberal-nationalist forces in these places (such as Nasser in Egypt, or Mossadegh in Iran) were wiped out and suppressed in the 1950s and 1960s with active US support. This created a power vacuum in which the Islamists were able to step in.
This process, in somewhat similar ways, is still continuing, in fact. Look at how the relatively much more secular Fatah of Arafat and then Abbas were left out to dry by Israel and the US after they had stuck out their neck by recognizing Israel and negotiating with Israel. This marginalization of Fatah naturally created a power vacuum in which the Islamist group Hamas was able to step in. (The Palestinians saw that they were still getting shafted even after they elected Fatah, which was prepared to negotiate with Israel, so they decided to vote for Hamas, since they figured that they’re going to get shafted no matter who they vote for — i.e. a clear example of how US and Israeli policies drove a people towards extremism in a matter of a few years).
Sally: The proper way to establish democracy in Iraq at this point would be to withdraw US troops, send the UN in, and hold free and fair elections under a UN mandate. You can’t possibly have free democratic elections in a country while there is a foreign occupying power camping inside the country — for the simple reason that the candidates’ safety is being underwritten by the US, which means that no candidate will dare to go against the US or campaign on an anti-US platform, for fear of getting killed.
Nate’s argument can be demolished in two parts.
It makes zero sense to say that America won’t liberate Iraq because it has oil. That’s actually a reason to occupy and liberate Iraq. Free market oil from free democracies are priced less than OPEC oil from oligarchies and monarchies.
Again, when the peaceniks were smoking wish holes, Bush actually liberated Iraq. It’s called guilt tripping for the peacenikkers to now say that it doesn’t count because “oil was the reason”. Smoking blunts is the reason the Left didn’t do jack about Iraq.
Nate’s second argument is ostensibly that a free Iraq will always side with Iran, in a sort of Sunni always hate Shia kind of Leftist caricature of reality. And just about as accurate. The Left likes identity politics, if you identity yourself as A, then you obviously ally with other As and hate Bs. Duh. People who are wiser and with a higher education, know better. We’re going to remold Iraq so that free Iraqis are going to go out on a jihad to ANNIHILATE terrorism. It’s called divide and conquer, it’s called convert the enemy.
The US is so powerful we can change human fate, and that’s why we will liberate Iraq while the Left peaceniks won’t. The Left will just say “if we liberate Iraq, they will just go with Iran, so let’s not”. ANd they did not.
“The point is, that if the US hadn’t built up Saddam Hussain during the 1980s by supplying him with political support and military aid, Iraq would not have been in a mess to begin with.”
Nate,
Saddam was a Soviet client state.
During the Iran/Iraq War, we provided Iraq with aid such as satilite intelligence, to prevent Iran from winning, and we provided Iran with TOW missles to prevent Iraq from winning. It would have been disaster if either side had a clear victory, and the Reagan administration helped prevent that as part of our Cold War effort.