The Iraq campaign and reconstruction will be a success in general if we leave behind a functioning country with a representative government. Today’s vote makes that almost certain.
To be a strategic victory in the Terror Wars, though, will require something more. Victory will require that Iraq not have one election, but many, and that when the leaders are voted out of power, they go peacefully. Victory will require the decisive defeat of the terror campaign in Iraq, destroying or converting the Ba’athist elements and destroying or driving out the jihadi elements. Victory will require that other countries in the region begin to reform in response to the changes in Iraq, or that we undertake the same process in at least several of those other countries. Victory will require and it will require building institutions that are of the country, not of the person or party currently in power. Only when these things are done will we have struck at the root of jihadi terrorism, because only then will we be able to demonstrate the difference between Arabs under tyranny (religious or otherwise) and free Arabs are more different than alike, and the free West and free Arabs are more alike than different. And only when we have demonstrated this will the jihadi appeals to the sorry lot of the Arabs being caused by lack of fundamentalist Islam finally lose their currency.
Which is one reason why this makes me very, very happy. It appears that at least one of the key elements is coming into place. That the Iraqi Army appears to be non-political in the officer corps (hopefully this is widespread) is a critical feature necessary to ensure that Iraq doesn’t slide back into tyranny.
If Allawi loses and steps down, another key element will be in place. (If Allawi wins, we won’t be able to test this until the approval of the permanent Iraqi Consitution and the first transitional election after that in particular.) If the Ba’athists over the next 18 months accept their defeat, another piece will be put in place.
Time will tell.
While it’s true to say that the Iraqis embraced the idea of democracy, this was not democracy. In a democracy a person makes an informed choice between candidates and positions. Here, the candidates were mostly unknown and their positions a mystery, Doubtless, the handpicked US ‘leaders’ and some token others will hold power, not unlike Latin Am nations we’ve sponsored, but democracy this isn’t.
As a child I recall the gay bars where child prostitutes were hired to sit behind glory holes and fellate anonymous males who would stick there penises anonymously through the holes. They wd claim they did not know they were abusing children and walk away feeling they had a clean conscience, but none was ‘intimate’ with their fellaters.
The same is true with this election. Only propagandists see this as a legitimate thing. Huzzahs for the voters, but shame on the puppeteers who’ve duped them into thinking they’ve done something historic. Their actions are no more democratic than the glory holes were a place of true sexual intimacy.
To not recognize that fact means that all journalistic credibility has been lost to any truth in this war. This glory hole election and glory hole democracy has no more legitimacy than Manuel Noriega did. DAN
It’s really easy to point fingers and find fault; it’s also not very productive.
For one thing, the US did not have nearly direct democratic elections until the end of the 1800s, when we changed the rules on how electors were chosen. We still don’t have direct democratic elections, though we’re closer than we used to be. For that, we’d have to eliminate the Electoral College (something I oppose, by the way).
For another thing, I think you underestimate the Iraqis. While the individual candidates were largely unknown, the positions of the bloc tickets were not unknown; indeed they were quite well known. This is not really unlike a lot of other parliamentary democracies, including, say, Canada. I’m not a big fan of party-ticket voting, but that’s what they’ve picked (yes, the Iraqis, not the US).
I have not seen any evidence that the US has been hand picking anyone in Iraq in this election. I’d be interested to see it. (Real evidence, not hyperbole.) I suppose you could say we’re picking leaders at one remove, since we picked the group that set up the rules, and many of them are standing for election now, but that’s a pretty tenuous influence, at best, and hardly qualifies as hand picking the people who are going to win.
Finally, it’s generally true that instigating representative government is very, very messy. This is a historical norm, rather than the exception. What is key, as I mentioned, is whether the transfer of power occurs when it should and according to rules promulgated in advance. If that happens, then Iraq’s nascent democracy – admittedly far from perfect now – will improve over time.
Dan Schneider:
You are aware that Italy uses a list system not unlike the system used in the Iraqi elections, aren’t you? Is it your claim that Italy is un-democratic? If being informed about candidates and their policy positions is your standard, what country lives up to that standard? Does Chicago? Or New York? Or do the citizens there vote by name recognition or party labels (like everywhere else in the country and everywhere else in the world)?
“Today’s vote makes that almost certain.”
I wouldn’t be so sure about that. Yesterday was awesome, but it could very well muddle along with parts of the country doing well and other parts not so much.
On the terrorism front, it did go a decent way toward reducing one of the terrorist’s most powerful weapons: fear. So that’s good, too. Zarqawi didn’t really do much.
Good point, prak. And you also bring up something I’m working up a post on: why didn’t the terrorists do more?
The point is that reality is alot more complex than simple sloganeering. Voter sloth is different from whole ignorance.
Again, I applaud the courage of the voters, but what happens if we left, or if even true democracy existed- w/o the violence? Do you really think that a theocracy, the likely true vote winner if all who could say had their say, is what America wants?
This begs the question of what sort of democracy are we talking about? Banana Republic, apartheid democracy as in Israel, socialism as in Scandinavia, cult of personality as in many of the ‘stans? Or our own flawed republic, where still black folk have yet to be fullt enfranchised? And then ask what the acceptable cost is- 5k lives? 15k? 35k?
Societies ripen at their own pace. Ukraine is at a far more important historic place. The populace was willing to rise en masse against totalitarianism. So far, that’s not true in Iraq. This is not to say it’s not hoped for, merely to say stop with all the agitprop, as if this were Washington, becoming the first leader of a state to foreswear power.
It’s an exciting regular season victory, but the pennant still has 161 games to be determined. DAN
Here’s my measuring stick:
1. The lesson of history, reinforced countless times, is that zealots can be killed or exiled, but cannot be convinced en masse to change their minds.
2. There is a very strong strain (actually, several strains) of zealotry in Arab/Muslim cultures right now. The most prominent strain, Wahabbism, is of the death cult variety. The Iranian strain is more rational, but perfectly willing to use the death cultists to Iranian ends.
3. In at least two cases, the zealots have taken over control of nations. In one case, Iran, they maintain that control.
4. Iranian leaders have repeated and consistently called for the destruction of the US and Israel. They’ve done more than issue proclamations: Iran actively funds and otherwise supports numerous terrorist organizations whose daily reason for existing is to bring about a world-wide Islamic government.
New set of points:
5. Nuclear weapons are, at their base, simple. The “Little Boy” type bombs were considered such a technical slam dunk that they weren’t even tested. No, these aren’t sophisticated, but ask the Japanese how much that matters.
6. Any nation, given sufficient time and funding, can develop unsophisticated nuclear weapons. Pakistan is a particular example of this, given their otherwise-lackluster technology.
7. Iran is actively seeking nuclear weapons.
Some conclusions:
1. Iran will get nuclear weapons, barring either a revolution or an outside military intervention.
2. Given their past and current policies, it is quite likely that the Iranians would be willing to supply a nuclear weapon, in an unprovable way, to terrorist groups willing to use the weapon to attack Israel, the US, or possibly some target in Europe.
3. In the worst case – an attack on downtown Tel Aviv, NYC, London, Paris, etc. in the middle of a work day – the number of dead could be in the hundreds of thousands.
Given all of this, I think that it is imperative that we end the Iranian nuclear program by whatever means are available, to solve the short term problem, and that we democratize the Arab/Muslim world in general to solve the long-term problem.
I look at risk as a combination of probability of the risk occurring and consequences of the risk actualizing. I think that the probability of a nuclear terrorist attack is high, unless we actively lessen that chance by ending nuclear proliferation in the short term and terrorism in the long term. I look at the harm if the threat is actualized as being catastrophic. In combination, I’m willing to sacrifice tens of thousands of lives, my own included, if necessary to prevent the loss of hundreds of thousands or of millions.
So that’s my metric: least harm. What’s yours? What would be worth the lives it’s taking in Iraq, and will take elsewhere? What do you see as the way to end terrorism as it has developed since the 1979 Iranian revolution? Or is that terrorism acceptable to you?
Point by point:
1) Kamikazes and the godolatry of Hirohito was changed by force, although I’m not saying nuke Iraq. Simply, the point is false.
2) No doubt they are bastards, but bastards have always been, and have always been portrayed as the ultimate enemy. In Fog Of War Bob McNamara posits empathy as one of the great things that separates victorious parties from losers in war. They are, by yr def., incapable of such. Why have we not learned to see what drives Islamic Extremists. cd it be the old Ugly American stereotype?
3) bad stuff, but not unprecedented in history.
4) again not unprecedented
5) no argument
6) yes. But, what if there’s a coup and our boys were kicked out. def. a possibility, no? Do we invade that country as well?
7) yes.
Conclusive responses:
1) Yes. But, consider that they are not stupid. A few small nukes used on US soil would meanthe end of their nation in retaliation- or if they went to Europe or Russia. Is it not in our interest to foment the young’ns there to non-violently castrate the old bastrards. In short, a smart approach over a gonadal one?
2) Perhaps. But, seeing what we did to get rid of the Taliban, wd they want to really do that? Perhaps, but pre-emption cd very well play into their hands to help recruit more young folk. Is it not wiser to fill bellies. It occurs to me that I see very few obese and healthy terrorists.
3) And what of an endless decades long war where nuke-level casualties are not instantaneous, but recorded every few months?
As for democracy, I ask this all the time- what sort and at what price? And what if the majority legally vote for a theocracy? The presumption is that we and ours are the chosen people, with the chosen way. We are good, and arguably leading the race, but what of those horses that choose other racetracks?
If we do nothing the probability of a nuke attack somewhere in the West is 1, in the next quarter century. But, and this ias a biggy- you should therefore be against the current admin’s do nothing policies befiore and after 9/11.
Just last week the FAA said that the billions needed to retrofit commercial airliners was not worth it, and I think the poss of airliners being shot down is about a thousand times more probable than a nuke attack, if nothing’s done.
We know 9/11, as example, was wholly preventable on many fronts. We were just smug and lazy. I fear that 9/11 has already burnished into history, and its lessons lost.
The quid pro quo of lives is a dicey game, Jeff. Is a single Einstein or Shakespeare or Lincoln not worth more than a thousand Joe Averages. If I told you I were able to raise the tsunami dead but the five people closest to you would have to die horribly, you may indeed do it, but I wouldn’t. China could fall off the planet, as the old philosophical game went, and I wd be sad, but I’d not trade my wife for a single abstracted Chinese. I suspect you might not either, if push really came to shove, and I’m confident, for good or ill, that mine is the majority view of 98+% of humanity.
Nobility is not the first quality that comes to mind in our species.
I agree least harm, but your way, I fear, is benighted- a blustering Big Stick approach that lacks subtlety and a knowledge of consequences. Don’t get me wrong, I’m willing to kill and be killed for a cause, but as a last, not first resort. I vaue intellect over id. Otherwise the war on terror is likely to be a bigger failure than the war on drugs.
As for Iran, feed the insirgent youth. As much as I loathe McWorld and Wal-Mart, I am confident that their corrosive powers can work wonders. After all, Osama, at heart, was and still is a dilettante Playboy who’d love to be spanking Britney Spears. It’s just he’s gotten a taste of playing God, and likes it.
Terrorism is terrible, but very human. Approach it as you wd the Mafia. They operate in very similar ways, with very diff goals. I know, cuz I was intimate w narco-scums as a teenager. And, frankly, Pablo Escobar was a far bigger threat and took more lives than Osama has. He just was not a publicity seeker, whereas Osama needs it. Be smart, let the phallus rest. Then, grab them silently by the balls, without needing to make them martyrs. DAN
Your refutation of point 1 actually makes my point: we didn’t convert the militarists; we killed them off. (We converted most of the surviving militarist sympathizers, but the militarists themselves were pretty much exterminated.)
The Wahabi types have been very clear what drives them: they see the problems of the Arab world as being largely a result of the Muslims being insufficiently pious, and in particular as being alienated from Allah by failing to keep religion the center of government. They wish to reestablish the Caliphate, and to extend the Caliphate’s rule over the entire world. They are quite clear on this, and it has nothing to do with America (except that America is considered, along with every other free nation, apostate and eventually to be subjugated and converted).
In fact, al Qaeda were pretty up front about why they wanted the US out of Saudi Arabia: we propped up the Saudi rulers who are al Qaeda‘s proximate enemy. We had to go so that the Saudi regime could be overthrown and replaced with one modeled on the Taliban. They figured that it would be easy to push us out, and that we wouldn’t respond. They had plenty of historical evidence of this proposition, and probably would have succeeded if they had instead offered to get rid of Saddam for us in exchange for us pulling out. They simply forgot that we don’t react to attacks on civilians on home soil the way we react on attacks to warships, embassies and troops deployed overseas.
I don’t think that the ugly American stereotype (and having lived overseas, there’s more truth to it than some people assume) has anything to do with terrorism. Certainly I’ve seen no statements of the enemy’s that indicate that this has anything to do with it.
On point 6, Pakistan worries me, and has since they first got their hands on a weapon. Mainly, the worries are of proliferation and the possibility of a jihadi takeover, and I hope we are working diligently against both possibilities.
On the conclusive responses, I agree that the Iranians (unlike the jihadis) are mostly rational, though their premises are so far from ours as to sometimes make them seem crazy. However, it’s not irrational to supply weapons to a terrorist outfit. After all, you could simply say, “Yes, we have recently developed nuclear weapons, but we did not deliver any into the hands of the terrorists, who after all could have used them against anyone. That would take someone really crazy, like the North Koreans.” And how would we prove it? And would we just retaliate on the basis that it might have been Iran? Would our people, our press, our politicians allow any President who destroyed a nation on unproven supposition to remain in office? The Iranians might consider it a risk worth taking to supply a weapon at one step’s remove.
The problem that the Taliban had was that they were directly associated with the known backer of the attacks on 9/11. If they had not been so closely associated, for example, if they funded small time operations but didn’t host massive training camps and the al Qaeda leadership, would we have attacked them that way? Even after 9/11? I doubt it.
Please bear in mind, I’m not calling for an endless, decades-long war. I’m not even calling for destroying all of the terrorist-supporting regimes in the Arab/Muslim world. I am calling for eliminating the big and short-term threats by force, and eliminating the big and long-term threats by changing the world around the terrorists. I don’t think that terrorism comes from anything other than a search by the zealots for what would improve their lives. They are drowning in tyranny, and their only outlet is religion. Political protest in an Arab country generally gets you dead, fast. Look at how many al Qaeda members were killed in Saudi Arabia after they started attacking the Saudi government and its income stream – not when they were killing foreigners in Saudi Arabia.
If we change that atmosphere of tyranny – and in most cases I believe that we can do this by force of example, rather than force of arms – then we end terrorism as a threat.
We’ll have to kill the terrorists, pretty much all of them. We’ll have to kill some of their sympathizers and enablers, and take down probably one or two more of the enabling regimes (Iran certainly, Syria and Saudi Arabia potentially) over the next decade or two – hopefully through peaceful change or internal revolution, but if necessary through invasion. Other than that, I think that simply seeing Iraq succeed as a free nation will cause the Arabs to demand more political freedoms; and those demands, once met, will reduce the threat of terrorism.
So there’ll be a decades-long series of wars, just as there were in the Cold War. And as in the Cold War, some of those wars will result in large casualties (Iran would be a very, very tough country to invade and occupy – on the order of 10000 US casualties is my bet for the invasion alone). Is it worth it? Was the Cold War worth it? I think so. Others may disagree.