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We Failed, Says Pro-War Iraqi
Kanan Makiya, an Iraqi exile under Saddam and a key intellectual inspiration for the US policy of 'regime change' in Iraq, has admitted he failed to foresee the consequences for his country of the invasion four years ago.
In an interview in yesterday's New York Times, Makiya, author of Republic of Fear, the book that brought the brutality of Saddam Hussein's regime to international attention, concedes he allowed his own 'activism' to sway his judgment and launched a scathing denunciation of US policy after the fall of Baghdad, and of Iraq's new leadership. In the week of the invasion's fourth anniversary, the voice that cried loudest for the toppling of Saddam described the day of Saddam's execution 'as one of the worst' of his life.
'It was a disaster, an unmitigated disaster,' Makiya said. 'I was just so upset, even on the verge of tears. It was the antithesis of everything I had been working for. Just like everything about the war, it was an opportunity wasted.' He catalogued the errors - including his own - that led to the present bloodbath. It is all a remarkable change of tone for the man who was once a friend of Ahmed Chalabi, has been praised in public by Vice President Dick Cheney and is highly regarded by anti-Saddam Iraqi democrats.
Makiya, a professor at Brandeis University in Massachusetts, says his disaffection with the 'Iraq project' has been growing for some time. 'Now it seems necessary to reflect on the society that has gotten itself into this mess. A question that looms more and more for me is: just what did 30 years of dictatorship do to 25 million people?'
Makiya played a strong role in persuading the Bush administration that Iraq's modernity, secular leadership and high levels of education would permit it to rebound with little need for an intensive nation building effort.
'It's not like I didn't think about this,' he added. 'But nonetheless I allowed myself as an activist to put it aside in the hope that it could be worked through, or managed, or exorcised in a way that's not as violent as is the case now. That did not work out.'
© Guardian News and Media Limited 2007
10 Comments so far
Show AllI love how these guys wring their hands and weep their tears after their stupidity and arrogance has killed hundreds of thousands of people and destroyed a country and put an entire region in peril. How about this butthole gets his ass over here in the States and starts agitating against the Bushies every frigging day? It's the least he could do. Stop 'reflecting' and do something to make up for the incredible horrors you unleashed. Otherwise you're just another piece of Bush scum.
A very strange marriage--the idealistic Mr Makiya who wrote the most persuasive expose of the horrors of the Baathist regime in Iraq, an ivory tower intellectual with the best intentions connects up with the "dark side"--the neocons with their neo-imperial plan to dominate Iraq and its oil. Makiya meets with Bush and is praised by the evil Mr. Cheney. He thinks that the US can actually recreate Iraqi society after years of tyranny (not just Baathist tyranny.) Unfortunately the neocons straightaway show themselves for what they are: Greedbags only interested in the oil. The only ministry saved during the looting is the oil ministry in March 2003. Things get worse...much, much worse, and now Mr. Makiya is reduced to a tragic figure who will live out the rest of his days regreting that he ever met with the dark siders.
I say, if he was an advocate of war and dreamed of a free Iraq, he got it now (good or bad). Why is he still staying in the US? Kick him out of here to what he created. Let he have a taste of his own medicine. And I wonder why they call him "intellectual". Intullectual is somebody with understanding and knowledge. He obviously lacks both. I say he must be deported to Iraq.
On February 15, 2003, about 45,000,000 people around the world were in the streets, protesting the start of exactly the horrible bloodshed that has come to pass!
They were ignored.
But the media only gives a voice to those this vile, opportunistic "professor" - this Bush ass-kissing piece of s--t.
SEND HIM TO STRAIGHT TO IRAQ! SEND HIM STRAIGHT TO HELL!
Why is this guy in the United States, earning a living in a prestigious university? How disgusting! I realize this is the land of the free, home of the brave, yada, yada, but this is way too much. I agree with PJD - SEND HIM TO BAGHDAD - AND NOT THE 'GREEN ZONE'!
IMPEACH them NOW!!!
I don't have a lot of sympathy for Makiya given with whom he allied himself to get "regime change", but I can understand his desire to change how things were in his country under Saddam.
But ponder this...
If he foolishly thought that the US would aid him in his mission and allow a secular democracy to flourish and make its own decisions, without requiring getting "paid back" by controlling Iraqi resources, he was no more a willing dupe than waaayy too many US citizens, pundits and Congresspeople who swallowed the same kool-ade.
He might have overlooked the likelihood of this unmitigated PNAC-promoted disaster because of his proximity to the realityof life with Hussein. WE, on the other hand, had no such excuse, just the ever-present desire not to be bothered with pesky fact-finding and decision-making, a ready gullibility about the sanctity of U.S. motives, and the willingness to demonize others who do not look like us,
Agree all too much with the other comments. Makiya comes to the U.S., helps enable a stupid and insane war on the other side of the world, and now laments from his nest in Brandeis. You've got blood all over you, Mr. Makiya. I'm angry with you for helping mess up my country, but my anger is a spittle compared to what Iraqis must feel toward you. Where was your brain, professor?!?!
My solution for you is that we build an exile-village somewhere in west Iraq for tragic and stupid and ruined former Bush Administration officials and lackeys ...Mr. Makiya, would that be too just?
Of course, while doing all that lamenting, he never contemplates paying any price for what he has done. In fact he is going to write another book about it, and hopes he will profit more.
What everyone needs to read is what is linked to below which shows he still has all of his hubris intact, blaming everyone but himself for the failure.
http://my.brandeis.edu/news/item?news_item_id=8713
Lobo Gris
Any use of violence to solve problems always makes the user identical to her adversary. Always has, always will. Of course all hell is going to break loose in Iraq when we leave; staying longer is not going to change that.
All of you haters obviously have no idea who this guy is. I saw him on Bill Moyers before the invasion. He's the real deal. He passionately loved his country. He believed with all his heart that "democracy" as touted by this Administration would help his country and that getting rid of Saddam was a good thing. He then spent the next 3 years IN IRAQ trying to help his country. The fact that we knew he was wrong and that his trust was misplaced is just one more tragedy of this mess. But to sound so spiteful and mean towards a person like this is exactly what gives liberals a bad name. Stop it. Now.