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TechnoratiDefeat in Iraq? By its own hubristic prospectus, the neocon project has been a cataclysm - caused by a total lack of analysis
Five years after he launched it, George Bush's invasion of Iraq looks even more disastrous than it did at the end of the first year. Not only did it uncover no weapons of mass destruction. The invasion has led to a collapse in millions of ordinary Iraqis' personal security, producing a human rights nightmare and annual rates of killing that dwarf the atrocities of Saddam Hussein's three decades of power.
The damage to the United States has been enormous. As well as the loss of around 4,000 soldiers' lives, America's image and reputation in the Middle East have been severely harmed. For Bush and the neocons, the invasion has brought political defeat. Their project for Iraq to become a secular, liberal, pro-western bastion of democracy lies in ruins. The country is run by a narrow-minded group of Shia Islamists with close control over a sectarian army and police force. Many of them are linked to Iran.
As a result, Bush is now forced to run around the Arabian states along the Persian Gulf in an effort to build an anti-Iranian alliance and find a pretext for keeping a strategic presence in the region.
Sunni Arab revulsion at the murderous tactics of al-Qaida in Iraq, as well as the current "surge" of extra American troops, have helped to produce a welcome drop in al-Qaida's murders of Iraqi civilians and American forces, but it has to remembered that al-Qaida was never in Iraq before the invasion. A successful reduction in al-Qaida's power cannot outweigh all the harm Bush's war has caused to Iraqis.
Many critics blame the occupation's difficulties on a lack of planning, and a series of mistakes in the first few months, including the disbanding of the Iraqi army and failures to provide Iraqi with electricity and water. The line is summed up in the phrase "Winning the war but losing the peace".
But this assumes that a more intelligent and efficient occupation could have worked. It is an extraordinary notion. Like other Arabs, Iraqis have a long memory of US and British intervention in the Middle East, toppling regimes and controlling puppet governments, both to maintain an imperial presence and for the sake of oil. As soon as the Americans made it clear in mid-2003 that their occupation was going to be openended and without a timetable for troop withdrawal, Iraqi nationalists were bound to become suspicious and start resisting.
Yet L Paul Bremer, Iraq's American overlord, as well as his political masters in Washington, used the template of the occupations of Germany and Japan in 1945. They seemed to forget they were occupying an Arab country with a long history of anti-western resistance. Kanan Makiya, the Iraqi exile whose energetic campaigning against Saddam helped to push Bush into invading, realised the point with considerable regret last year when he said "the first and biggest American error was the idea of going for an occupation".
Other Iraqi exiles, as well as foreign experts on the country, had seen the danger well before the invasion. They tried to warn Bush and Blair that there would be resentment and resistance. Saddam could be toppled easily, but this would not be victory. As long as the occupation continued, it would provoke suspicion and hostility which could quickly lead to an armed insurgency. They also pointed out that the people who would fill the post-Saddam vacuum would be Islamists, both Shia and Sunni. Whatever political structures were put in place, these anti-western groups would become the dominant force.
Amazingly, few people in the Bush administration or in the British Foreign Office got the point. Much attention has been given to Washington's failures of military intelligence in believing Saddam still had weapons of mass destruction. The failure of political intelligence was equally disastrous. Put another way, the invaders' real problem was not a lack of planning, but a lack of analysis.
There are many reasons, not least the fact that neither government in Washington or London had good experts. The two countries that were most enthusiastic in wanting an invasion were the two which had no embassies in Baghdad since 1990. The French, Germans, Italians and Russians - who did have embassies - predicted the future much better.
The lessons of the neocons' defeat in Iraq are clear enough - except to the neocons themselves. If they now proceed to attack Iran, it will be another triumph of ideological blindness over the need to get the facts, and think.
Jonathan Steele is a Guardian columnist, roving foreign correspondent and author.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2008
21 Comments so far
Show AllThoughtIntoAction and PaulBramscher have it right on what's wrong with this article: the usual inexplicable assumption that the White House mafia are telling the truth about their objectives in Iraq. Seen through the lens of that ridiculous assumption, you can say the war is an abject failure--of course, it takes awhile to say it because the "official objectives" changed so many times.
But look at it from the enormously more likely assumption that they're lying, and assume that their real objectives were: getting control over the oil in the second best-endowed country in the world (Saudi Arabia was already well in hand with compliant leaders); making an example of the disobedient Saddam Hussain as DoomnGloom mentions; sending big bucks from the endless storehouse of US taxpayers to their many buddies in the MIC; changing the subject during an off-year election season in which every possible issue was toxic for the Republicans; and joining with rightwing Israelis in a scheme to take control of the Middle East. How'd they do on this list? They totally changed the subject and won that election, directed half a trillion so far into the offers of the MIC, and although they haven't gotten the oil flowing at bargain rates through the US and English oil companies' coffers yet, they have got the rest of the Iraqi economy privatized to the eyebrows, and delays in oil flow from Iraq have just upped the price of the oil from everywhere else. As for the hegemony project, we have the incredible spectacle of the MSM trotting out and supporting the same transparent lies to support an illegal attack on Iran that have been so throroughly discredited, so recently, as reasons for the illegal war on Iraq. I think the US public is considerably less credulous than they used to be, but they are not ready to rise up and do anything about it. Fortunately it looks like the upper levels of the Navy and Army are refusing to go along with an attack on Iran--I hope.
Mr Steele has nice way of putting a pretty ribbon around a pretty ugly duck. Make that a very ugly duck.
Saddam was the U.S. empires man in Iraq, that is, until he became independent minded and decided to sell oil in a currency other than dollars. That intolerable behavior formed one of the fundamental pillars for the invasion. The loss of Iraqi petro dollars was more than the American financial elites were prepared to accept. It violated one of the tenants of American imperialism and weakened American empire. Following that the American propaganda and demonization machine was started and Saddam quickly became a horrible dictator and someone to be feared. Saddam could not be allowed to demonstrate financial independence in the Middle East because the practice may spread to other Countries and American empire would suffer. So Saddam was ushered out of his spider hole and his unflattering photo spread widely; then his famous underwear picture was spread across the world and finally he was taunted and hanged. That will show the world what happens if a leader of a sovereign country resists American empire. While there the U.S. decided to stay a while and loot the Countries oil except that it didn't work out. Not to worry though the war was privitized and profits were made. Unfortunately those profits were not made in oil but instead from the middle and lower economic classes in the U.S.
Now that the middle class has been economically drained and can no longer afford to purchase consumer goods and support the empire, the economic elites are hard at work designing a new economic hoax to prop up the dollar before it collapses and leads to a devaluation of the currency. I can guarantee you that nothing is off the table.
Paul: That's SICK! DISGUSTING!
And probably true.
It may well be that Iraq, like other premeditated Bush projects (S&L collapse, collapse of sub-prime and perhaps the banking system as a whole) defies success/failure analysis in the ordinary sense.
Given the military budgets, billions in no-bid contracts, the inherrent catch-22 of oversight (top secret/classified/foreign, not open to public scrutiny, etc.) -- it may well be that Iraq was a great success. Perhaps, in some twisted sense, Bush was shopping around for a mid-range war of sorts. Something much more complicated than toppling Haiti or the like, something that larger and drawn out. Winning or avoiding collapse doesn't seem to be part of the Bush makeup. Their measure of success, no doubt, is how many dollars go to well-connected m.i.c. vendors. So the longer we continue to lose Iraq, yet remain engaged and dumping tax dollars into black holes, the longer the "victory" from their perspective?
GALEN: You're on a roll today! Love the argument for abortion!
Good posts: THOUGHTS into ACTION, LOCUST & ALEX LAWYER.
We've been oppressing the Iraqi people for 28 years now. From 1980-88 we supported and armed Saddam in his disastrous war against Iran, even providing him with intelligence on troop locations so he could use poisonous gases. That war killed 2 million people and economically devasted the country. In 1990 Saddam told US Ambassador April Glaspie he was planning to annex Kuwait, and she and her political master George HW Bush did not object. In 1991 we invaded, killed thousands of civilians in bombing campaigns and deliberately destroyed vital infrastructure such as electrical, water and sewage and communications systems. We then enforced cruel sanctions, embargoing even medicines and vaccines, causing the deaths of 500,000 children. In the wake of the first Gulf War we encouraged the Kurds and Shiites to rebel against Saddam, promised them help, then left them to their dictator's tender mercies. Then in 2003 we invaded again, sparked a civil war, armed and funded various violent factions so they could slaughter each other, and caused hundreds of thousands of deaths while driving a fifth of the people into exile. And we are shocked and outraged that Iraqis, and Muslims around the world, loathe us and increasingly want to take revenge.
Lizard: Your'e new to this place aren't you?
News that Bush is a clinical psychopath is OLD news.
He dont want no stinkin blo-job, he's having way to much fun screwin us! Texrey
Mr.Galen: If you look at Mr.Bush objectively you should see that he is also, by diagnostic definition, a sociopath, known as Antisocial Personality Disorder. I kid you not.
Try this one - Somebody please give Bush a blowjob so we can impeach him.
T-shirt I saw recently:
'George W. Bush. The best argument for abortion.'
"Many of them are linked to Iran."
Big deal. You make it sound like it's bad. What the hell do you expect? You expect them to be linked to the crusader US, a far off country, famous for bringing death to more than a million as a result of its immoral war? You expect them to be linked to a people who have destroyed their country for the sake of another land stealer, the Zionist Israel, and for its design to steal its natural resources? You must be joking.
Iran is Iraq's neighbor and they have had close cultural and religious links going back in history long before the US cavalry killed off practically all the natives and became the U.S. Talk about Chutzpah!
The best failure to think in the Bush family?
No birth control.
The Bush neocons are ideologues with a goal of U.S. global hegemony through brute military force or, in their words, "full spectrum dominance." In clinical terms, they'd be called psychopaths; in legal terms, war criminals. It's probably not helpful to assume that they didn't do proper analysis or didn't have the right advisors on hand before acting, as this whole mess has been years in the making.
It was during Bush's father's term and Gulf War I that CIA analysts warned against sending troops into Baghdad, where they would face protracted guerilla warfare. So, there was no lack of analysis on hand. Instead, the Bush neocons deliberately "shaped the facts to fit the policy," as the Downing Street memos revealed. Much of this shaping of facts has already been chronicled with Cheney's visits to the CIA and the Office of Special Plans manipulations of intelligence.
If the people in the United States had the gumption shown by the citizens of just about any third-world country, we'd have taken some action long before this. Just goes to show the danger of becoming too comfortable. WAY too comfortable.
Veteran '66-68
When any empire is ruled by a crud-infested, dry drunk and spoiled spawn of the oligarchy, it is an indicator the empire's days and nights are numbered.
It doesn't matter if the king and his crony's gained power via rigged elections, selection by the imperial guard or succession, a major indicator of imperial decline is usually the same: the human, intellectual and political qualities of the emperor are low, lower and the lowest.
The neocrazies live by the George Costanza rule: It's not a lie if you believe it.
Hence, the illegal invasion was a total success; the illegal occupation, also a total success; the surge, also a great success. That's why they keep giving each other medals and multi-million dollar lobbying "jobs" and book deals and NYT op-ed spots, because "wrong" and "defeat" simply are not options.
Same on the economy - it's strong and vibrant! Tax cuts for the rich and breaks for Big Corp and the removal of most regs worked! That's why the GOPathological candidates are touting MORE tax cuts for the rich and MORE breaks for Big Corp!
Need a tighter example? Bill O'Liar believes there are no homeless Military Veterans; the latest report clearly states there are nearly 400K homeless Veterans; O'Liar insists HE knows the truth, all factual reporting aside: there are no homeless Veterans. Now SHUT UP!
The EPA reports Earth is melting at an alarming rate; the "believers" insist said report is just wrong - and so are the tens of thousands of other reports and scientists who agree with said report.
"I know some people see me as a warmonger. I see myself as a peacemaker." He believes it; it's not a lie.
Random thought hit me just now.
The US is being led by a man who was a 'C' average student who was a cheerleader and alcoholic, who was in the Texas Air National Guard (known as the 'Champagne Squadron' for the number of rich momma's boys in it who were 'serving their country' by staying out of the fighting...), albeit briefly before going AWOL, and was a reknowned skirtchaser, who also manged to get his court records sealed after being arrested with an amount of cocaine that lesser mortals serve life in prison for.
A man who belives in the literal interpretation of the Bible, and says he has conversations with God.
The US is beyond being in deep shit. You are somewhere in the waste treatment stage...
"...neither government in Washington or London had good experts."
What about Gen. Shinseki? (as just one example).
They didn't want 'good' experts and didn't listen to the ones they had. They wanted complicit experts who said what the war-mongers wanted to hear.
Analysis to support policy already decided upon.
"...the invaders' real problem was not a lack of planning, but a lack of analysis."
I disagree completely. Their real problem is that they are poor excuses for human beings.
As the US election draws closer, at with it the spectre of Republican defeat, the danger that there will be another 9/11, that is, a fabricated 'terrorist attack' on US soil, will happen, be blamed on Iran, and martial law declared is quite real.
Bushco has million$ of reasons to attack Iran. And nothing to lose, beacause if Bush ever leaves the US as a private citizen, he stands a very good chance of being arrested for crimes against humanity.
Iraq is about the greatest textbook example of an illegal war of aggression there could be for the UN, and for the International Criminal Court in the Haugue.