Two Wars Don't Make a Right

The carnage is not yet complete, and
President Barack Obama's attempt to put the best face on the ignominious
U.S. occupation of Iraq will not hide what he and the rest of the world
well know. The lies that empowered George W. Bush to invade Iraq
represent an enduring stain on the reputation of American democracy. Our
much-vaunted system of checks and balances failed to temper the
mendacity of the president who acted like a king and got away with it.

It is utter nonsense for Obama, who in the
past has made clear his belief that the Bush administration's case for
this war was a tissue of lies, to now state: "The United States has paid
a huge price to put the future of Iraq in the hands of its people." We
paid a huge price simply to assuage the arrogance of a president that
was unfettered by the restraints of common sense expected in a
functioning democracy. Particularly shameful was the betrayal by the
Congress and the mass media of the obligations to challenge a president
who exploited post-9/11 fears to go to war with a nation that had
nothing whatsoever to do with that attack.

With hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and
Americans dead and maimed and at a cost of $3 trillion to American
taxpayers, the U.S. imperial adventure in Iraq has left that country in a
horrible mess, controlled by a corrupt and deeply divided elite that
shows no serious inclination to effectively govern. Nor can there be a
claim of enhanced U.S. security when the real victors are the ayatollahs
of Iran, whose influence in once bitterly hostile Iraq is now immense.
The price in shattered lives and dollars will continue, as Iraq remains
haunted by ethnic and religious conflict that we did so much to provoke.

Remember when most of the once respected
mass media, and not just the obvious lunatics on cable, bought the Bush
propaganda that democracy in Iraq, a harbinger of a new Middle East, was
just around the corner? They based that absurd expectation on the fact
that an Iraqi ayatollah disciple of the ones ruining Iran could order
millions of his followers to hold up purple fingers. What a joke we have
made of the ideal of representative democracy when Iraq is operating
under an incomprehensible constitution, which our proconsul ordered, and
is still without a functioning government six months after an election
that our media once again dutifully celebrated.

Mark the obit on this disaster by John
Simpson, the highly regarded BBC world affairs editor, writing Tuesday
from Baghdad that "nowadays it is hard to find anyone who sees America
as a friend or mentor." Dismissing the original American expectation
that the overthrow of Saddam Hussein would expand democracy in the
Middle East, Simpson concludes: "On the contrary, America's position in
the Middle East has been visibly eroded. ... America seems to have shrunk
as a direct result of its imperial adventure in Iraq."

The one positive outcome is that with the formal end of the U.S.
occupation many Americans have finally learned the lesson that
imperialism does not pay. While Bush fiddled with a nonexistent
terrorist threat from Iraq, the U.S. economy burned and the oil loot
that some thought would make it all worthwhile never materialized.
Remember when the neoconservatives were riding high and Paul Wolfowitz
assured a supine Congress that Iraqi oil would pay for it all?

Nor did the invasion even make more secure
our access to Mideast oil while competitors like China were busily
securing foreign energy rights to shore up their bustling economies.
Obama acknowledged this reality in his speech when he stated, "We must
jump-start industries that create jobs, and end our dependence on
foreign oil."

For all his talk about turning our
attention homeward, Obama reveals his obsession with the imperial
adventure in Afghanistan, where "because of our drawdown in Iraq, we are
now able to go on offense." Once again there is the expectation that
the occupied will embrace the occupiers and that the deployment of
massive military power "will disrupt, dismantle and defeat al-Qaida," as
if that is any longer relevant to our deep involvement in a treacherous
civil war in which we have no reliable partners.

Al-Qaida was never present in Iraq before
we invaded, and according to Obama's own national security adviser,
there are fewer than a hundred members of the group left in Afghanistan,
unable to coordinate any actions. Obama deserves credit for extracting
this country from a war in Iraq that he inherited, but it is
mind-numbing that in his nation-building efforts in Afghanistan he is
now repeating the same errors that were made in Iraq.