The Bush administration may not have succeeded in building a democratic government in Iraq, but it has succeeded in building a corrupt, brutal, and sectarian government that's willing to "offer the U.S. a long-term troop presence in Iraq and preferential treatment for American investments" as long as the United States promises to help secure Maliki's government against foreign and domestic threats. This should serve as a reminder that one reason US policy in Iraq keeps failing to produce a stable government, is that American policy objectives are in many ways incompatible with the goal of stability. An unstable Iraqi regime lacking in state capacity or legitimacy is going to be heavily dependent on the United States to maintain power and therefore more susceptible to American influence.
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Permanent Bases Watch
26 Nov 2007 10:58 am
Comments (32)
"An unstable Iraqi regime ... more susceptible to American influence."
I'm pretty sure that was the plan all along. Its been our modus operandi in several instances. Check out how wonderful Pakistan is doing.
The Iraqi government has more stability and legitimacy than that of South Korea for years after the war there. Good thing we didn't run away.
Currently the Iraqi government isn't particularly stable or effective, but it's sure as hell legitimate--more so than that of any other Arab state. And there's plenty of evidence currently that it will be able to evolve into a loose federal structure with lots of local autonomy, especially in the area of security. Crucially, oil revenues are already being shared, and there is increasing evidence of growing competence and acceptance by the public of the Iraqi security forces. "Insurgent" forces seem to be flagging, and in any case have never presented a credible alternative government, or even a plan for one. Current US casualties are approaching the range of losses in peacetime deployment and training operations.
Do we really want to defeat ourselves now?
Is it seen in these circles as intrinsically wrong for the US to have influence in a vital geostrategic area in which we have sacrificed significant amounts of blood and treasure?
Robert,
If the goal of the war was to establish a permanent military presence in a vital geostrategic area in order to project our influence, that is what the national debate should have been about before the invasion.
It is very likely that this goal would not have popular and would not have been seen as a sufficient cause for war. The war has not been a cost effective means for the nation as a whole to achieve that influence.
Even now the proponents of the administration's Iraq policy do not publicly embrace the goal you think is so obviously worthwhile. Why the continued misdirection and deception if the goal is so obviously in our national interest?
Doug--
I don't think the goal of defeating militarism in Japan, Nazism in Germany, and communist aggression in Korea was to establish a permanent military presence in vital geostrategic areas. But we got 'em anyway, and have kept them long after they no longer had any practical utility.
Similarly, I think everyone would have been quite content if Saddam's regime had collapsed as a result of the ceasefire terms and subsequent UN Resolutions as expected. The fact that it didn't, and that the various other methods tried post Desert Storm resulted in uncertainty about wmd's and terrorist connections, genocidal consequences for the Iraqi people with our fingerprints on them via sanctions, and the significant undermining of both US and UN credibility, we got to where we are today. If we felt the need to maintain bases in other places we fought to liberate, including places with no reserves of cheap petroleum, it seems logical to me to expect the same in this case.
If you build a skyscraper that turns out to be less profitable than you expected, you don't tear down the skyscraper. You try to find ways to maximize your returns without major additional expenditures.
"You try to find ways to maximize your returns without major additional expenditures."
300 billion dollars this year isn't a major additional expenditure? Not to mention the people killed and injured?
Robert Powell's right about the legitimacy of Iraq's government. As for long-term arrangement reportedly being sought by Iraqi officials, it makes perfect sense from their perspective and is similar to the arrangements Gulf neighbors such as Kuwait and Qatar have established with us. So much for the Iraqi Shiites wanting to become a satellite of Iran.
One other point: A long-term American presence in Iraq wouldn't be a guarantor of Maliki's government, per se, but of democratic government in Iraq. There is a greater chance that the Iraqi government will follow Iraq's own constitution and conduct regularly scheduled elections if we maintain a presence in Iraq.
Well, I guess the Sunnis are even more scewed then ever now. Wonder how they will respond?
Chaos is the plan.
"Well, I guess the Sunnis are even more scewed then ever now. Wonder how they will respond?"
The Sunnis would probably breathe a sigh of relief if the Iraqi government makes a long term arrangement with us. Just as our presence would be a protection against foreign domination for the Shiite-majority government, it would also be a protection for minorities such as the Sunnis against Iraq's majority Shiites. The Sunnis and Shiites in Iraq trust us more than they trust each other or their neighboring countries.
If the US is providing security, hasn't our strategy failed?
No, according to guys like Fred and Robert all the various strategies of the Bush administration in Iraq are successful and obviously in our strategic interest. It's just all us other dummies out there who don't recognize the continuing brilliance of this endeavor.
Not so, Pug. I'm on record from mid-2003 that the Administration was in the process of creating a disaster. We needed to depose Saddam Hussein, but we didn't need to try to turn Iraq into the 51st state by means of a FEMA-like collection of College Republicans and Big Army hacks. Bush errors of omission and commission have set back the cause of liberal internationalism a generation.
Actually, lambert strether may have the most insight here. Lots of Arabs I've talked to are convinced that the Real Plan was to reduce what was arguably the strongest Arab state into a collection of impotent warring factions that will never again be able to threaten Western interests, or Israel.
If you build a skyscraper that turns out to be less profitable than you expected, you don't tear down the skyscraper. You try to find ways to maximize your returns without major additional expenditures.
Robert Powell is once again confusing "you" with the people who actually built the skyscraper and will profit from it. Bully to whomever turns a profit in Iraq. It certainly doesn't look to be the average American.
And I'm sure a few dozen American deaths here and there won't be seen as "major expenditures" -- in spite of their being in Iraq to serve the interests of others, and not themselves. Just keep reminding them they're fighting to protect our freedom, Robert.
We needed to depose Saddam Hussein, but we didn't need to try to turn Iraq into the 51st state by means of a FEMA-like collection of College Republicans and Big Army hacks. Bush errors of omission and commission have set back the cause of liberal internationalism a generation.
But let me guess. At the time you failed to anticipate that the above is precisely what an American invasion was bound to accomplish, in spite of ample warnings inherent in the fact that our Chief of Strategery was George W. Bush. A man who, before he became President, had never in his life traveled to Europe.
Not that I think a more competent president could have managed the situation with anything approaching acceptability from the standpoint of American interests and necessary sacrifice. Whatever way it was carried out it stood to be a gigantic corporate boondoggle and money pit for the American taxpayer. Sorry, make that future generations of taxpayers: if Bush had had a proper reckoning with his electorate, instead of ramming through the irresponsible tax cuts, he'd be out of office and remaining in Iraq would be mercifully untenable.
I wrote:
And I'm sure a few dozen American deaths here and there won't be seen as "major expenditures" -- in spite of their being in Iraq to serve the interests of others, and not themselves.
and ought to have added, nor the Constitution they swore to defend.
As Bill says, I think Americans will get used pretty fast to killing off a few hundred more US soliders per year as the price of continuing cheap gas for our automobiles. Indeed, most people in most countries would cheerfully accept such a bargain. But let's not delude ourselves as to what we're talking about, hmm?
As for Fred's "So much for the Iraqi Shiites wanting to become satellites of Iran": slight correction. Al-Maliki and HIS officials certainly don't want to become satellites of Iran. A very large part of the Iraqi Shiite population -- led by SCIRI, which is the most popular political party in Iraq -- feels entirely different, and the same thing may well end up being true of al-Sadr and his followers despite their current nominal opposition to Iran. Which is why Spencer Ackerman refers to this new deal as being for the protection not of "the people of Iraq", but specifically of al-Maliki's (unpopular) government.
Is it seen in these circles as intrinsically wrong for the US to have influence in a vital geostrategic area in which we have sacrificed significant amounts of blood and treasure?
I'd like to point out that the above statement is intrinsically evil. You don't have the right to something because you have invested blood and treasure in it.
Well, I guess the Sunnis are even more scewed then ever now. Wonder how they will respond?
Eventually, there will be Al Qaeda-members from Iraq who attack the American mainland. To my knowledge, there hasn't been any so far. It's predictable.
More of Powell's revisionist history: "that the various other methods tried post Desert Storm resulted in uncertainty about wmd's and terrorist connections"
There were no fucking "uncertainties" about Iraq's WMDs, moron. There were none, the IAEA and UNSCOM were about to say so, and install a monitoring system to insure that there never would be any.
And there were no fucking "uncertainties" about Iraq's "terrorist connections". There weren't any such connections except Saddam's support for Palestinians - which is not terrorism.
In any event, there will BE NO "long-term presence" of US troops in Iraq. The various factions will see to that, no matter how much they'd like the benefits of having us around for various minor reasons. There are enough people in Iraq - over one million - who have lost relatives to the fucking US presence there - and they are going to be killing US soldiers for years to come. The Sunnis and the Shia may eventually treat the US as just another "gang" in the mix, but both of them are going to screw the US over every chance they get.
Nothing has basically changed here. The Sunnis are still the minority, the Shia the majority, the Sunnis aren't getting any of the oil or the power, and they won't stop until they get a fair deal from the Shia - who have no motivation to do so.
Also note that the said "legitimate" Iraqi government has almost no Sunni participation at the moment. And I can't remember if al-Sadr's group is in or out at the moment - he keeps changing his mind. And the Kurds - without whom the Shia have no parliamentary majority - don't give a shit about anything except getting the oil deals for Kirkuk oil - which I will point out the Iraqi oil executives were bitching about just last week.
In other words, there's nothing "legitimate" about this government at this point - and certainly nothing functional about it as far as the rest of the population of Iraq is concerned.
I'm also interested in seeing how Bush is going to work up an attack on Iran without the major Shia militias in Iraq coming down on Iran's side.
All this talk is about supporting Maliki - a guy who has no support anywhere in Iraq. He's the "new" figurehead for the US - just as Abbas is in Palestine - because nobody can figure out how to get a figurehead in that actually is functional.
It's irrelevant. The reality will play out on the ground outside of the Green Zone, just as it has all along.
Mr. Larsson--it's silly to equate influence in a vital region with ownership. We don't have a right to Iraq because we've invested blood and treasure, but we certainly have a right, and in my view a responsibility, to influence just as we did in Europe and Asia after the wars there.
Throwing around labels like "evil" here is rich coming from a corner that was happy to sit back and make money off the Third Reich, watch Bosnia raped and murdered every night on tv, and currently writes in defense of Saddam Hussein. That's about the best one can expect if you're getting your "facts" from wild-eyed, saliva-flecked rants by zealots with absolute "fucking ...certainties" about things that are unsupported by any evidence.
Mr. Larsson--it's silly to equate influence in a vital region with ownership.
No it isn't.
We don't have a right to Iraq because we've invested blood and treasure, but we certainly have a right, and in my view a responsibility, to influence just as we did in Europe and Asia after the wars there.
No you don't. It was Europe and Asians who started those wars.
Throwing around labels like "evil" here is rich coming from a corner that was happy to sit back and make money off the Third Reich, watch Bosnia raped and murdered every night on tv, and currently writes in defense of Saddam Hussein.
President Bush's grandfather, Prescott Bush, made money from the Reich and got convicted of it. As for raped and murdered, that has happened to about a million Iraqis and you care not at all.
Mr. Larsson--
On influence vs ownership, check your favorite dictionary.
Iraq's Saddam Hussein started the war--the historical record is utterly plain to those who are able to address objective facts. Anyway, what's the point? We had influence after WWII because we defeated Germany and Japan, and invested billions in their reconstruction. Most Europeans and Asians are pretty pleased with the results.
I don't know how much of yourself you've invested in Iraq, or how many times you've been to the region, but I feel safe in saying that I care at least as much as you do. Our invasion killed far less than a million, in fact about 10% of the number of Iraqis who died because of the UN sanctions I assume you preferred, and that 10% included a lot of legitimate enemies while the victims of sanctions were virtually all innocents. Even the appalling number of sanctions victims represents about a third of the number of people killed by Saddam's repression, genocide, and wars of aggression.
I'm not prepared to accept sanctimonious lectures on morality from people whose response to genocidal totalitarians is to defend them.
"Eventually, there will be Al Qaeda-members from Iraq who attack the American mainland."
Doubtful. Al Qaeda isn't too popular in Iraq these days, particularly since Iraqis have seen how much Muslim blood the group has spilled. Also, there hasn't been much of a history of citizens from countries liberated by U.S. forces from totalitarian leaders launching terrorist attacks on America.
I'm not prepared to accept sanctimonious lectures on morality from people whose response to genocidal totalitarians is to defend them.
And who has defended genocidal totalitarians? I certainly haven't. Who are you talking to?
Doubtful. Al Qaeda isn't too popular in Iraq these days, particularly since Iraqis have seen how much Muslim blood the group has spilled. Also, there hasn't been much of a history of citizens from countries liberated by U.S. forces from totalitarian leaders launching terrorist attacks on America.
Alliances change. For example, the French helped with the First Gulf war. They helped with the Afghanistan invasion. Then they didn't help with Iraq. Then you, and other conservatives in America declared that France had always been against America. You changed not only your opinion of the present, but of the past. If you can turn around on a dime like that, then the Iraqis can.
Also, there hasn't been much of a history of citizens from countries liberated by U.S. forces from totalitarian leaders launching terrorist attacks on America.
Fred, as you well know, Al Qaeda in Iraq is significantly comprised of people not from Iraq, who moved in with the hope of exploiting the instability there. If Iraq is eventually divided into Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish sectors, then presumably AQI will survive among the Sunnis or nowhere at all. Such is the prospect of "Iraqis" having a base of operations, in Iraq, from which to attack America or Americans.
But you're probably right that it isn't a significant concern for the "homeland": not because countries we "liberate" (pretending that applies to Iraq) don't attack us, but because for the foreseeable future, anti-American terrorists have been provided with plenty of targets in the region on which to concentrate. The "fight them over there so that we don't have to fight them here" rubric gets it only half right. It's more accurately "fight them there so that we have to fight them there." Whatever concerns we have on the domestic front have never had anything to do with Iraq, or Al Qaeda in Iraq. That may change at some point, but as you say it's unlikely to.
If you can turn around on a dime like that, then the Iraqis can.
There are multiple ironies here. The most poignant is having made sworn enemies of people we pretended to help. This was of course a product of being more concerned, in the reconstruction of Iraq, with our own sense of virtue, and perhaps mind for profit, than with the well-being of the Iraqis.
I believe the American forces are an obstacle to ultimate Iraqi stability and self-governance. Those unwilling to test out this hypothesis will insist on prolonging, even facilitating, the instability, in the name of stability. In an effort to leave an Iraq that see itself as our enemy, they'll increase the odds of achieving the opposite. In an effort to protect long term American interests, both economic and global strategic, they will insist on unraveling the economy and undermining our global advantages.
This is the price of having fucked up the occupation. If you break it you own it, but what if you can't afford to pay for it? It gets auctioned off to the highest bidders...and those aren't the sort of people you can expect to care about your well-being.
Anyway Fred, I think comparisons to Japan and Germany or moot, because of the obviously differing circumstances of those liberations. I'm sure the average Iraqi is capable of making these distinctions as well.
"Then you, and other conservatives in America declared that France had always been against America."
I did? France has been our ally since Lafayette; the alliance was strong enough to survive the Chirac's policy of providing aid and comfort to some anti-American dictators out of spite. Even during Chirac's administration France worked with us on issues like counter-terrorism and proliferation.
"But you're probably right that it isn't a significant concern for the "homeland": not because countries we "liberate" (pretending that applies to Iraq)"
"Pretending"? Why wouldn't it apply? We deposed a Stalinist dictator who was had tortured and murdered hundreds of thousands of his own people, and gave the Iraqis a chance to chose their own leaders under UN auspices.
"Pretending"? Why wouldn't it apply? We deposed a Stalinist dictator who was had tortured and murdered hundreds of thousands of his own people, and gave the Iraqis a chance to chose their own leaders under UN auspices.
Right! And now they're liberated! Free at last, free at last!
You're only as liberated as you feel, Fred. Dictatorship is one form of tyranny; lawlessness is another. Apparently, you need these things explained to you, which forces me to sound patronizing.
Mr. Larsson--if your posts don't constitute support for the continuation of Saddam Hussein in power, words don't mean what they say. Play word games with someone else. Good luck in the future.
Mr. Powell--if your posts don't constitute support for the continuation of anarchy that has resulted in the maiming and deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, words don't mean what they say.
But what do you care? You don't have to live in the continuing horror that your dishonest, immoral and illegal war has caused. It's easy enough to just stop reading the newspaper when things get grim. Even americans stopped believing your sanctimonious bullshit two years ago.
I'm not prepared for lectures from people whose response to genocidal totalitarians is to invade and torture and kill even more civilians.
Comments closed December 10, 2007.
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Heads in the Sand
In his November 2005 National Strategy for Victory in Iraq, President Bush defined victory as "An Iraq that is peaceful, united, stable, democratic, and secure, where Iraqis have the institutions and resources they need to govern themselves justly and provide security for their country." If the US is providing security, hasn't our strategy failed?
Posted by croatoan | November 26, 2007 11:19 AM