Lebanon With Oil

Don't miss Blake Hounshell on why the surge is beside the point because Iraq is just an extremely poor candidate country for the kind of maximalist goals that Bush and McCain cite in defense of the endeavor:

We must not forget that even a perfect surge would still have left the United States chasing an expected strategic payoff—a stable, democratic Iraq—that is extremely unlikely to be realized for decades, if at all. It’s one thing to ask American soldiers to lay their lives on the line for freedom and democracy, or to safeguard their country from weapons of mass destruction. But who wants to be the last man to die for Nuri al-Maliki?

I certainly don't. And while the unfortunate reality is that more Americans certainly will die in this dubious cause I'd like to see that number brought as low as possible through a speedy withdrawal of our forces.

Comments

"I certainly don't"

No surprise there; the question is: would you be willing to die for anything? Somehow I can't see Matthew Yglesias picking up a rifle and putting his life at risk for anything.

Posted by Juan | April 14, 2008 9:17 AM

So the revelation that Matthew Yglesias wouldn't be willing to die for "Nuri al-Maliki" isn't much of a revelation. I doubt you'd be willing to die for "Hamid Karzai" either.

Posted by Juan | April 14, 2008 9:21 AM

Lord knows, Matt, you're on the front lines, and could catch a bullet any day now!

I am adding your name to the list of pundits who, in the event of a draft, should be put into the infantry as privates.

You'll be between Max Boot and Benjamin "I am defending the American Empire by going to Harvard Law School" Shapiro.

Posted by Nemo Ignotus | April 14, 2008 9:27 AM

Finally!

We know the surge is working when liberal pundits start arguing that it doesn't matter whether it works or not. The good news? Congratulations, President McCain...

sk

Posted by Sk | April 14, 2008 9:33 AM

"So the revelation that Matthew Yglesias wouldn't be willing to die for "Nuri al-Maliki" isn't much of a revelation. I doubt you'd be willing to die for "Hamid Karzai" either."

He's got you there, Matt. In fact, if I pointed out that you wouldn't be the last man to die for al-maliki, but rather the first to die for John McCain, I bet that wouldn't change your mind either. On the other hand, take Juan--McCain is somebody he'd die for.

Posted by Client #11 | April 14, 2008 9:38 AM

We know the surge is working when liberal pundits start arguing that it doesn't matter whether it works or not.

By that criterion, it started working back in 2003.

In fact, The Surge doesn't matter, because the whole war was started for fraudulent reasons and has been continued under a series of rationales, each espoused when the previous one proved to be a crock.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | April 14, 2008 9:42 AM

"So the revelation that Matthew Yglesias wouldn't be willing to die for "Nuri al-Maliki" isn't much of a revelation. I doubt you'd be willing to die for "Hamid Karzai" either."

He's got you there, Matt. In fact, if I pointed out that you wouldn't be the last man to die for al-Maliki, but rather the first to die for John McCain, I bet that wouldn't change your mind either. On the other hand, take Juan--McCain is somebody he'd definately die for.

Posted by Client #11 | April 14, 2008 9:43 AM

Sorry about the double post, but I recieved an error message and it took me far too long to work in that "Juan--McCain" pun for me to accept it as being lost in the either forever.

Posted by Client #11 | April 14, 2008 9:51 AM

These aren't maximalist goals. They're lies.

Because they leave the "with American military bases" part out. There is no way that a stable, democratic Iraq will permit a military presence for Israel's closest ally, and Iran's staunchest opponent.

Posted by Jay Ackroyd | April 14, 2008 10:17 AM

Thank you Jay for pointing this out- Matt, how can you not mention the fact that PERMANENT MILITARY BASES are a huge part of the neo-con Middle East strategy? In the final analysis, a democratic Iraq is the lowest priority for Bush & Co., with military bases and its attendant expanded leverage over the oil supply in the region ranking far higher.

Posted by Dan B | April 14, 2008 10:30 AM

Client #11,
So when McCain takes office (thanks Hillary!), Juan will set off for Iraq?

Posted by aleks | April 14, 2008 10:43 AM

Hounsell and Matt aren't very effective here, because the obvious retort by war supporters is just to say, "OK, so don't go for the maximalist goals. Go for more modest goals. And the surge is relevant to those goals."

Lately, I find Matt's posts on Iraq have a kitchen sink quality to them. Every day, its some new angle or argument passed on with Matt's endorsement from some other blogger. They're all over the place. Aside from in-principle generalities about institutions, international cooperation and such, which are retroactively applicable to the debate we were having back in 2002 and 2003, I really don't understand in any detail what Matt sees as the most pressing foreign policy goals for the US in 2008, or how the various possible policies we could pursue with respect to Iraq are, or are not conducive to the achievement of those goals. We need a more thorough and measured assessment of means and ends.

In a way, Matt seems to be doing much the same thing as O'Hanlon. O'Hanlon was an early war supporter, though a bit of a lame one. But following the invasion, he threw his lot in clearly with those supporting the war, and his career and reputation are now staked on Iraq. Thus he is desperate to pull a late rabbit of victory from the hat of failure. Consequently, he comes up with some new op-ed and new angle almost every day, with some new desperate gambit for saving the day, and his reputation.

Matt was an early war supporter, but then changed his view to opposition. That's great. But now Matt is very invested in the anti-war position, and it seems like we get a very loose assortment of anti-war arguments without a great deal of coherence, and without the necessary context of a detailed positive agenda for US Middle East policy.

Of course, I haven't read his book yet. I went out to buy it last night, but it isn't on the shelves yet in my local bookstores.

Posted by Dan Kervick | April 14, 2008 11:05 AM

Matt was an early war supporter, but then changed his view to opposition. That's great. But now Matt is very invested in the anti-war position, and it seems like we get a very loose assortment of anti-war arguments without a great deal of coherence, and without the necessary context of a detailed positive agenda for US Middle East policy.
***************

Whose "detailed positive agenda for US Middle East policy" should I be aware of?

Posted by aleks | April 14, 2008 11:19 AM

Matt was an early war supporter, but then changed his view to opposition. That's great. But now Matt is very invested in the anti-war position, and it seems like we get a very loose assortment of anti-war arguments without a great deal of coherence, and without the necessary context of a detailed positive agenda for US Middle East policy.
***************

Whose "detailed positive agenda for US Middle East policy" should I be aware of?

Posted by aleks | April 14, 2008 11:21 AM

Whose "detailed positive agenda for US Middle East policy" should I be aware of?

Whatever one Matt has. That's what I'm asking for. One evaluates policy proposals on the basis of their likely consequences relative to some desired goal.

Posted by Dan Kervick | April 14, 2008 11:33 AM

Juan's question is actually an interesting one. For what would Mr. Yglesias be willing to die?

It's all right if someone doesn't want to die for the United States, or capitalism, or liberal democracy, but surely everyone should have _something_ for which they are willing to die.

Posted by Hector | April 14, 2008 12:21 PM

An excellent point, Mr. Kervick. I get the sense that Matt's fundamental position is, "we don't know if leaving Iraq quickly and completely will make things better or worse, but it's cheaper in the short run so let's try it and see what happens!"

What this omits is the question Joe Biden has insisted on asking for many months--"Then what?"

It's not like Iraq is some forested jungle at the end of the world with no natural resources and a population largely living an iron-age existence like Vietnam; or a ruined colonial backwater with a starving population at the ass-end of China and Russia, like Korea.

For sure no one wants to be the last to die for Nouri al Maliki, including Nouri al Maliki. But then he's not any more the reason we're in Iraq than "Bush lies". No one wanted to be the last to die for Syngman Rhee either, but on balance I think it's a good think that South Korea exists.

Posted by Robert Powell | April 14, 2008 12:27 PM

Unfair title, really. Lebanon is a long way from being the mess Iraq is right now.

Posted by Tom Scudder | April 14, 2008 12:39 PM

"Matt, how can you not mention the fact that PERMANENT MILITARY BASES are a huge part of the neo-con Middle East strategy?"

Two problems with this lame talking point:

1) Most of the neocons have already been shown the door, so they aren't driving American policy anymore.

2) We already have PERMANENT MILITARY BASES in Kuwait and Qatar. What can't we do from those bases that would require us to have bases in a stable, democratic Iraq?

Posted by Fred | April 14, 2008 12:52 PM

No one wanted to be the last to die for Syngman Rhee either, but on balance I think it's a good think that South Korea exists.

The analogy with South Korea fails somewhat when you consider that during the former war, we were defending South Korea from invasion while in Iraq we ourselves are the aggressive and unwarranted foreign invader.

Posted by Stefan | April 14, 2008 12:57 PM

I would not be so quick to question Matt's willingness to die for his country if the US was 1) really in danger, 2) really in need of a millitary response to the danger, and 3) so desparate for youngish bodies that a yuppie journalist could make a significant contribution to the effort. But beyond that, I think Ayn Rand (crazy though she may have been) got one thing right: it is not whether you are willing to die for your values, but whether you are willing to live them. If your values have you seeking out opportunities to die, then they are obviously incompatable with living (let alone right living) and should therefore be changed.

Posted by DP | April 14, 2008 1:01 PM

I get the sense that Matt's fundamental position is, "we don't know if leaving Iraq quickly and completely will make things better or worse, but it's cheaper in the short run so let's try it and see what happens!"

Oddly, I get the sense that your fundamental position is, "we don't know if staying in Iraq will make things better or worse, especially considering past evidence that the longer we've stayed so far the worse things have gotten, and knowing also that it's imposing an increasingly costly economic, diplomatic and military burden on us, but let's try it and see what happens!"

Posted by Stefan | April 14, 2008 1:01 PM

Matt will be willing to die fighting the persons who try to kill him.

Posted by gregor | April 14, 2008 1:11 PM

Hounsell and Matt aren't very effective here, because the obvious retort by war supporters is just to say, "OK, so don't go for the maximalist goals. Go for more modest goals. And the surge is relevant to those goals."

Only we can't tell you what those "more modest" goals are, because any time we DO lay out real goals or benchmarks we fail to achieve them, which gives people the CRAZY notion that this is a stupid and pointless war. But trust us, Petraeus will know success when he sees it. Please keep sending money.

Posted by Jake H. | April 14, 2008 1:21 PM

Stefan--
Korea had been a part of various empires for about a hundred years before WWII, and before that had been unified since the Fifth Century. The purely notional boundary between North and South was an accident of the end of WWII which was supposed to be temporary. It was official US policy right through 1949 that Korea was of no strategic interest to the US and would probably devolve into the Soviet sphere of influence. No one cared much until Truman and Acheson decided on the spur of the moment to resist Kim Il Sung's attempt to re-unify the peninsula in 1950, throwing soft occupation troops from Japan equipped with cast-offs and leftovers in front of the Soviet-equipped communist forces in an effort that eventually cost the lives of two million people, including about 40,000 GI's, and achieved a tie.

We went to war in Iraq because of the invasion, rape, and annexation of UN member state and US ally Kuwait. We spent the next dozen years trying everything we could think of to get a reasonable resolution of the war, finally invading again when the consensus in the US and many allied governments was that this was the only way to do so. We're still trying, but I think at this point the analogy between Iraq and Korea about 1955 is a lot closer than most historical analogies, especially in terms of the desired end-state, but it's hard to imagine that the cost will be nearly as high, and the aggressor has already been defeated.

Posted by Robert Powell | April 14, 2008 1:33 PM

Fred posts:
"Matt, how can you not mention the fact that PERMANENT MILITARY BASES are a huge part of the neo-con Middle East strategy?"

Two problems with this lame talking point:
1) Most of the neocons have already been shown the door, so they aren't driving American policy anymore.
2) We already have PERMANENT MILITARY BASES in Kuwait and Qatar. What can't we do from those bases that would require us to have bases in a stable, democratic Iraq?

while i agree with your logic that there isn't a need for bases in iraq, bush hasn't assured congress that such bases have been ruled out.

As for the neocons, they are gravatating to the McCain camp. Something to think about before considering voting for him.

New York Times: Among those on the list of McCain's foreign policy advisers are several prominent neoconservatives, including Robert Kagan, an author who helped write much of the foreign policy speech that Mr. McCain delivered in Los Angeles on March 26, in which he described himself as “a realistic idealist.” Others include the security analyst Max Boot and a former United Nations ambassador, John R. Bolton.

Posted by dj spellchecka | April 14, 2008 1:38 PM

We went to war in Iraq because of the invasion, rape, and annexation of UN member state and US ally Kuwait.

Um, in 1991, and that war ended in 1991. We're talking about our unprovoked attack on and invasion of Iraq twelve years later in 2003. Focus.

but I think at this point the analogy between Iraq and Korea about 1955 is a lot closer than most historical analogies, especially in terms of the desired end-state, but it's hard to imagine that the cost will be nearly as high, and the aggressor has already been defeated.

Well, while the US has certainly lost this war if you project out to the long-run, at present I don't think it has yet been defeated.

Posted by Stefan | April 14, 2008 4:26 PM

Dan: "I went out to buy it last night, but it isn't on the shelves yet in my local bookstores."

That's 'cause I had them all rerouted to the Barnes and Noble in Pyongyang, North Korea.

Meanwhile, Powell continues to flog his ketamine-induced hallucinatory notion that the 1991 war and the 2003 war are in any way connected other than being prosecuted by Bushies.

The reality is that 1991 was almost ridiculous - first being caused by Bush's allowing Saddam to invade Kuwait after Saddam was told by April Glaspie that basically the US didn't care about Saddam's dispute with Kuwait - which was in many areas a legitimate complaint, e.g., that Kuwait used to be part of Iraq and worse, that Kuwait was "stealing" Saddam's oil by slant-drilling. Anybody with a brain wouldn't give a damn if Saddam took Kuwait.

So after Saddam invaded, the UN had to act and the US was allowed to do its thing, expecting to get big benefits by basically flooding Saudi Arabia with troops - which is what the goal of that operation really was. Bush flogged so-called "evidence" that Saddam was massing troops on the Kuwait/Saudi borders to invade Saudi Arabia. No satellite evidence of this was ever offered and independent analysis showed it didn't exist. So obviously the excuse was used to justify Bush stashing US troops in Saudi Arabia forever to control the Saudis and the oil more closely.

Saddam was just the excuse they needed for that one.

Bush Senior at least had the smarts not to try to take down Iraq completely, because he didn't need to to get what he wanted - control of the Saudi oil.

But then Al Qaeda made it clear that it didn't want US troops in Saudi Arabia or anywhere else in the Middle East which is partly what 9/11 was about. So the Bushies and the neocons decided: for oil, for Israel, and to enable a war on Iran, to move the troops from Saudi Arabia to Iraq.

And 9/11 gave them that excuse - which is why senior officials in the Bush Administration ignored the tons of warnings about Al Qaeda attacking the US with planes that they got from a dozen different intelligence agencies both domestic and foreign. And why even though most of the hijackers were Saudis, Bush made Iraq take the blame with his bullshit about Saddam's connections to Al Qaeda.

The 2003 war was for entirely different motivations. Clearly the neocons drove that one for oil, ME hegemony, and Israel, while Cheney drove it for war profits.

And the war on Iran is now being ginned up based on the lies about Iran's activities in Iraq.

So Powell's bullshit about the motivations here is just the usual pathetic shit he dishes up every day here. The reality is: it's about the oil, stupid.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | April 14, 2008 5:04 PM

"Client #11,
So when McCain takes office (thanks Hillary!), Juan will set off for Iraq?"

I should think so! After all, if dying for al-Maliki is commendable, then dying for McCain must be *divine*! And if he isn't going to sign his life over to the RNC by january, then he would be just as bad as what he said matt was...but that would make Juan a hypocrite, and we know he isn't one of those.

Posted by Client #11 | April 14, 2008 9:05 PM

While it's probably a waste of time attempting to discuss something with anyone ignorant and/or venal enough to use "unprovoked" in any reference to confronting Ba'athist Iraq, fwiw here goes:

If Stefan thinks "that war ended in 1991", perhaps he can point to the peace treaty or any other thing that formally ended it. Then he can explain this "end" to the tens of thousands of US troops deployed to the region 1991-2003 who were conducting practically continuous combat operations over, under, around and through Iraq (and getting combat pay); and to their families; and to the survivors of the perhaps million innocent Iraqis killed by the embargo (itself an act of war) that we were enforcing. Good luck.

What we got was a premature ceasefire which, along with many additional and related Chapter VII Resolutions was comprehensively violated by Iraq.

Ba'athist Iraq launched wars of aggression that probably killed over a million people, including tens of thousands with nerve gas; committed genocide domestically; was a charter member of the states sponsoring terrorism club; and with its behavior represented the greatest single threat to the post-war international security architecture since at least 1950, and probably ever as Kuwait's status as an independent nation was a lot less ambiguous than South Korea's in 1950. It would be nice to imagine that oil had nothing to do with it but, even though no nation since the fascist states of the '30's has acted so brazenly against commonly accepted norms of international behavior as Ba'athist Iraq, the fact that it was acting to dominate the region producing most of the oil (and, not incidentally most of the terrorism) certainly helps to explain why our initial action to oppose it was supported by virtually every member of the UN, and our attempt to finally bring the war to a reasonable conclusion in 2003 was supported by most of the world's most important democracies.

It's more fashionable to explain our going on two decades of conflict in Iraq in terms of political cartoons, gossip, rumor, innuendo and etc, but this isn't serious, or even particularly persuasive history unless one is either hopelessly ignorant, deranged by political bias, or both.

Posted by Robert Powell | April 15, 2008 3:30 AM

Powell, you're a fucking idiot.

Do everyone a favor and commit seppuku with a rusty 3.5" floppy disk cartridge.

"with its behavior represented the greatest single threat to the post-war international security architecture since at least 1950"

This is ketamine addiction or heavy DMT abuse in action, folks.

Only someone severely deranged, ignorant of the facts developed over the last five years, or politically biased - or all three, which appears to be Powell's condition - could believe that anything that has happened in Iraq since 2001 bears any relation to anything he has said here.

Even Colin Powell admitted - publicly - before 2001 that Iraq was contained, disarmed and irrelevant.

Not that it mattered since Iraq was basically irrelevant even in 1991. As I've said, no one with a brain would have given a shit about Kuwait had the US not used it as a cause celebre to get troops on Saudi soil. Oh, the UN would have made noises about it, and probably some sort of solution would have been worked out eventually to recover Kuwait while addressing Saddam's complaints about the slant drilling.

But it was the Bush administration's lies about Saddam preparing to invade Saudi Arabia (not to mention the bullshit about "baby incubators" and the like) that generated the war frenzy to take back Kuwait and attack Iraq.

The rest followed naturally. After the war, as I reference in another thread, the sanction violations of the Oil For Food Program were ignored by the UN and the US if they were done by "allies" of the US in the region. The sanctions themselves were done to weaken the Iraqi people and insure that Saddam would not be overthrown by his own people (not that it was all that likely).

When the Shia in the south rose up against Iraq, the US - and Iran, the Badr Brigade, and SCIRI - made sure it went no where, albeit for different reasons. The US was afraid an Iranian theocracy would take power - and thus deprive the US of control of the oil. The Iranians and Iranian-backed Shia parties were afraid of a confrontation with the US. So the Shia revolution collapsed.

Then the neocons came into power with Bush - and the stage was set to seize the Iraqi oil and wreck OPEC, in service to US and Israeli hegemony in the Middle East. The PNAC documents prayed for a "terrorist Peal Harbor" - the Israelis and senior officials in the US provided one on 9/11.

Iraq was to be seized, broken up, placed under neocon control and the oil fields developed and pumped to break OPEC - until the oil companies said no and managed to make it stick, more or less, according to Greg Palast.

In one sense, both the neocons and the oil companies "won" their little tiff. The oil companies didn't want more Iraqi oil pumped. With the neocon occupation in ruins, not much oil as they wanted is being pumped. But on the other hand, that same violence is the excuse to keep the US troops there in control of the oil. So both the neocons and the oil companies benefit from the disaster. And of course, the real beneficiaries have been the military-industrial complex companies, their investors, the oil companies who have profited from the oil price spikes caused by the war, and of course, Israel, who has gotten rid of one enemy and now pushed for the US to use its assets in Iraq to attack Iran, even as they negotiate with the Kurds for a pipeline from Kirkuk to Haifa.

Anybody who says all this is accidental or due to a desire to "protect US interests in the Middle East" is a fucking moron or a fucking liar.

Powell,take a bow.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | April 15, 2008 4:09 AM

Everyone already knows Hack is a raving buffoon, The last post's crazy mixture of some facts with a lot of gossip, sensationalism, and unprovable lunatic conspiracy theory is routine. Typically, he makes no attempt to directly refute a single fact I cite. Overall, though, I guess it's better that he's hogging the halfway house computer rather than going out molesting the neighborhood kids and sticking up banks.

I am somewhat curious about whether Saddam apologist "Stefan" is going to try coming up with any reality-based response to the facts I've laid out. Doesn't seem likely.

Posted by Robert Powell | April 15, 2008 5:32 AM