By necessity this letter will – ¡hallelujah! – be very
brief. Ahora, I am in the process of
packing my carpet-bag – this time for Tijuana.
Nice climate, great economy, wonderful opportunity and friends in LOW
places; life is good. But certain
articles and sound-blights about Iraq showing up in cyber-space have truly
stuck in my craw. So these ‘blurt-outs’
have their reasonings behind them – trust me (…suckahhhh).
First, I supported
the invasion in Iraq and I was wrong.
At the time, I argued persuasively that Iraq was a just war for many
reasons. The justice of violence,
however, lies in its consequences, making bloodshed rarely open to justice. The aftermath over
eleven years has eroded the justification of the war, notwithstanding the
true heroism of 75% of the field troops, 50% of the officers’ corps and 25%
of the civilians who cared. To be sure,
President Bush deserves credit for realizing this fact of strife and
undertaking an unpopular and counter-intuitive surge to preserve Iraq for the
Iraqis.
Second, the current
chaos in Iraq is of Prime Minister al-Maliki’s making by a tyranny grab
after the U.S. departed and in the election of 2010. The difference between a secular and
religious tyranny is that the former has the dubious virtue of keeping most of
its depredations in-house.
Third, President
Obama is pursuing the right course, here. If the U.S. (read: neo-conservatives
looking for a vindication of a grossly failed policy they initiated) were to
bail out P.M. al-Maliki now, President Obama would simply be kicking this crisis
down the road for the next President. Such temporizing does not serve us well.
Yes, I argue that President Obama‘s inaction in Syria and Ukraine are disappointing
and I have bored people with my reasons why. Suffice it to say, that Iraq,
Syria and Ukraine are fundamentally different.
Syria is a regional proxy war with a terrain that makes ‘muscular’
humanitarianism an option. Ukraine
involves external aggression by the Putinista. Iraq is a civil war; more of a
crime wave. The government has to set
itself right for its own subjects to defend it.
Fourth, Iran’s help –
and ours to Iran – is appropriate. This development may be the only welcome
aspect of this sadness in my belovèd Iraq.
Fact is: the American and Iranian
peoples share more in common than with any other people in that region, save
Israel and, perhaps, Turkey. The status Iran holds of the largest state-sponsor
of terrorism resembles a glass half full of cherry juice. Some say this and
some say that; too many drink the U.S. government’s kool-aid. In the meantime: first things first – stop these blood-drunk I.S.I.S. bastards from slaughtering innocents in Iraq.
Fourth, making Iran a straw bogeyman makes little sense to me. Iran does sponsor Hizbolah, winning it the exulted status of being a terrorist state, conferred by Foggy Bottom. While my support for Israel remains strong, if not unconditional, Hizbolah can rightly be seen as a resistance force (whether I agree with it or like it is of no relevance) and vehicle of social services for a largely disenfranchised people stuck in refugee camps (http://nedmcdletters.blogspot.com/2010/06/letter-9-to-friends-and-family.html). Outside of some border skirmishes (swift-boating the Brits in 2009; nobody killed), Iran has not started a major war. Our proxy, Saddam Hussein, murdered many more people than Hizbolah ever has. It is time to readmit Iran to the community of nations and foster good relations. We all hate the humiliation of 1979; but Iran did not murder those fifty-two hostages. How long would they have lasted alive in Riyadh, Kandahar or Karachi? In fact the most stabilizing powers – with arguably two great civilizations – in the Middle East may well be Israel and Iran. With a re-democratized Iraq, the “I”s would have it.
Fifth, the specter of
a nuclear Iran is just that: illusory.
Yes, of course, Iran is striving to manufacture nuclear weapons. Why
wouldn’t Iran do that? Israel has
them. The U.S. has used them. But that
is not the motivator, here. Look it: Iran is flanked by a country that killed
half a million of her young people and two radical Sunni states spawning the
virulent violence, primarily against shi´ites, we see today: Saudi Arabia with the wahabis and Pakistan with
the pashtuns / taliban. The only thing worse than decadent infidels to these
very few but very lethal extremists are ‘apostates’ (read: shi’ites). We have
seen with horror the massacre of Iraqi soldiers who surrendered. So you tell me: ¿Just who is the bigger
worry for Iran? A nuclear Israel and
the United States or Saudi Arabia and a nuclear Pakistan?
by Ned McDonnell III | July 9, 2014 - 1:09pm edit reply
ReplyDeleteInteresting article. One element I did not see, or that I may well have missed, is the challenge of getting buy-in from insular top-down cultures, with diverging agendas, for a bottom-up convergence strategy. For example, in Iraq, the idea of integrating the Sons of Iraq into the security forces, after the expulsion of A.Q.I., went nowhere fast. P.M. al-Maliki as we now know (but many suspected then) was loath toward empowering or legitimating Sunnis with guns. The U.S. command accepted the G.o.I. rationale that some of the S.o.I.s were terrorists; who they were, one could not discern from the perch of a top-down culture, where policy and command decisions took place. Basically, people in the upper echelons of Iraq's government had a different, sectarian agenda while there counterparts in M.N.S.T.C.I. "could not tell" who was good and who was bad.
http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/counterinsurgency-and-community-policing-more-alike-than-meets-the-eye
There were those at the time who were confounded by what they viewed as a false dilemma. The Generals may not know whom to select, but they did not have to. Instead, local selection committees (appointed by area sheiks) could pick out those S.o.I.s qualified for the badge and those 'baddies' (from the view of the locals to be protected and served) switched into support and sustainment functions. In this manner, the counter-insurgency function could have integrated into the community policing almost seamlessly. Those colleagues brave enough to speak out at the time were soon slapped back into place by a leadership (advised by mid-level bureaucrats or officers who never left Camp Union or the M.N.S.T.C.I. HQ) unwilling to change the plan to fit 'crime'. Those lone eagles with quickly clipped wings made a convert out of me.
When a man, whose mind makes mine look microscopic, says many of the same things I do, then it may make sense to collocate the two essays. In this case, this essay is the platonist ideal from which mine is pale replica.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/07/16/here-s-what-the-u-s-has-to-do-to-deal-with-the-mad-middle-east.html