MODERN TIMES
Art Hobson
ahobson@uark.edu
NWA Times 11 Nov 2006
Iraq: ItÕs Past Time to Leave
IÕm
re-publishing here my column of May 15, 2004. Unfortunately, it bears repeating. I only hope that I wonÕt have to publish it again after
another two-and-a-half years of disaster.
"The
administration has dug a hole in Iraq.
It is time to stop digging deeper.
The war was a tragic, avoidable mistake." I must, reluctantly and sadly, agree with these words from
conservative foreign policy analyst Christopher Layne, writing last week in The
American Conservative.
It
was clear from the beginning that the war was a mistake. First, our plate was already full. Getting into a second war, in Iraq, has
detracted from our necessary mission to help build democracy in
Afghanistan. Second, there was
never any reason to believe that Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction
were an imminent threat to us, and it soon became obvious that they existed
only in the minds of administration idealogues. Third, there was never any reason to believe that Saddam was
allied with al-Qaida, and in fact our invasion has only encouraged outside
terrorists to take advantage of the quagmire we've created. Fourth, it's hard to believe that
America is interested in a truly democratic Iraq, because it would be
virulently anti-Israel, probably anti-American, and could easily evolve into a
Muslim theocracy. Certainly Saddam
was a murderous thug whom we are better off without, but the world has many
murderous thugs and there are limits to what we can do, especially when we
choose to act without major allied cooperation.
Nevertheless,
once we invaded, I along with all Americans hoped for a quick military victory
followed by massive and successful nation building. Tragically, we have by now made so many mistakes that it is
unlikely any such effort can succeed.
As the staunchly pro-military Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) said last week,
"the war in Iraq is unwinnable if the U.S. military does not dramatically
increase troop levels, provide more ground support and seek significant
international involvement."
But Murtha's conditions for success are unlikely to be fulfilled.
Our
mistakes have included predictions of throngs of Iraqis welcoming the U.S.
occupation, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld's belief that Iraq could be stabilized
without the long-term commitment of several hundred thousand troops, and
predictions that our troops would be seen as a liberating force rather than a
hostile army. The military
stand-offs in Fallujah and Najaf, a full year after President Bush's
"mission accomplished" speech, further confirmed our lack of realism
about the difficulties of transplanting democracy into a nation with such a
jaded history. Even before the
revelations of human rights abuses at Abu Ghraib prison, Gallup polls showed
that Iraqis believed the military occupation was doing more harm than good,
with a clear majority favoring immediate military withdrawal. Does anybody out there believe that further
occupation will bring them around to our side?
And
now comes the prison scandal.
Typically, the administration chose to ignore repeated warnings about
the abuses, beginning a full year ago.
Months before the scandal broke, the International Red Cross told top
administration officials about the problems at Abu Ghraib and similar problems
at many other prisons. But the
administration was avoiding news it didn't want to hear. We continue to avoid the fact that the
abuses were systemic, included many prisons, and reached from the top down through
many military and civilian levels.
Many
might disagree, and certainly I could be wrong, but I reluctantly conclude that
we must withdraw from Iraq, with the least possible further damage to our
troops and to Iraq. It's now too
late for nation-building. We've
made too many mistakes. We have
alienated the Iraqi people, and we are rapidly alienating the entire
world. Even senior White House
adviser Karl Rove suggests that the consequences of the Abu Ghraib photographs
are so enormous that it will take decades for the United States to
recover.
Some
will claim that if the U.S. withdraws, Iraq will dissolve into chaos. But that is already happening. Some will claim that Iraq will become a
terrorist haven. But we have
already caused this, and the longer we stay the worse it will become. It will be claimed that we must
"stay the course" in order to prove American resolve. But it's our good sense, not our
resolve, that is in question; digging ourselves further into a quagmire will
not help. Some will point to the
danger of an Iraqi civil war if we withdraw. But this will be a danger whenever we withdraw, and
long-term occupation can only make things worse.
Most
difficult of all is the effect of withdrawal on the valiant American troops who
have served in Iraq, especially on the 4100 wounded and the memory of the 763
dead. But "staying the
course" in order to somehow vindicate these men and women, when the policy
is failing, only compounds our losses when we should be cutting them.
Where
did we go astray? The Bush
Administration seems to be a perfect embodiment of an American tendency to base
policy decisions on ideology rather than on evidence and reason. I've tried to document in past
articles this administration's innumerable distortions of science. In Iraq, we are seeing the ultimate
fruits of such decision-making.
The administration believed, because it dearly wanted to believe, that
Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction, that Iraqis would flock to our
side, etc.
If this column has had any single theme, it is that in matters of public policy we need to follow our heads, not our feelings. We must look at all the evidence, not just that which supports our own prior beliefs. We are all paying for the administration's ideological blinders.