The American objective in Iraq has
failed.
National Revieww
It Didn't Work
William F. Buckley
February 24, 2006
"I can tell you the main reason behind all our woes — it is America."
The New York Times reporter is quoting the complaint of a clothing merchant in
a Sunni stronghold in Iraq. "Everything that is going on between Sunni and
Shiites, the troublemaker in the middle is America."
One can't doubt that the American objective in Iraq has failed. The same
edition of the paper quotes a fellow of the American Enterprise Institute. Mr.
Reuel Marc Gerecht backed the American intervention. He now speaks of the
bombing of the especially sacred Shiite mosque in Samara and what that has
precipitated in the way of revenge. He concludes that "The bombing has
completely demolished" what was being attempted — to bring Sunnis into
the defense and interior ministries.
Our mission has failed because Iraqi animosities have proved uncontainable
by an invading army of 130,000 Americans. The great human reserves that call
for civil life haven't proved strong enough. No doubt they are latently there,
but they have not been able to contend against the ice men who move about in
the shadows with bombs and grenades and pistols.
The Iraqis we hear about are first indignant, and then infuriated, that
Americans aren't on the scene to protect them and to punish the aggressors. And
so they join the clothing merchant who says that everything is the fault of the
Americans.
The Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, elucidates on the complaint
against Americans. It is not only that the invaders are American, it is that
they are "Zionists." It would not be surprising to learn from an anonymously
cited American soldier that he can understand why Saddam Hussein was needed to
keep the Sunnis and the Shiites from each others' throats.
A problem for American policymakers — for President Bush, ultimately
— is to cope with the postulates and decide how to proceed.
One of these postulates, from the beginning, was that the Iraqi people,
whatever their tribal differences, would suspend internal divisions in order to
get on with life in a political structure that guaranteed them religious
freedom.
The accompanying postulate was that the invading American army would succeed
in training Iraqi soldiers and policymkers to cope with insurgents bent on
violence.
This last did not happen. And the administration has, now, to cope with
failure. It can defend itself historically, standing by the inherent
reasonableness of the postulates. After all, they govern our policies in Latin
America, in Africa, and in much of Asia. The failure in Iraq does not force us
to generalize that violence and antidemocratic movements always prevail. It
does call on us to adjust to the question, What do we do when we see that the
postulates do not prevail — in the absence of interventionist measures
(we used these against Hirohito and Hitler) which we simply are not prepared to
take? It is healthier for the disillusioned American to concede that in one
theater in the Mideast, the postulates didn't work. The alternative would be to
abandon the postulates. To do that would be to register a kind of philosophical
despair. The killer insurgents are not entitled to blow up the shrine of
American idealism.
Mr. Bush has a very difficult internal problem here because to make the kind
of concession that is strategically appropriate requires a mitigation of
policies he has several times affirmed in high-flown pronouncements. His
challenge is to persuade himself that he can submit to a historical reality
without forswearing basic commitments in foreign policy.
He will certainly face the current development as military leaders are
expected to do: They are called upon to acknowledge a tactical setback, but to
insist on the survival of strategic policies.
Yes, but within their own counsels, different plans have to be made. And the
kernel here is the acknowledgment of defeat.
(c) 2006 Universal Press Syndicate
|