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Onward,
Alexander, Jeffrey, Becky and Deva
November
7, 2006
Sooner Rather Than Later
Cut
and Run from Iraq
By MICHAEL NEUMANN
The Bush administration and The Poodle
say we must not cut and run. This is actually an excellent
argument for staying in Iraq. Critics can be forgiven for having
missed its excellence, given it comes from the mouths of idiots.
It's not quite excellent enough, though.
One good thing about the argument
is it captures the only good reason the US ever had for invading
Iraq. Oil was a terrible reason, as events have shown. Profiteering
was a terrible reason too: real defense companies learned long
ago that you can make just as much money selling the government
expensive stuff that shuffles off into obsolescence without ever
being used. Much the same goes for other corporations. Halliburton
has lost money every year of the war. Bechtel, the giant construction
firm, has just cut and run itself. WMDs, no, not a great reason.
Fighting terror, no, not a great reason either.
The best reason for invading
Iraq was the simplest, and probably the real reason. The US
wanted someone, preferably 'Arabs', to fight. They couldn't
find them in Afghanistan, so it seemed a good idea to put on
a big show in Iraq. Why was that a good reason? Because
the US, having been attacked very successfully on its own territory,
had to scare off its enemies. It had to show it was strong,
that it could crush, well, if not its attackers, at least someone,
some country larger than Granada. Otherwise America's enemies
would know it was not strong, but weak, and move in for the kill.
Despite this, the cut and run
strategy is self-defeating, because it's already a confession
of weakness. It's pathetic to have no better reason for a war
than to prove one's ability to make war. Perhaps some very
modest, very reticent country might really have such a need,
but not a dumb-ass braggart country like America. If a country
like that has to prove it can fight, it's got a problem, because
it shouldn't have to prove anything. The 'number one country
in the world' should have things under control before that sort
of need ever arises. And if the need is so desperate that
so much blood should be shed, not for any material gain, nor
for any enduring strategic advantage, and despite the really
enormous expenditure of money and good will--if the only reason
to fight is such a desperate need to show one can fight, then
it's the desperation that really shows up, not the ability to
fight. And that's just the opposite of what is supposed to
happen.
Now everyone is saying, what
a mess. Maybe that's an understatement, because this is a major
military defeat. It doesn't matter that mistakes were made in
planning, or that there was no planning. It doesn't matter
that the equipment wasn't what it should have been or that the
tactics or strategy weren't what they should have been. Wars
have been won with worse beginnings. But they really were won.
Stalin made just about every
mistake in the book fighting, or not fighting Hitler, but Stalin
really did win. He didn't just destroy the German armies; he
held all of Eastern Europe and half of Germany in his iron grip.
Huge areas were entirely under his control, huge populations
were his slaves. That's a real, indisputable victory. Stalin
won according to the most widespread, most conventional military
notion of victory. He attained 'his objectives', a phrase ubiquitous
in military histories.
In Iraq, the US has been defeated
militarily, because it has not attained the most basic objectives
it could possibly be said to have had. These were not silly
high-school-civics objectives having to do with 'democracy' or
'hearts and minds'- could Stalin have stopped laughing if someone
had told him he hadn't won Eastern Europe's hearts and minds?
No, to attain any sort of military objective the US had to
control Iraq. That means, oh, for instance, controlling the
capital city, the major roads, really it means imposing authority
over the whole country, as the allies did in Germany and the
US in Japan. The US has not established military control over
Iraq's capital, much less the whole country. That was its objective.
The goal was not to eliminate the Iraqi army, never considered
a threat, but to get Iraq under control so that, according to
the administration, it would not threaten the US in the future--or,
according to me, so the US could show itself capable of getting
some country, somewhere, under control. The US failed to attain
its objective, and not because of sunspot activity or an asteroid
colliding with earth. It failed to obtain its objectives because
there were people with guns in their hands who prevented the
US from obtaining them.. I don't know whether these people
won, but it is quite clear that the US lost. It did not attain
those objectives and it won't.
So the US can't conquer a country
it has been at work crippling for years, a country just barely
big enough and sophisticated enough to make a credible opponent
when in good shape. Leaving now, that would indeed be a case
of cut and run. It's more than a military defeat, more than
a political disaster, it's a catastrophe of historic proportions.
So it's not surprising that Bush and Poodle are sure they
have to stay there.
If it's a catastrophe to cut
and run, why should we (or 'we') cut and run? How can a good
argument for 'staying the course' be not good enough? Because
we're *not* going to stay the course. Because we *are* going
to cut and run, and sooner is much better than later. Later
only makes the defeat even bigger.
Why am I so sure we're going
to cut and run? Here are three inter-related reasons.
1. Military people always
said the US needed a lot more troops, as many as 500,000. Few
people today would disagree. 500,000 troops means instituting
a draft. This doesn't seem a real political possibility, especially
since controlling Iraq promises no noticeable benefits. The
US can get the oil, if it likes, without controlling the whole
country. It can apply political pressure, economic pressure,
or even physically cut the flow of oil. Of course the latter
approach would have steep political costs, but not so steep as
the war itself. The idea that Americans would countenance a
draft for basically nothing is a non-starter, especially when
even a draft doesn't guarantee victory, and when no victory after
this débacle is going to impress the world very much.
2. It is often said that
the US has squandered the good will it gained world-wide after
9-11. It should also be noted that the US has squandered the
goodwilll it gained domestically after 9-11. Americans
are not united behind the war on terror because too many of them
don't believe in its efficacy. If the US could not gain victory
united, it certainly won't gain it divided. The war in Iraq
won't, barring preposterousy massive new efforts, suddenly become
efficacious as any kind of war on anything at all, so this disunity
is here for the duration.
3. Even if the US could control
Iraq, there would be no strategic advantage. US victory would
only send alarm bells ringing world-wide, even louder than they're
ringing right now. That the US should kill something like
half a million people in a country that had done absolutely nothing
to endanger Americans--that, as others have said, will send every
non-poodle country in the world rushing to upgrade its military
capacities, often through nuclear weapons. This will simply
make the US' relative strategic position incomparably worse than
if it does not win in Iraq.
In other words, "should
the US cut and run?" is the wrong question, and the argument
for not cutting and running has no force. Both presuppose that
the US has a choice in the matter, and it does not. The right
question is: when should the US cut and run? Since
sooner is a less bad defeat, sooner is better.
The song says:
Now this story has no moral,
this story has no end,
This story just goes to show that there ain't no good in man.
But maybe there is a small
lesson for the US government: we are Britain circa 1956.
It's over.
From now on, if the US wants
something done--like preventing one, two, many 9-11s--it will
have to make real alliances, the old way, not by recruiting cute
little doggies to run at its heels. It will have to reconcile
itself with the preponderance of world opinion on most issues,
including the old favorite Israel, and it will have to stop talking
nonsense about democracy. No one who counts is interested any
more.
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