How We Remember Iraq
Over at the Diplomat a take a stab at thinking about how memory of the Iraq War will matter:
The tenth anniversary of the launch of the Iraq War has helped spark a debate over how the war will be interpreted by history. Was the invasion of Iraq the catastrophic outcome of intelligence errors made in context of an overly-enthusiastic push for war? Was it the result of the deft play of a group of ideologically committed policymakers and foreign policy thinkers (known colloquially as “neocons”)? Was it part and parcel of a long term U.S. policy of aggressive military response to minimal provocation? Or was the conflict, in fact, motivated by legitimate concerns of security and justice? Finally, irrespective of the reasons for going to war, did the United States “win?”
Disagreement over these questions will undoubtedly persist, even as ongoing events in Iraq and the Middle East provide more grist for debate. Majorities in the United States have long believed that the war was a mistake, but hawks continue to argue the contrary case. Deep skepticism about the wisdom of Iraq has surely characterized much of the U.S. policy response to Libya, Mali, and Syria; it seems that America will participate either as a background facilitator, or not at all. To some degree, the existence of a bitter debate is enough to scare policymakers away from further foreign entanglements.
See Michael Cohen for some additional thoughts. I’ll add briefly that I wish the view that the Iraq War was a mistake was held by more than 58% of the American population. I suspect that some of that is tribalism; people who won’t publicly say that the war was a bad idea, but who would be deeply reluctant to engage in another such adventure.
Mistake? Mistake! It wasn’t a mistake, it was an atrocity. It was a plain act of unjustified aggression, and in no way can anyone who supported it be accused of good faith.
It wasn’t a mistake, it was an atrocity.
This. A thousand times this.
Yeah, I was thinking the same thing: trying to substitute Romaine lettuce for kale is a “mistake.”
I would amend to add “fucking atrocity.”
Exactly and a clusterfuck of epic proportions on top of it.
The whole ‘shooting the border guards and rumbling the tanks on in’ always rubbed me the wrong way.
I wish I could agree with that last clause. I fear that many of those people privately think that the war was a mistake, but that they, and even many of the people who will admit Iraq was a mistake, will jump eagerly on the next bandwagon/juggernaut when it rolls by.
“but that they, and even many of the people who will admit Iraq was a mistake, will jump eagerly on the next bandwagon/juggernaut when it rolls by.”
It’ll depend greatly on circumstances, but Iraq is no more going to rule out foreign military adventures than Vietnam did. Hell, if Mittens had prevailed (or the economy had faltered a bit more and allowed him to prevail, whatever), Secretary of State John Bolton would be on TV right now screaming about the need to bomb Iran yesterday and send the SEALs after Assad.
It needs to be constantly remembered that the people who got us into Iraq didn’t really care about Iraq. They have a theory about using American military force to remake the world, and losing a war or two isn’t going to dissuade them from it. It’ll be a tougher sell when there isn’t a smoking hole in lower Manhattan, but they are far from powerless. A huge chunk of the country will back them out of tribal loyalty no matter what, and we all know how good they are at getting media shills to make their arguments for them to everyone else.
The other 42% are the ones who believe that Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda were partners on 9-11.
I think one of the most important take-aways on the ten-year anniversary is that we tend to only hold our politicians accountable and judge their flip-flops, but we refuse to assume any responsibility—and culpability—ourselves.
We’ll be looking to point fingers and blame others, but many felt just the way as the politicians did.
The voting record on the Patriot Act in the Senate is also something that we should never forget. That says it all.
Nope. Even if all the Bush administration’s claims had been true, the war was stupid. See also Iran. While it might be bad for Iran to have a nuke, the consequences of launching a war to stop it are a thousand times worse from any bad things they can manage to do with one, short of nuking cities.
Partly. But the difference between the neocons and more mainstream foreign policy opinion is not that big. Both groups believe in maintaining a military empire, the neocons just believing in using it stupider.
Less so, I think. The U.S. has really been better about not doing this shit since the end of the Cold War. Or since Vietnam, really. That’s part of the shame of Iraq, it’s pretty out of character for us, nowadays.
It’s certainly a nice thing that Saddam Hussein and various other members of his despotry received their just deserts, but I don’t think killing hundreds of thousands of innocent people to get there.
Iraq is back as part the world oil market, which is I guess a win from a purely utilitarian perspective, but at the cost I’d have to say it’s in no way a win.
The only way it’s a win is if it discredits the idea of aggressive, conventional military action as a solution to minor security problems like Saddam was.
If it resulted in war crimes trials of a former president of the U.S., that would be best possible results of all, even if it happens at Pinochet speed.
The shame of it is that the Iraq War cost the US a great deal in credibility and influence. Even if it is true the wars like this are “out of character” that’s not how it looks to pretty much everyone in the whole world.
What is the “base assumption” here?
If the Iraq adventure was some kind of exceptional event, due to a particuarly aggressive administration, what does Farley think is the “normal” state of affairs?
Under Obama’s first term there was the Lybia war, besides the legacy wars from Bush, plus some undeclared wars (I don’t know if all of them were inherited from Bush or some are new): is it the normal state?
Moreover, I think that the major mistake of Bush was not attacking Iraq and Afghanistan, but invading them and then staying: if the US simply destroyed the place, declared victory and left, they would have been counted among his successes.
I hate these analyses that treat the lessons and influence of the Iraq War in terms of moving a needle along a one-dimensional line: less or more? We should be talking, instead (or, at least, we should also be talking about) qualitative differences: this, not that.
Rob, did you mean to link to your column?
Yes. Just corrected this problem.
Cost of a gallon of gas when GW Bush took office: $1.35
Cost of a gallon of gas when GW Bush left office: $4.35
Mission Accomplished!
And the side benefit was a recession caused by the oil price spike. Rich richer, Poor poorer. Everything the sponsors paid top dollar for.