Many who supported the invasion have taken this anniversary to argue that it all would have been worthwhile if things had been run better. They argue that if the coalition forces had been large enough to actually secure the country, to keep insurgents from raiding Saddam Hussein's ammunition depots, to give the people a sense of safety, the country might well be on the road to a hopeful future. We doubt it. The last three years have shown how little our national leaders understood Iraq, and have reminded us how badly attempts at liberation from the outside have gone in the past. Given where we are now, the question of whether a botched invasion created a lost opportunity might be moot, except for one thing. The man who did the botching, Donald Rumsfeld, is still the secretary of defense.
George Will looks to Iraq and sees little cause for hope:
Conditions in Iraq have worsened in the 94 days that have passed since Iraq's elections in December. And there still is no Iraqi government that can govern. By many measures conditions are worse than they were a year ago, when they were worse than they had been the year before. Three years ago the administration had a theory: Democratic institutions do not just spring from a hospitable culture, they can also create such a culture. That theory has been a casualty of the war that began three years ago today.
Back here in Texas, even the mostly conservative Dallas Morning News editorial board has lowered its' expectations for success in Iraq:
As the situation on the ground grows more volatile, the possibility of an outright military victory grows more remote. For the foreseeable future, American troops' most urgent challenge is to guarantee enough security to prevent full-scale civil war. And, notwithstanding last week's offensive against suspected al-Qaeda thugs near Samarra, the likelihood of sectarian fallout will complicate the task of rooting out terrorists.
Donald Rumsfeld takes to the op-ed pages of the Washington Post to give us the Bush administration's take on recent events, but even at this point he offers little but misplaced certainty and optimism mixed in with a healthy does of spin:
The terrorists are determined to stoke sectarian tension and are attempting to spark a civil war. But despite the many acts of violence and provocation, the vast majority of Iraqis have shown that they want their country to remain whole and free of ethnic conflict. We saw this last month after the attack on the Shiite shrine in Samarra, when leaders of Iraq's various political parties and religious groups condemned the violence and called for calm.
The attack on the shrine as an exmple of sectarian unity? You have to wonder if the man even knows how absurd that sounds to the average American.
And of course, there are the experiences of the soldiers themselves:
Iraq was bad, nearly all of them agreed. "Not knowing day to day what was going to happen." "Hard to figure out who the enemy was." "Never being able to relax." "The rules are that there are no rules."
But it was not bad in the ways they see covered in the media -- the majority also agreed on this. What they experienced was more complex than the war they saw on television and in print. It was dangerous and confused, yes, but most of the vets also recalled enemies routed, buildings built and children befriended, against long odds in a poor and demoralized country. "We feel like we're doing something, and then we look at the news and you feel like you're getting bashed." "It seems to me the media had a predetermined script." The vibe of the coverage is just "so, so, so
negative."
As I like to say it sometimes seems like we here at home are seeing the forest (or parts of it) where the soldiers see the trees. We here have good reason to worry about what's going on in Iraq, whereas some soldiers have a justifiable sense of purpose and accomplishment. Somewhere in between is the truth.
So what's the big picture? The lies told by this administration in the rush to war and the mistakes made during the occupation cannot be counted and should not be forgotten. The situation in Iraq has deteriorated in the last three years, whatever Bush, Rumsfeld or anyone else would like you to think. Whether or not civil war is pending (or is being fought already) seems to depend on who you ask and what their definition of "civil war" is. Anyone without a functional crystal ball is unable to say in the slightest what the future will bring, and both the left and the right seems to be split between those who want to leave as soon as we can, and those who want to stay for as long as possible.
We here at TWM cannot say for sure what the future will bring, and we too are split on what should be done now. The only reminder that I can give everyone is that despite our self-involved coverage of ourselves grappling with Iraq, the results of whatever we do over there will be felt directly by the Iraqi people, not us. Supporting a plan to withdraw means admitting that the Iraqis will be left to deal with the chaos that ensues. Supporting a plan to stay means admitting that our soldiers will continue to kill and be killed in Iraq with only a hope for success. It's true that it was a mistake to invade, but it's also irrelevant. Our only hope now is to choose our course of action wisely, pray for a bit of luck, and hope for the best.
2 comments:
If the opinion of the vast majority of Iraqis can be evidence for the lack of a civil war, then can I ask that the opinion of that vast majority asking America to leave be entered into evidence as well?
At the very least, redeploy most of those troops out of the country. This cannot be won militarily, the brass has said so. The troops say so. It's got to be settled by Iraqis. Some Americans should remain -- perhaps to bolster the Army units who have demonstrated a lack of sectarian violence that the special forces in the police and Interior Ministry do not share -- but most Americans have done all they can do.
It's true that Americans are surely and slowly turning against the war. Despite the fact that I do not believe that staying in Iraq should have much to do with having gone there in the first place, the general attitude of many Americans seems to be turning towards washing our hands of the whole mess. The problem with this being "settled by the Iraqis" is that in fact means Iraqis killing each other in untold numbers until the Sunnis are pacified or driven out of Iraq, or the Shiites give up doing so. I for one simply cannot agree that we've done all we can do over there yet. We have spent most of our time battling Sunni insurgents, and in our haste to defeat them have allowed Shiites who are interested in Shia dominance to come into control of vast portions of the government. As others have stated, we control a vital chip in the Iraqi conflict; if we leave, each side will have to face the other alone. As the Sunnis being to realize that we are their only hope for fending off the Shiites, there is some chance that our mere presence can bring peace to the country. But if those on both sides know they only need to bide their time knowing we're leaving in a year or two, even that is lost.
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