Sticking It Out
Conservatives historically have taken pride in their hard-headedness. It is supposed to be a manly persuasion with a long view, rooted in concepts like deferred gratification, the proper appreciation of applied violence, skepticism of fads and fashions, and a dour view of human nature. In lean economic times, conservatives counsel austerity and sound money, even if this means very painful effects of liquidation. In foreign policy, conservatives emphasize the anarchic nature of international relations and the need for a strong defense. Hard-headeness, however, always runs the risk of pig-headedness. There is also a time hard-headedly to cease doing something that has proven to be a mistake.
Conservatives should remember that just because many anti-American liberals oppose something, doesn’t make it right. The Iraq War is wrong for reasons pacifists and unpatriotic globalists don’t appreciate. As army veteran Andrew Bacevich observes, “The costs to the United States of sustaining this dependency are difficult to calculate with precision, but figures such as $3 billion per week and 30 to 40 American lives per month provide a good approximation. What can we expect to gain in return for this investment? The Bush administration was counting on the Iraq War to demonstrate the viability of its Freedom Agenda and to affirm the efficacy of the Bush Doctrine of preventive war. Measured in those terms, the war has long since failed.”
The absolute worst reason to stay in this war is for some emotional notion of national honor and commitment to the troops, impulses that undergird the very unstrategic thinking of John McCain and numerous buck sergeants. War opponents and war proponents are both stuck in the sane sentimental humanitarianism that justifies or criticizes war with Wilsonian rhetoric of liberation. Both forget that even in the most just wars, war is at best a necessary evil. We don’t go to war to do the conquered a favor. We don’t stay to avenge the deaths or our men like some armed camp of Zulus. A nation sends its military to war to accomplish foreign policy goals. This same nation can and should withdraw these troops when it’s in our interests to do so, when those goals are out of reach, no longer important, or too costly. It is not as if Iraq is sacred American soil with which our nation has any historical connection. This is a foreign land half way around the world in a very bad neighborhood, populated mostly by uncivilized people, whom we do not understand and who do not appreciate our attempts to impose American-style government upon them.
We will suffer (but not unbearably) if we spend $20 or $30 trillion and a few thousand American lives pursuing the goal of nation-building in Iraq over the next decade. But even if everything turns out for the best, this will accomplish a strategic benefit worth some fraction of that. And then what? We’ll still have al Qaeda to worry about. North Korea will still remain an unpredictable, nuclear power. Our borders will be too porous. Our ranks of third world immigrants will remain too numerous. The Middle East will still produce large numbers of pissed-off young men who receive moral support to vent their anger at the western world in the dictates of their religion. The deterrent value of staying or leaving Iraq is a wash. Iran knows we won’t easily commit to a similar campaign on its territory. Russia and China will still be ascendant in their spheres of influence. Oil will still be scarce and in the hands of unstable autocrats and their resentful subjects.
The modest strategic benefits promised in Iraq to the U.S. and the Iraqis are very unrealistic. Vast swaths of people all around the world will not appreciate Iraq as a model of good government. At best, it will end up as stable and prosperous as Pakistan or Indonesia. Instead of seeing idealistic U.S. sacrifices for democracy, most Arabs and Muslims will perceive a marginally successful U.S. bid for power. Most of the world’s peoples will continue to be more passionate about religion, nationalism, ideology, wealth, prosperity, and tribalism than democracy and the rule of law. Not only that, they’ll treat these tangible goods as far higher priorities than democracy.
A democratic Iraq will remain contested by sectarian parties, and, for this same reason, uncompromising religious fanatics will not accept deviation from the pure regime dictated by Islamic Sharia law. Democracy will be seen as a decadent insult. No traditions of loyal opposition and the peaceful transfer of power will develop in Iraq for these reasons. Worse, the U.S., instead of being seen merely as a self-interested or incompetent party in the Middle East, will be seen as the prime mover of politically-empowered heresy.
Instead of taking the wind out of the sails of Islamic fundamentalism, a “successful” Iraqi democracy will be an irritant to either the United States or Islam. To the United States, it will show that democracy is not the same as constitutionalism, and that the U.S. has brought to power a regime that has a democratic imprimatur for the worst abuses of its ethnic and religious minorities, including Iraqi Christians. If the laws somehow resemble our own, the Iraqi state will be unstable and contested, a heretical insult to Islam, which demands Sharia. It will prove--as Britain and Spain have proven to themselves--that Islam and western freedoms and the rule of law are incompatible. Either way, “success” in Iraq would lead to a mountain of lies and denial. If the facts were looked at fairly, liberalism itself would be discredited, and the associated principles of open borders and multiculturalism would be dragged down in the reckoning.
Populist conservatism has been enlisted to support “sticking it out” in Iraq as a testament that we are indefatigable and serious in the face of liberal weakness. But the ring-leaders of this fiasco have more self-interested reasons for stoking this sentiment: our elites themselves would be discredited in the process of any withdrawal from Iraq. For them, better a long-term U.S. presence in a simmering war than a palpable expose of their wrong-headedness in the disastrous, illiberal Iraqi state that would exist without U.S. supervision and control.
Comments
Roach for Congress.
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No, Roach for President.
Or perhaps Roach for Emperor.
No other writer understands the entire picture with such perfect clarity.
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Good analysis.
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Sherman said war is cruelty, you can’t refine it. Oil was $20 a barrel when Bush/Cheney started and now it’s heading to $140. The oil bosses are going for non-bid contracts to seize Iraqi oil. The Chinese have bought more oil for $1T while we have spent $4T in “conservative” deficit borrow and spend looting. The government is a near dictatorship with the support of a greedy conniving Congress, most of who are traitors to the Constitution and oath breakers. The Supreme Court is one Justice away from a complete police state. “Conservatives” in the Republican Party are moving towards Wilson’s complete collectivized state.
Liberals are too weak to come up with this sort of evil. That’s why these people took over the Republican Party. “Conservatives” are the champions of authoritarianism and hyper-religiosity that closes down freedom, creativity, and the openness needed for people and the economy to prosper.
The only problem is we are too weak to do things the proper way. The Romans created a desert and called it peace. The military still has pockets of people who are squeamish about killing women and children. Most people in the US could care less. The death of one is a tragedy, the death of millions a statistic. Bishop Arnaud Amoury killed 20000 men women and children at Bezier saying “Cædite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius”; kill them all, God will know his own.
“Conservatives” have cheered Bush and Cheney on 100% and now when things are turning to crap are blaming liberals of blaming “conservatives” of not being proper conservatives. Americans want that sweet light crude. Kill em all and get the oil is McCain’s road to the White House. It’s the conservative thing to do.
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A Bipartisan House Resolution is being fast tracked by Nasty Pelosi at the behest of AIPAC to order a blockade of Iran and the Straits of Hormuz. This is a declatation of war which will lead to $300 a barrel oil and deal a death blow to the US economy. Ohlmert and the Israeli government could care less about the US. The only good thing to come if it is the $5B we give them in “aid” and billions more promised will soon be worthless.
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I agree that this war is wrong and thats where my agreement ends.
As for the rest of the drivel it reminds me of some pundit bilge found in the Limbaugh sump of mythical manure.
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Roach! I actually agree with you, keep it up.
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Populist conservatism has been enlisted to support “sticking it out” in Iraq as a testament that we are indefatigable and serious in the face of liberal weakness -=Roach=-
You got tricked into nation building and imperialism by a bunch of imperialist crackpot chicken hawk sliderule elitist realists that think lying to you is noble and necessary.
Be a man sized target and just admit many people, of all political ideologies and nationalities were duped and be done with the unmanly whining and finger pointing.
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Jet, as always, your comments are very interesting. Tell me more.
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That which sticks out is most often cut off. Suddenly and painfully.
Remembering William Lind’s TAC article about Iran…
From imperial guard to harem guard in one stroke.
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Mr. Roach,
this article is so full of white man’s burden bullshit i hardly know where to begin.
You say ...
“This is a foreign land half way around the world in a very bad neighborhood [very bad neighbourhood?!?!? Tell me, just who has made it that way of late, if not us], populated mostly by uncivilized people [as opposed to us who are so civilized - i could go on at length about this point], whom we do not understand and who do not appreciate our attempts to impose American-style government upon them [you mean a “democracy” as in controlled by banking elites].
“We will suffer (but not unbearably) if we spend $20 or $30 trillion and a few thousand American lives [spoken like a typical armchair general, who will not lose anyone near and dear to himself and not even considering the vasatly greater number of Irqis killed] pursuing the goal of nation-building in Iraq over the next decade”
The Middle East will still produce large numbers of pissed-off young men [this is sickening because it just states as a matter of fact that arab men are pissed off, not BECAUSE of anything, but just as a matter of course, as if it they were untermenschen] who receive moral support to vent their anger at the western world in the dictates of their religion [nonsense! there are bad people who USE and twist religious tenets on both sides to manipulate others into fighting wars from which they - the elites - profit].
Instead of seeing idealistic U.S. sacrifices for democracy [ha! ha! ha!], most Arabs and Muslims will perceive a marginally successful U.S. bid for power [and rightly so!].
“...uncompromising religious fanatics” [more simplistic prejudice]
“It will prove--as Britain and Spain have proven to themselves--that Islam and western freedoms and the rule of law are incompatible.” [Western rule of law?!?!?!? oh please! This war/invasion is illegal even by our own western “forked tongue” standards].
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Patrick, what is your political persuasion? Discussion usually depends upon some shared values and premises, and you sound like someone decidedly from the far left who has little love for the Western World nor appreciation for its superiority to the Middle East. I’d rather not debate first principles in that case, because I think it would be a waste of everyone’s time.
P.S. What’s wrong with prejudice?
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Thanks for the excellent essay on why continuing the occupation of Iraq is futile. “Democracy” is only as good a form of government as the character of the people and the culture that forms it.
As much as the neo-cons like to point to the reduced violence in Iraq, the fact is that the US is losing this “war for democracy”. The goals of Bin Ladin were to: 1) overcome our military strength by dispersing our military resources around the globe, 2) bleed us economically, and 3) create political dissention among our people. They are succeeding brilliantly.
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Joe, I’m not sure I agree with you theory of bin Laden’s goals, but I’d be happy to see a source. I thought his key goal was to scare us out of the Middle East, as evidenced by his talk of US forces in the Arabian peninsula and the like.
He and his advisors make mistakes too. I believe 9/11 was a strategic failure for al Qaeda. They forgot there is a huge difference between a bombing at a barracks in an area that most Americans know we can avoid, such as the Cole and Kobar Towers bombings, and mass murder in our largest cities against totally innocent civilians that galvanized Americans for a long fight against them.
These are, of course, seperate issues from what we should be doing now in the national interest.
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I don’t know that you can say 9/11 was a strategic blunder. A “long fight” by American standards is far different than one by Islamic standards.
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Mr. Roach,
First things first - i apologize for the profanity.
My political persuasion? I’m against it! Politics, that is.
Left/right is too broad and limiting a classification because on some subjects - ie. abortion, homosexuality, religion - some would call me hopelessly conservative whereas with regard to others - ie. the perfidy of mealy mouthed politicians and elites, war and peace, disdain for corporatism - they’d say i’m a lefty.
Your rebuttal to my points, i must say, seemed to me, to consist merely of a blank stare.
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“Your rebuttal to my points, i must say, seemed to me, to consist merely of a blank stare.”
Patrick, get yourself a book on grammar and read it. And remember stay safe and only blog when sober.
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I like the occasional Guinness and a good Irish whiskey on cold, winter day. I play hockey and listen to music (not pop or heavy metal or (c)rap, which isn’t music in any case).
But I think the rampant social engineering going on - and taking hold - in the west make it crystal clear that “the West” is, in many, many respects - gay rights(ugh!), abortion, militarism, etc. - far, far, WORSE than the middle east.
So, no, i don’t take it as a fait accompli that “the west” is superior to any other region, just different.
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Sure, pablo, sure.
Have a nice day.
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Yet another totally misguided piece by Mr Roach. The misinformation that fills his brain, allied with his basic lack of knowledge on subjects like 911, the Middle East and Al Qaida, and combined with his narrow-minded approach, make his articles worthless.
The reason America should be pulling out of Iraq is not just because occupations are expensive, but more importantly because America had no justification for invading in the first place and because its continued presence will only prolong the agony for Iraq and continue to destabilise neighbouring countries.
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Seriously Mr. Roach, where are all these “pacifists” you keep referring to? I have been involved in paleocon and paleolibertarian circles, both in reality and virtually, and I have yet to meet any Quakers (modern Quakers are generally leftist social justice types) or Mennonites (who eschew political involvement and even voting) as far as I know. Perhaps there are a bunch of Tibetan Buddhist paleos I don’t know about.
The closet thing I have found to real pacifist are some Christian anarchist types. But I don’t take them too seriously because they clearly bring their libertarian biases to their unique interpretation of Scripture.
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People who think all wars are bad, obsess more about the human rights of Iraqis than the human rights of Americans killed in the World Trade Center, who see little need for physical courage and physical force, and who view the military generally in a negative light because they think its very existence is in imical to peace are, in my mind, pacifists. They are as pacifist as the Jane Fonda and Abbie Hoffman left or the idiotic Europeans who “outlawed war” in the 1920s.
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CR wrote, “People who think all wars are bad”. Yes, all wars are bad. Perhaps you meant to use the owjustified of warranted? “obsess more about the human rights of Iraqis than the human rights of Americans killed in the World Trade Center” Two separate issues, CR. What the murderers did on 9/11 is a sign of their humanity (or lack), while what our government does to SUSPECTS under its control, is a sign of ours. If our treatment of prisoners dooes not conform to Christian just war precepts, then it is wrong. “who see little need for physical courage and physical force” Sometimes restraint takes more courage immediate action. Patriotism comes in may forms - is Bush patriotic for having lied us into Iraq? who view the military generally in a negative light because they think its very existence is in imical to peace - The Framers were very suspicious of a standing army and its ability to lead a country into foreign entanglements. CR, your column was much more nuanced than your latest reply. Liberty. ST
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