A new way in Iraq

James Skillen from the Center for Public Justice recently wrote that we are being dishonest in our evaluation of Iraq.

He begins by explaining how the administration sees our time in Iraq. He then shows us how the media and opponents portray Iraq. Thirdly, he says what the ‘war’ with Iraq really is: The U.S. invaded the country and smashed their government and didn’t fill the vacuum of power.

We did not return sovereignty to the Iraqi people. We engineered a quick drafting of an unworkable constitution. We helped organize an election that fronted a government unable to govern on the basis of that incomplete constitution. And we continue to control the most important military operations in a country that is not at war with an external enemy but, instead, needs police forces that will take orders from a sound government, neither of which exist.

Clearly, the proper course, which has been discussed as a ridiculous debate between installing the next strong-man versus “true democracy” built by the people, is this: the U.S. military alone was to be that strong-man. Like wands in the Harry Potter universe, people respond to the conqueror. The role the U.S. was supposed to play was as conqueror and then stabilizer—bringing peace and prosperity to the nation and democracy would come later. Instead, we encouraged untrained, inexperienced, and incapable leaders to form a new government out of nothing while simultaneously eroding the basic infrastructure upon which they had come to depend.

But Skillen argues our mistake has not only been a blind mischaracterization of the war, but the egocentric response to the war. It isn’t simply rhetoric about whether or not it’s winnable but what we do about this mistake.

Setting dates for an American military withdrawal while blaming the nearly powerless Iraqi government for not climbing out fast enough from the hole we dug for it is as immoral as continuing on the present course.

The problem is that we need to punish Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz for poor planning, implementation, and irresponsible conduct in their invasion and without Congressional involvement or oversight, there is no other way that people feel comfortable in rebuking the president. But Skillen shows little concern for the executive.

If the president, his superficial critics, and the American people had anything like an adequate awareness of the tragic destruction to which we have contributed—and failed to stop—in Iraq, he would be proposing and we would be demanding an all-out effort to remedy our failures by doing everything necessary to bring real government to Iraq. We would pay any price, on a national emergency basis, and negotiate on an international emergency basis, to establish security and advance state building in Iraq.

The problem, as Skillen rightly points out is us; we allowed our country to invade, devastate, and demoralize another country. Precipitating rationale is irrelevant when what has come of it is seemingly irreconcilable chaos for which we are responsible. We’ve made a mess and it is our job to clean it up. And this isn’t a Washington politics issues, but a true, natural politics, because we didn’t simply break a theoretical nation, but created conditions in Iraq that have killed and displaced hundreds of thousands of people (Skillen underestimates). We have torn apart a social fabric of families and friends and neighbors. We have reduced to rubble the markets and shops that made the livelihood for many people and destroyed the museums and libraries that housed national and religious treasures—treasures that not only connected the people of Iraq, but connected them with the rest of the world—and given them over to looting and petty theft. We have severed them from the normal ‘first-world’ conditions that cultivate stability and health: water and electricity. We have utterly devastated the people. But regardless of the senseless nature of this violence and the irresponsibility shown by the administration, we have a responsibility to human rights. We have been pouring unimaginable sums of money into a sinkhole, instead of plugging it up. If rebuilding Iraq were Bush’s real priority, we would have rebuilt it before now. Democracy is the true red herring here.

The true beauty of the fix Iraq position (to which I have only now tentatively converted) is what it means for us. It means that we can be the people we say we are: compassionate and supportive. We can bring stability to the country by maintaining their responsibility but removing the governmental noose with which we will otherwise hang them. Congress takes control of the procedures because it is no longer a military issue and Bush loses ‘command’ of a so-called war. Bush, in turn, becomes alienated from the process, not just because he loses authority, but he loses the very grounds of his argument: how can he maintain war-footing when his justification is stolen from him? Lastly, it isn’t done as a U.S. fledgling state, but as a U.N. protectorate. This maintains our responsibility, but ensures that others take responsibility for bringing Iraq back from the brink and fostering a spirit of collaboration. The international humiliation is probably enough punishment for the would-be King George.

This is all dependent on having enough troops. Then again, there’s always impeachment.