What You Should Think About Iraq

On “Are we ‘morally responsible’ for Iraq?“, Demonweed left a comment that I felt warranted its own post. His blog can be found here, and though it hasn’t been updated since January, there is a small archive offering insightful views on “What You Should Think” about a variety of topics, such as organized religion, that I’m apt to agree with. His reply is posted below in its entirety.

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As I see it, Iraq today is the result of two historic blunders. The first was the decision to go to war. Saddam Hussein was a very bad man, but did he have to go? There must have been at least ten other regimes at that time that, if subject to forced change, would have involved spilling less innocent blood while creating a better prognosis for the development of a civilized open society.

As a humanitarian initiative, “liberating” the people of Iraq would have been an unusual priority even if the planning and execution of the venture were not the product of abysmal incompetence. Compounding this is the fact that the U.S. did have a compelling interest in bringing about regime change . . . in Afghanistan. It may just have been the ultimate “taking your eye off the ball” moment when our national focus shifted from bold counterterrorism efforts to bloodlust for an unrelated dictator.

However, so much less blood could have been spilled if there was someone with a shred of personal integrity able to get relevant facts about the world into the ear of George W. Bush. If the infamous “Mission Accomplished” moment were followed by American actions suggesting the mission had been accomplished, who can say what the prospects would be for both the U.S. and Iraq going forward from here. Instead, what was so clearly a military occupation continued to be mischaracterized as a war. Worse yet, it remains a war in which objectives are not clearly defined (not to mention a war for which talk of an exit strategy is forbidden amongst executive branch insiders.)

Ultimately it is all about saving face. Possibly the President himself does not understand how much better everything would have been if the invasion had been followed by a prompt demilitarization of our Iraq policy. Certainly he remains hostile to that lifesaving approach.

As with immigration (not to mention a host of lesser issues) John McCain has displayed his own level of personal integrity by shifting position to capture the support of the Republican base. Here it is hard to tell if he is so deeply clueless about geopolitical realities or if he is merely grasping at whatever themes he believes will motivate Republican voters to show up at polling places this November. Either way, a war hero deserves better than to be dragged into such sewers, and the United States of America deserves better than to be led by anyone who supports one of the bloodiest and most blatant follies in the history of American foreign policy.