I fashion myself a foreign policy realist -- the words of Snowcroft, Lugar, and Biden are most resonant in my ears. My support for the Iraq War was accordingly cautious, my trust in our infallibility nonexistant, and my hopes for a quickie democracy in Iraq close to nil. When WMD were not found in Iraq, I was forced to confess that the invasion was a mistake -- albeit a mistake we must not magnify with defeat, or by drawing down our forces too quickly. (Indeed, I continue to advocate a significant increase in troop levels -- not that anyone is actually listening.)
One does not have to put oneself in the realist box, however, to appreciate this critique of the Iraq War, which extensively quotes Francis Fukuyama. Indeed, one might even be, like Fukuyama, a neoconservative.
Money quotes:
“Of all of the different views that have now come to be associated with neoconservatives, the strangest one to me was the confidence that the United States could transform Iraq into a Western–style democracy,” [Fukuyama] wrote, “and to go on from there to democratize the broader Middle East."....
If Krauthammer [for instance], rather than summarily spurning continental arguments as just so much bad faith and responsibility–shirking, had instead “listened carefully to what many Europeans were actually saying (something that Americans are not very good at doing these days), he would have discovered that much of their objection to the war was not a normative one having to do with procedural issues and the UN, but rather a prudential one having to do with the overall wisdom of attacking Iraq.”
....
“the European bottom line proved to be closer to the truth than the administration’s far more alarmist position” vis–à–vis weapons of mass destruction (WMD). “On the question of the manageability of postwar Iraq, the more skeptical European position was almost certainly right.” Despite this, Krauthammer proceeds “as if the Bush administration’s judgment had been vindicated at every turn, and that any questioning of it can only be the result of base or dishonest motives.”
On Bush's relection:
“I just think that if you’re responsible for this kind of a big policy failure,” Fukuyama tells openDemocracy, “you ought to be held accountable for it.”
Fukuyama is not voting for Bush.
Matt Yglesias notes this in a broader sense.
Money quote: Whoever wins the election will find himself leading the country in a world that's really changed a great deal between January 2001 and January 2005 in ways that won't simply be reversed by electing a Democrat.
Partisan I am, I can't point out an area where George Bush has maintained the status quo or improved things.
Posted by: JadeGold | October 28, 2004 at 04:18 PM
Who's Snowcroft? Sounds like an interesting guy.
Posted by: praktike | October 28, 2004 at 05:07 PM
100,000?
They seem serious, and it was peer reviewed. I am completely unfamiliar with the reliability of the methodology. If that's anywhere close to right....God.
As I've argued before, the government should keep casualty figures. If we are fighting preventive wars or using war as a democracy promotion strategy, we have a responsibility to know.
Posted by: Katherine | October 28, 2004 at 05:18 PM
It can be done, it must be done, it will be done. We have given our oath as a nation to do it, and if there is any meaning to the words "he is my president too" it means that many of the committments the President makes, with the approval of Congress, are committments of each and every citizen. We must be very careful about whom we elect, and very measured about what committments we join him in.
I really fail to see the alternative. Someone offer me a vision of a stable non-democratic Iraq that is not a threat to its neighbours and the West. I would prefer that we not withdraw from Iraq even if asked to leave by the Iraqis. If there are contradictions in a Democratic sovereign Iraq with a permanent American presence, we should compensate the Iraqis with a vastly improved standard of living, including a guaranteed personal security, even should it consequently greatly degrade our own.
This is not Grenada, or even Vietnam. If we do not complete the project, it means our children or grandchildren will be forced to return and do so. After further unspeakable tragedy, in Iraq and America.
Posted by: bob mcmanus | October 28, 2004 at 05:31 PM
Katherine: Please, God, tell me they're wrong.
Posted by: Anarch | October 28, 2004 at 05:32 PM
Biden is a liberal, not a realist.
Posted by: Toadmonster | October 28, 2004 at 05:33 PM
Fukuyama is not voting for Bush.
Fine...he's forgiven.
Posted by: Edward | October 28, 2004 at 05:46 PM
Oh, and while we're discussing realism
Posted by: Edward | October 28, 2004 at 05:50 PM
This is of course the "softening up" of Fallujah preparing for ground forces. It is an interesting question whether the coming, I suspect brutal, pacification of the Sunni areas scheduled for early November are intended to distract the media from post-election disputes, or are intended to be not covered because of those domestic stories. Likely the latter.
Posted by: bob mcmanus | October 28, 2004 at 06:02 PM
Edward: Oh, and while we're discussing realism
I don't really get the hubbub over the doctored image. It wasn't doctored in a way that makes it materially false, was it?
I say stick to hammering on the falsehoods that count, and there are so very many on which to pound away. This story is even lamer than the Kerry/U.N. silliness, and is just as much of a waste of time and energy. In my humble opinion, of course.
Posted by: Gromit | October 28, 2004 at 06:09 PM
About the 100,000 deaths: as best I can tell, the study is not yet up on the Lancet website. You can read about it here and here, in addition to the story Katherine linked to.
Methodology (from the JHU site):
Time permitting, I'll get a copy of the actual study when it's posted and write about it.
Posted by: hilzoy | October 28, 2004 at 06:22 PM
One hundred thousand?
Yes, I can believe it.
But I wish I couldn't.
Posted by: Jesurgislac | October 28, 2004 at 06:34 PM
JadeGold: ... I can't point out an area where George Bush has maintained the status quo or improved things.
Obviously you are in the wrong tax bracket...
Posted by: 243 | October 28, 2004 at 08:42 PM
Obviously you are in the wrong tax bracket
Hunh? Rich people don't pay taxes anyway. Georgie said so himself!
Posted by: lightning | October 28, 2004 at 11:54 PM