Neo Culpa (Perle and Adleman on Iraq)

Vanity Fair | November 3, 2006 | David Rose

[HAL9000]

It's blocked, but here is the URL -

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2006/12/neocons200612

[justshutupandtakeit]

Are We There Yet? Are We There Yet? Mommy, When Are We Going to Get There?

Geez the School of Instant Geo-Political Change is in full cry. I mean AFTER ALL it has been THREE whole years with almost THREE whole thousands of Americans killed.

This wavering and weaseling is disgusting particularly after watching the story of Iwo Jima where 7,000 Marines were killed taking the island. Apparently this country is becoming too testosterone limited to survive as the leader of the world.

[HAL9000]

The first premise is correct, and Iraq has been successfully deterred from Saddam's goal of developing weapons of mass distruction.

I'll strongly disagree with your claim that a race is "genetically not amenable to civil democracy". I'm not aware of any scientific evidence of a "democracy gene" in our DNA.

[truth_seeker]

"I'll strongly disagree with your claim that a race is "genetically not amenable to civil democracy". I'm not aware of any scientific evidence of a "democracy gene" in our DNA."

I perhaps should have said "culturally and religiously" not amenable to civil democracy. DNA was a poor choice of a word by me.

With this substitution, does the premise stand the test of the facts? I am not aware of a true civil democracy by arab muslims.

Are you?

[dancusa]

The Washington cocktail party circuit must of poisoned their minds. It has a way of brainwashing conservatives.

[HAL9000]

With this substitution, does the premise stand the test of the facts?

With that change, it seems like a more accurate observation of history.

I am not aware of a true civil democracy by arab muslims.

Lebanon has a nominal democracy. Egypt claims to be a democracy, but we all know that it is really a strongman government. Most of the rest of hereditary monarchies or outright dictatorships. Some democratic institutions are starting to form in places like Kuwait, Jordan and even Saudi Arabia. Over time, I think we'll see more Arab democracies, but it won't happen overnight.

[nathanbedford]

I agree with your comments and only wish that I could assert on my own behalf as you can that I foresaw the tragedy before the fact, but I cannot. Before the invasion I wrote that "God help me" I wanted the invasion to begin as soon as possible before the inspection regime or the French could so undermine the administration that the war could not be started.

Unlike these treacherous neocons, I will admit that I was wrong. In my own defense I can say, for what it's worth, that I was never seduced by the idea of imposing Wilsonian democracy on Iraq, although I of course would not have spurned it, but I saw the war in what I arrogantly believed were grown up and real world considerations of geopolitics. I wanted forward bases in the Mideast from which to strike at Syria and Iran if intimidation alone did not work. I wanted us to get all our hands on the oil fields to deprive Muslim terrorists of petrodollars with which to buy weapons of mass destruction. I wanted us to demonstrate to the Muslim world that no leader could sleep safe if he played a double game with America. I wanted to so intimidate the Muslim world with our military prowess that they themselves would turn against the terrorists in their midst because I believed, and still believe, that the only way we ultimately can win this war is to turn the sane Muslims against the crazies. And, of course, I wanted a regime change as the only effective defense against WMD's in Iraq. My mistake, and I believe Bush's, was to underestimate the tenacity of the Muslim belief system and to see the war in a two dimensional geographical box, like a game of checkers, where squares were to be taken and held.

Not only was I wrong but the result has been calamitous and every one of the "strategic" reasons for waging war in Iraq have been stood on its head. I suspect that the main reason there has been no terrorist attack on the heartland is because Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, as well as Iran, are quite content to see America founder in Iraq. Iran, likewise, is the big winner from all of this as it moves closer to upsetting the entire balance of power in the Middle East when it acquires the bomb and perhaps fashions a Shi'ite Crescent running the Mediterranean Sea. I believe my error came out of the false understanding of the nature of the global intergenerational war against terrorism: that somehow it was a war which could be conceived of in geographical terms. It is not-- although if it is lost the ultimate impact will be geographical. This is a war for the soul of Islam and we must not lose our own souls before we can save theirs.

Perhaps the very worst legacy of this whole Irak tragedy is that we are a daily demonstrating to the world that we are presently incapable of winning asymmetrical wars of terrorism. The Israelis just proved that in Lebanon. The people in Afghanistan are beginning to understand it. The tide in the Muslim world is rising against us as their fear drains away. So the goal of saving the soul of Islam has been made more elusive.

To compound the catastrophe, the "socialist" world of Cuba and Venezuela, Russia and China can read the daily events in Iraq and are emboldened as they have not been since the first Iraq war and seem eager to make mischief 1960s style.

Meanwhile, we've increased the danger of losing our own soul as defined as the will to win. Western Europe already lacks it and half of America possesses an anemic red blood count. Another tragedy of the Iraq war might will be to cause the installation of a Democrat regime in America which will align itself with the appeasers in Europe and so fatally succumb to jihad. The danger is as near as next Tuesday when, if the Republicans suffer a stinging repudiation of the polls, Bush might be left in as feckless a state as Gerald Ford was during the final pathetic agony of Vietnam.

Our dilemma is that we cannot win in Iraq and we cannot abandon it. We cannot win until we learn how to fight asymmetrical insurgencies against our occupation. We show no evidence that we have any idea how to do this at a price America is willing to pay. The training up of Iraqi forces, especially the police, is clearly a failure. So we are mired in a situation that spills our blood and empties our treasury and turns our friends against us. Meanwhile, the existential threat against America, represented by Iran's possession of a nuclear weapon which it passes off to terrorists to explode in the heartland, grows daily closer to reality. Our efforts in Iraq have so attenuated our military force that we probably cannot mount an invasion and air power alone probably cannot interdict Iran's nuclear program. This is well known to the whole world and especially to Iran so our ability to intimidate the Iranians into good behavior has bled into the sands of Iraq along with the Bush Doctrine.

Soon it will be fashionable even in conservative circles to blame Bush just as the neocons now are doing so ignominiously. My belief is that the miscalculation was to presume that the Iraqis, read Muslims, would behave rationally when presented with the opportunity for self-determination and democracy. It is not really that we made fatal tactical military mistakes in Iraq which we can lay at the feet of Bush or Rumsfeld, rather it is the nature of the traditional Muslim society that caused all of this bloodshed to be inevitable. Iraq has revealed that America has no stomach for the pain which must be endured to see such a traditional Muslim society through to Western democratic values.

Asymmetrical warfare works against armies of occupation but these tactics do not work against 21st-century Blitzkrieg, American-style. I fear that the American military will engage in another Vietnam style soul-searching and draw the wrong conclusion, that military force does not work at all in the war against terrorism. I am tempted, therefore, to argue that it was the occupation and not the war itself which was the bridge too far. After Iraq, I am humble enough to admit and perhaps it is I who misses the lesson.

I am well aware that new military adventures will be virtually impossible to sell until the inevitable happens: a strike is made against the homeland. If Al Qaeda strikes with anything less than a mortal blow, ie. a series of nuclear explosions, America might yet be able to find its finest hour. But strike it must if Al Qaeda intends fulfill its ambitions. God grant that they settle for half a loaf with an intensity level not exceeding 911.

We must fashion a new policy, a new strategy for winning this intergenerational worldwide war against a portion of 1.4 billion Muslims who inhabit the earth. We must turn rational Islam against this jihad or we will perish because we will rot from the inside out or we will simply surrender after our cities are turned into glass. We cannot hope to prevail if we eschew all military operations as ultimately counterproductive. We must find what works. Above all, we must not lose our soul.

I would be grateful for your reaction to all this.

[woofie]

I would like to steal your watch

[woofie]

It aint over till the fat lady sings ...The war dont look like a failure to me ..now, WWII before we won....that was a failure

[nathanbedford]

Done your way

[Mel Gibson]

From the Vanity Fair article, "Neo Culpa"

David Frum: "I always believed as a speechwriter that if you could persuade the president to commit himself to certain words, he would feel himself committed to the ideas that underlay those words. And the big shock to me has been that although the president said the words, he just did not absorb the ideas. And that is the root of, maybe, everything."

Translation: Bush (43) says things that he does not mean or worse yet, understand i.e. he is a liar.

Michael Rubin, former Pentagon Office of Special Plans and Coalition Provisional Authority staffer: "Where I most blame George Bush is that through his rhetoric people trusted him, people believed him. Reformists came out of the woodwork and exposed themselves." By failing to match his rhetoric with action, Rubin adds, Bush has betrayed Iraqi reformers in a way that is "not much different from what his father did on February 15, 1991, when he called the Iraqi people to rise up, and then had second thoughts and didn't do anything once they did."

Translation: Bush (43) is like his father Bush (41). Bush (41) said that, "he was a little fuzzy on the vision thing". Bush (41) was inherently not worthy, qualified of the office of President of the United States of America. Bush (43) is just like his father, not worthy of trust, nor of the office.

[Mel Gibson]

The problem in the Middle East was not Saddam Hussein. He was essentially defanged after the first Gulf War. The problem in the Middle East lies in Saudi Arabia. Six financiers bankrolled Al-Qaeda operations for the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001 and have escaped prosecution. These individuals do not get their hands dirty but let others do their bidding.

The CIA station chief in charge of analysis within Iraq informed Bush that a Civil War would ensue between the Sunnis and Shiites. If Bush (41) had followed through right after the first Gulf War, then the U.S. (which also had virtually the whole world on it's side, don't forget) would not be in the mess it is in now.

[eddie willers]

Good post on the most important thread not being read.

[Alberta's Child]

Richard Perle was appointed by this administration to serve as the head of the Defense Policy Board at the Pentagon (long before 9/11, BTW). He was put there for a reason -- and a cursory examination of his background will tell you exactly what that reason was.

If you think he didn't play a major role in the Iraq war, then you're delusional.

[Anti-Bubba182]

"Pearle and co. are nothing but self-serving traitors! "

No kidding, that doughy hump ought to be stomped flat!

[Alberta's Child]

I hate to break this to everyone here, but none of these guys is -- or ever was -- a "conservative."

[pissant]

Perle, Frum and Kristol have been second guessing Bush the entire time. Neither the president, nor I, ever cared what these idiots said. Bush has never been a "neocon" (code word for jew). Neither has Rummy, Pace, Franks, Rice, Negroponte, Powell, Cheney or 99% of the people in Bush's ineer circle of advisers.

It's a Pat Buchanan/liberal MSM myth that these bozos had any influence over the president.

[baseball_fan]

i'm thinking that maybe the emphasis in the article regarding rhetoric versus reality is code for "we didn't put in enough troops." we know, for example, the rhetoric about fiscal discipline and the actual reality (out of control growth in federal spending). how tragic it would be if we run the disaster of losing in Iraq because the reality didn't match the rhetoric: we've been too soft on defense, i.e. didn't put in enough troops.

now i don't know what the real answer is or whether it could have been conducted better, but putting in more troops in one part of the country to seize and hold versus seize and leave (as i've heard the different approaches characterized) by way of experiment might tell us if it can make a difference. at least we will know we've tried. (being this far from the fight, i admit to having no real understanding of what the facts are.)

military historian Frederick Kagan, a former West Point professor and now resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute on the Nov 1 Jim Lehrer NewsHour says we are only talking about another 50,000 troops: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/middle_east/july-dec06/troops_11-01.html. before coming to any dramatic conclusions, don't we need to try this other first? McCain, Kristol, others have been saying as much for a while.

[beyond the sea]

You're right....... as usual.

[beyond the sea]

right

[RobbyS]

Fifty years ago, people were saying that the Koreans were incapable of democracy, that Rhee's regime was a dictatorship etc. But South Korea has proved such views wrong. That said, I have less faith in the Arabs because of their religion. It is strongly resistant to modern ideas. The best we can hope is an Islamic Republic that is not hostile to the United States.