Posted on 03/17/2005 9:44:49 PM PST by blue kangaroo
Why did the United States invade Iraq? President George W Bush claims that Iraq was an immediate threat, while Senator John Kerry says we Americans were misled into war. Other theories abound: filial revenge, oil dependency, or Halliburton's profits. But in fact, Bush's foreign policy advisers are driven by Cassandra-like visions of a dangerous future.
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Why did the United States invade Iraq? President George W Bush claims that Iraq was an immediate threat, while Senator John Kerry says we Americans were misled into war. Other theories abound: filial revenge, oil dependency, or Halliburton's profits. But in fact, Bush's foreign policy advisers are driven by Cassandra-like visions of a dangerous future.
Bush's foreign-policy team is a bold group. They do not see history in terms of news cycles or election intervals. These grand strategists view the world in century-long sweeps. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, often identified as the chief neo-conservative architect, is a gifted intellectual. He fully appreciates the Iraq campaign's complexities and the historic parallels to Vietnam. Still, Wolfowitz and Bush's other advisers perceive the world in a light that ordinary Americans do not.
So what did they see on September 11, 2001? As New York's World Trade Center burned, this group saw two new terrifying trends coming together with devastating results. First, they saw a deadly new terrorist enemy and a greater Middle East festering with anti-Americanism. But we all saw this. Wolfowitz, however, saw this trend arcing decades into the future. To him, the Persian Gulf was becoming more dangerous and increasingly unstable. Next, Wolfowitz saw the inevitable spread of weapons of mass destruction. In 1950, only the US and the Soviet Union had atomic bombs. By 2000, poverty-stricken Pakistan and autarkic North Korea had acquired nuclear capabilities. With the threshold clearly dropping, what's to stop Micronesia or Sudan from getting the bomb in 2050? Only lack of effort.
Foreseeing a porous anti-American region possessing nuclear weapons, the architects of Bush's security strategy became driven by the fear of a nuclear terrorist attack on a major US city. While the odds of a mushroom cloud over Manhattan are unlikely this year, it increases substantially over the longer term. If by 2050 the Gulf region became a mix of unstable nuclear-armed autocracies, weapons would inevitably leak to nameless terrorist groups - resulting in undeterrable destruction.
Like the Greek prophet Cassandra, endowed with the gift of prophecy but fated by Apollo never to be believed, Wolfowitz & Co see a doomsday looming on the horizon and they are desperately working backward to change our fate. They decided to divert either the diffusion of nuclear technology or Middle Eastern instability. Because globalization makes technological quarantine impossible, and they hold multilateral conventions in low esteem, they chose to accelerate the spread of democracy. If the region is going nuclear down the road, it must be as benign as possible. With no confidence that a participatory government was likely in the next few decades on its own, the administration wanted to give the region a superpower push. September 11 gave them the perfect opportunity to act.
Iraq became the lever to transform the region for several reasons. To start, the US had been making a case against Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein for more than a decade. Advancing that argument was easier than starting over with another country. Second, Iraq would certainly acquire nuclear weapons - it might just take decades for the technology to spread. But if Iraq could become a stable democracy, it would send shock waves through the region, forcing other governments to change. In that case, the inevitable spread of nuclear technology would involve safe democracies, not hostile theocracies.
Make no mistake - Bush's advisers believe that the US, guided by their policies, can change the world. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice argued that the geopolitical "tectonic plates" started shifting after September 11 as they had after World War II. Consider that comparison. That period witnessed America's determination to contain Soviet power, to reconstruct Europe and to establish a global economic system. It was the most audacious peacetime decision to use US power to reshape the planet.
Bush's advisers have identical aspirations today. The collapse of the Soviet Union validated their belief that US power can be globally transformative. Wolfowitz & Co embraced a willingness to act - over the short and long runs - to enhance US security (not credibility or status). If US muscle could fell the Soviet colossus, they calculated, why couldn't it create stability in the Middle East?
The major obstacle for that policy, however, was that Americans have always been uncomfortable exercising power for naked national interest. Instead, as historian Walter McDougall argues, Americans picture their role in the world as an extension of their personal values - promoting liberty, spreading democracy, and fighting evil. Moreover, Bush's advisers believe that ordinary Americans cannot comprehend and should be shielded from complex foreign policy (or even energy policy). Knowing that the US will not go to war based on hazy geopolitical trend lines, Bush's advisers justified their grand strategy in tangible terms - chemical weapons, links to terrorists, and tyranny. September 11 provided an opportunity to cloak geopolitical transformation in righteous intervention.
This Machiavellian gambit carries several deeply troubling implications. To start, the controversy over the intelligence used to justify the war becomes nearly irrelevant when grand strategy drives planning. But most important, it begs the question: if transformation was the goal, why has the post-war reconstruction gone so badly? Where were the planning and resources? Besides miscalculating the Iraqi reception, Bush's advisers were unable to ask Americans for prolonged sacrifice of blood and treasure to ensure its desired, yet unspoken, objectives. Unfortunately, this is where Wolfowitz's grand world view collided with nearsighted media cycles. The result is a less stable Iraq and a more dangerous region. Perhaps, like Cassandra, Wolfowitz hasn't changed the future after all.
Richard Daniel Ewing is a non-resident fellow at the Nixon Center in Washington, DC.
LOL John Edwards was the first politician that said Iraq was the most serious and imminent threat... back in Feb. 2002.
Isn't this column a little out of date given what has been happening in the Middle East since January 30th?
Posting an article written six months ago? Why?
LIE in paragraph one. End of read.
The kitties were after the kangaroo last night.
"The new survey revealed that 61.5 percent of Iraqis believe that their country is headed in the right direction compared to only 23.2 percent who feel Iraq is headed in the wrong direction. The nearly 40 point margin between right direction and wrong direction is the largest since IRI began polling in May 2004, and this margin is more than double what it was in the poll taken from January 13 to 25, 2005. The current poll further shows that more than 90 percent of Iraqis feel hopeful for their future."
http://www.iri.org/03-15-05-IraqPoll.asp
I hopped on search to see some of the kangaroo's posts. I can see why the kitties were interested.
Because it's a troll - that's why.
Written before millions of Iraqis showed off their purple voting thumbs to the world after risking death going to the polls.
...and also written before the pro-Syrian Lebanese gov't was ousted, Syrian troops began leaving Lebanon, and 800,000 Lebanese protesters demanded Syria's complete withdrawal from their country.
Abbreviated VK/RKBA PING!
Let him ride the lightning.
Bye, Blue Kangaroo."He's dead, Jim!"
Please let me know if you want ON or OFF my Viking Kitty/ZOT ping list!. . .don't be shy.
Maybe the old article post was to prove a point.What they were saying then and how well it came out? Just a guess. ....I would like to hear old stories of the critics that said the Iraq elections would be a blood bath and unsuccessful.
Bubye.
You're OUT, Blue Kangaroo! *Deranged Umpire voice*
When will you Bush-haters admit you are wrong and your ideas lost?
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It’s not a thing, it’s alive
It’s not a plant though it often crawls
It can trumpet, yelp and bark
Cackle, whine, chatter, bleat
Throat and whistle or at least
Fill the air with its ugly cries
It struts about like a king
Wriggles, turns, comes and goes
Works all day, sleeps all night
Always anxious, restless, tense
It longs to be loved and cheered
It shakes all over, doesn’t know why
Thinks it’s immortal, but has to die
It shakes all over, doesn’t know why
And when its end comes, it starts to cry
It spreads around the sphere
Feeding itself with life
It can not understand
It can not understand
It shakes all over, doesn’t know why
Thinks it’s immortal, but has to die
It shakes all over, doesn’t know why
And when its end comes, it starts to cry
When life takes it down a peg
It feigns to be called chosen, crowned
It shakes all over, doesn’t know why
Thinks it’s immortal, but has to die
It shakes all over, doesn’t know why
And when its end comes, it starts to cry
Thinks it’s immortal, but has to die
Thinks it’s immortal, but has to die
It struts about like a king
When it doesn’t work it has to hide
So prone to swindle those of its kind
It longs to be
Restive it will never learn
All the things it can not discern
So prone to swindle those of its kind
It shakes all over, doesn’t know why
Thinks it’s immortal, but has to die
And when its end comes, it starts to cry
It shakes all over, doesn’t know why
And when its end comes, it starts to cry
Shakes all over, doesn’t know why
Doesn’t know why
Thinks it’s immortal, but has to die
It shakes all over, doesn’t know why
It shakes all over, doesn’t know why
Thinks it’s immortal, but has to die
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