Third Way in Iraq: Are we losing ourselves in delusion?

National Review Online ^ | April 14, 2004 | John Derbyshire

[xsysmgr]

Anybody remember Eurocommunism? It was a fad of the 1970s, in which the Communist parties of Italy, Spain, and (though with much internal dissent) France sought to overhaul their images to appeal to a middle-class electorate. There were breaks with the USSR, reconciliations with the Catholic Church, and much talk of partnerships and coalitions.

It all came to nothing in the end, but while it lasted the Eurocommunism phenomenon illustrated an irresistible tendency in the political life of democracies: the endless search for a middle path between perceived extremes, for a Third Way. Capitalism? Communism? No, no, we don't wholeheartedly endorse either. We have a Third Way, you see. A typical pronouncement from an apostle of Eurocommunism was the remark by the lefty British historian E. P. Thompson, circa 1980, that he was "bored with totalitarians and anti-totalitarians both." (Which, I commented at the time, reminded me of that newly elected mayor of an American city who, in his inauguration speech, promised to tread the fine line between honesty and corruption.)

Now, of course, there is a case to be made for seeking a middle way in worldly matters. A large part of civilized politics consists of cutting deals and striking compromises. Middle-way-ism can get out of hand, though. It is particularly likely to get out of hand when one party to a political arrangement suffers from failure of imagination, or wishful thinking about human nature. The Eurocommunists suffered from both. Their failure of imagination would not let them believe that the horrors of Leninism and Stalinism in Russia had really happened, and flowed logically from the premises of Marxism. Their wishful thinking whispered to them that a human society in which the acquisitive instinct plays no part can actually be built, that the degraded proletariat can be transformed into selfless New Soviet Man, if not, or not necessarily, by Soviet methods.

My worry about Iraq is that we have fallen into a Third Way delusion. Let me try to explain what I mean.

You are a great power, your people are free and prosperous under rational and constitutional government. A small nation, under a brutal and obnoxious dictatorship, has insulted or vexed you, or given aid and comfort to those who hate you and wish to harm you, or else it presents, you honestly believe, some dire threat to you or your interests. What do you do?

First Way: Punishment. Smash up their country. Kill as many of their troops as you can identify. Lay waste their barracks, ports, airfields. Wreck their infrastructure: Destroy their power stations, refineries, waterworks, bridges, tunnels, railroads, canals. Mine the waters around their shores. Insult their nationhood: Bring down their treasured national monuments, the dictator's palaces, the luxury apartment buildings of their elites, their grand sports stadiums, and other prestige projects. Include a small number of religious shrines in your swathe of annihilation — not to show contempt for their faith, but to make the point that your general commitment to religious tolerance will not be a major restraint on your present or future actions. Make the rubble bounce. Avoid killing civilians when you can, but don't lose sleep over it. (Remember them dancing in the streets at the killing of our civilians.) Then pack up and go home, leaving behind only these words: "Behave yourselves, please. Next time it'll be worse."

Second Way: Empire. Go in there in major force. Defeat their armies in swift precision campaigns. Kill or arrest the dictator and his clique. Announce to the world that from this day on, for the indefinite future, this territory will be run by us, as a colony. Willing locals will be encouraged to participate, but no-one will be expected to, and all the big decisions will be ours. Set up an administration charged with maintaining public security, getting infrastructure working, reforming the civil service, the legal and education systems, and so on. Ruthlessly suppress all opposition in First Way style, but make it know that you are determined to get the place up and running as a viable economy under colonial administration. Show respect for the culture, defer to religious leaders (so long as they do not incite violence), leave ordinary non-violent citizens alone as much as possible. Give every possible encouragement to commerce. Make it clear that you regard the locals as, from the political point of view, children, who need to be raised up into political maturity, with a firm hand to guide them. Plan to stay for 50-100 years.

Third Way: "Nation-Building." Go in there in major force. Defeat their armies in precision campaigns. Kill or arrest the dictator and his clique. Announce to the world that you are going to administer the place temporarily — for a year or so — while local constitutional democrats get their act together. While running the place, you will spend a ton of your taxpayers' money repairing the infrastructure and training civil servants, and will be exquisitely sensitive to local cultural and religious sensibilities. Of course (you will make plain) you know that the age of empire is long gone. You would never be so unspeakably patronizing — colonialist! imperialist! RACIST! — as to think that the inhabitants of this place are political infants in need of tutelage. They can run a democracy as well as anyone else, given a little encouragement and support. To clarify matters, set a date certain at which you will hand over the reins of government to locals and withdraw to leased military facilities.

I do not need to tell you which path our country has chosen in Iraq. The question is: Did we choose correctly?

You can make up your own mind. The following thing needs saying, though.

I am not sure that, given the present state of our national culture, we could have chosen differently. Opinion journalism on outlets like NRO tends to split into the "political" and the "cultural." This writer can be depended on for penetrating insights into the large affairs of the nation or the world; that writer can be depended on for incisive analysis of current educational, artistic, or "lifestyle" fads. I suppose (well, I don't just suppose — people tell me) that my own forte is in the cultural zone. Frankly, I find much of politics boring, at the detail level anyway. I'm not a political ignoramus, though. I've been observing what the Chinese call "great matters under Heaven" for 40 years, and am not often taken by surprise. The following thing seems to me to be indisputable: The domestic culture of one's nation is a key determinant of one's actions abroad, in war or diplomacy. Our conduct in Iraq is premised on certain things we, or most of us, have come to believe about ourselves, and about human nature. If our conduct in Iraq is mistaken, it is probably because those beliefs are mistaken.

Now and then I hear someone talk about a "1945 solution" for the Middle East. That is, we should wreak utter devastation on those places that have declared themselves our enemies. Then, as in Germany and Japan in 1945, we should move in an occupation administration and set the survivors on the path to civilized government.

Well, perhaps we should do this. It is certain, however, that we are not going to, unless our collective mentality undergoes some dramatic change. A "1945 solution" is not possible because, for better or worse, we are not who we were in 1945.

Consider, for example, those news photographs we see every couple of days, of streets thronged with fired-up young men — in Fallujah, or Gaza, or Tehran — waving their fists, or sometimes automatic weapons, carrying pictures of some imam, or bearing the coffin of some tribal panjandrum we have killed. When I see one of those pictures, my thoughts run along the following lines. These young men hate us. Nothing we do will make them stop hating us, and pretty much any action we take in our own rational self-interest will end with them hating us more. The right thing to do is to kill them, while they are all conveniently gathered together like this. These demos go on for hours. We have spy satellites, remote-controlled drones, and so on. Why don't we take these people out? What are daisy-cutters for?

These are not, I admit, very charitable thoughts. I can't see anything wrong with them, though. War consists mainly in one bunch of fired-up young men setting out to kill another bunch of fired-up young men. Wars are won when one side runs out of young men, or out of fire-up. They don't end until then. Our problem in Iraq, basically, it seems to me, is that we have not killed enough fired-up young male Iraqis insistent on killing innocents.

But that goes back to my main point. Why have we not done this? Why is it (apparently) so unthinkable to firebomb a frenzied mob of America-haters celebrating Imam Kar-Bomba or mourning Sheik Kalashnikov? The question answers itself tautologically: It is so unthinkable because we don't think like that. Well, some of us do — I do — but we don't collectively, as a nation, think like that.

Similarly, why is the Second Way impossible for us? It won't do to say that we are just not an imperialistically inclined nation. Rome in 100 B.C. did not show much signs of being inclined towards world domination; nor did Britain in A.D. 1700. Nations, like people, change their minds and react to events. Imperialism is impossible for us not because of our historical experience, but because we have convinced ourselves that it is wicked. We might, in response to some future events, change our minds about this and become imperialists; but this has not happened yet, and may never.

Thus we are unwilling to take either the First Way or the Second, to play either the Angel of Vengeance or the Great White Father Over the Sea. There is nothing for it but to seek a Third Way. Will the Third Way work? Personally, I doubt it. Given what we are, though — what we have become — I don't see that we have any choice.

[xsysmgr]

I'm a First Way man, myself.

[Bonaparte]

He's wrong, IMO, about targeting the "fired up" young men. You have to go after the so-called "holy men," the hate-mongerers and child-indoctrinators who masquerade as "imams" and the like -- the "Yassins," if you will. They and their ranking enablers must be found and destroyed wherever they are, be it a mosque or a rat hole.

[Cicero]

I have to agree with this. No way we are going to do it the first way, at least unless we are hit a LOT harder than we have been so far.

I think Freepers have known that ever since 9/11. We won't let out all the stops until, probably, there have been nuclear, chemical, or biological attacks on several of our major cities, and maybe hundreds of thousands or millions killed.

Whatever Bush and his advisers may believe, their hands are tied by American public opinion. Not just by the leftists, but by ordinary people who just haven't squarely faced the implications of fanatical Islam yet. How can we expect anything else, when 95% of our population has been miseducated. If they know anything about the history of Islam, it's probably just some brief references in public school to Wicked Imperialist Crusades.

Even if Europe goes down the tubes, which it's likely to do in the next 40 or 50 years, that won't be enough in itself to wake people up. Half the country barely knows where Europe is.

[Argus]

I agree with Derb also. During major combat a year ago, I had the feeling that we were being too nice, and not killing enough of the enemy. Nothing has happened since to alter that opinion.

[Tolik]

This is indeed the reality: we will not do it, period. Nevertheless, our and Derb's opinion must be voiced, so the summary vector of public opinion won't point too much to the Left.

Regarding the middle of the road point he started with. I refuse to accept the "wisdom" of seeking a middle moral ground between a killer and an innocent. This imaginary median line can't be located exactly in the middle in my world. In the conflict of two sides there is always one whose morality outweigh another one. Especially in our current conflict.

[Bonaparte]

I agree. But the problem was that "the enemy" did not stay out in the open where we could continue to kill them, instead fading back into the general population. Those who engaged us and surrendered we were obliged to take prisoner rather than kill. This is one reason why the handful of Jihad Johnnies and euroislamophiles who went there to act as "human shields" cut such ridiculous figures. The indigenous population already provided all the shielding the enemy needed.

[Restorer]

First Way: Punishment. Smash up their country. Kill as many of their troops as you can identify.

The problem is who they are.

They're a relatively small percentage of Muslims scattered throughout the Muslim world and even in the West. Bouncing the rubble in Iran or Syria will not deter sleepers in London or NYC.

When dealing with non-state entities like al Quaeda, who is they?

Certainly we can and should punish any states caught supporting them, but this will not stop the attackers, and at some point we will need to recognize that we aren't really punishing the right people.

Perhaps we need a Fourth Way, one that deals with the realities of the situation. I suggest declaring war, in full compliance with the US Constitution, on ideologies or organizations affiliated with these movements. Then we could attack them wherever they might be found. Countries not wishing to have such attacks take place on their soil will be given a limited amount of time to deal with our enemies themselves.

[Nonstatist]

You can also do what we used to do through the 60's, and thats install one of our own in Power, like the Shah, or the generals in Greece or Guatamala.

Maybe its too late for this, but if it were me, I'd have let Chalabi build his militia up, and then I'd install him in power and backed off. It's going to take years for "democracy" to settle in Iraq, a friendly strongman is the next best thing.

[monday]

Me too.. Thanks for posting this. I was beginning to think I was the only one who thought this way. It goes without saying that this is the best article on the Iraqi invasion I have read.

[monday]

"He's wrong, IMO, about targeting the "fired up" young men. You have to go after the so-called "holy men"

I say go after both. Killing only the "holy men" will only create martyrs who must be avenged. In the end you have to kill the "fired up" soldiers too.

[monday]

"The problem is who they are."

Anyone who attends a Mosque where a radical cleric preaches, anyone who attends a protest against Americans, anyone who belongs to certain organizations.

You are still thinking like the majority of Americans think. You believe that the majority of Arab Islamics are just ordinary people like you, or your neighbor. You haven't yet faced up to the fact that when war is declared, as Bush has declared war, innocent people die. Until you and the rest of America come to that realization we cannot win.

Incidentally until ordinary Americans realize this it really doesn't pay to fight halfhearted. It just recruits people, who are angry at Americans for the inevitable accidental civilian deaths, to our enemy's cause. It's like poking at a bee hive and then being surprised when you are stung.

Far better to kill it once and for all and be done with it, or leave it alone. Yes, innocent civilians will be killed if we kill it, and if we leave it alone the terrorists won't go away, but either is better than what we are doing now.

[johnb838]

I refuse to accept the "wisdom" of seeking a middle moral ground between a killer and an innocent.

To me this goes along with the notion that there's always truth on both sides of an issue. There may be two *sides* to every story but it doesn't mean they're both half-right. Unfortunately, the liberal-socialists behave as if they always are, which has led to moral relativism and the decline of the west.

[johnb838]

Before the war I felt that if democracy failed, yet we left them unable to threaten us, we would have been successful. Now I realize that unless democracy succeeds, or we control a puppet, they are going to be a threat to us. I don't know what I was smoking back then.

[takenoprisoner]

Great read...thanks for posting it.

I'll have to hang with the third way for now. A major concern preventing us from just leaving is the possibility of yet another Saddam coming to power...and then, we would just have to return to do it again. May as well at least try to get it right the first time.

[spodefly]

The "First Way" is the ONLY way, and anyone that thinks otherwise is delusional, or at least ignorant of human nature.

[Bonaparte]

You have a point, monday, but consider -- if you elimenate the leadership, how effectively can the spear carriers "avenge" them? And aren't they already thoroughly committed to our destruction no matter what we do? I note that these evil imams and blokes like OBL don't carry out attacks themselves. That's because they themselves are cowards, preferring instead to send out others, including little girls, to do their murdering for them. Take down the imams, the leaders, the financiers, the key figures in "sponsoring" states, and watch how fast their operations fold.

[spodefly]

The only thing that strategy does is leave a power vacuum, and nature abhors a vacuum. Some other radical jihadist will step in and pick up the reins. We have to kill (or absolutely scare the living hell out of) every single male between the age of 1 and 100 that would ever be inclined to pick up an AK or set-up an IED. They have to be beaten, utterly and absolutely.

Fortunately, because of the technology we have, we can do this without levelling the entire country. I believe our Marines are very effectively eliminating large numbers of jihadists. The more we take out now, the better chance that Iraq will find itself as a functional democracy some time in the future.

[monday]

"A major concern preventing us from just leaving is the possibility of yet another Saddam coming to power...and then, we would just have to return to do it again"

Cheaper in both men and money to "do it again" then to stay there permanently. Anyway, after doing it once, all you have to do is say "boo" next time and whoever is in charge will toe the line or risk becoming our next victim.

Incidentally, having another Saddam in power is the only way to ensure stability in Iraq. US forces will never be allowed to use the force and vicious repression necessary to stop the insurgency. Only a brutal dictator under no constitutional mandates has the means and power to govern Iraqis. Why do you think every Arab nation is ruled over with an iron fist?

[Restorer]

If you noticed, my post suggested declaring war on particular organizations and ideologies and those who support them.

However, killing anybody who looks vaguely like our enemies or shares certain religious beliefs is immoral and counter-productive. I would oppose such action strenuously.

Equally important is the fact that the traditional "Laws of War" just do not apply when we are at war with non-state entities. So we need to create new Laws, not strive to force today's situation into the old paradigm.

[monday]

"Equally important is the fact that the traditional "Laws of War" just do not apply when we are at war with non-state entities. So we need to create new Laws, not strive to force today's situation into the old paradigm."

No offense but people who think like you, seem to think that we are dealing with a new paradigm. Guerrilla war and terrorism are as old as warfare itself. The only reason you believe it to be new is because the means of dealing with it have changed. The old method of dealing with it included killing not only the terrorists but their families and friends. Terrorism is much more effective these days because the terrorists can count on civilized peoples timidness at using these tactics. If you are not prepared to be as brutal as your enemies you cannot expect to win a war against them.

I am not saying we should adopt these tactics. Obviously terrorism is not such a problem that the majority of people are willing to do what it takes to win, yet. Only when each individual person feels personally threatened with death or slavery will people change their minds and get serious.

In the mean time, staying out of the middle east and keeping middle easterners out of the US might help. This is a war of cultures and our most potent weapons are Satellite dishes, and Western music and movies, not the US military.