Fallujah: High Tide of Empire?

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[fourfivesix]

Fallujah: High Tide of Empire?

by Pat Buchanan

At Versailles, 1919, Lloyd George, having seized oil-rich Iraq for the empire, offered Woodrow Wilson mandates over Armenia and Constantinople. “When you cease to be President we will make you Grand Turk,” laughed Clemenceau.

As there were “no oil fields there,” writes historian Thomas Bailey, “it was assumed that rich Uncle Sam would play the role of Good Samaritan.” Though unamused, Wilson accepted the mandates.

Fortunately, Harding won in 1920 and reneged on the deal. Lloyd George and Churchill were left to face the Turks all by their imperial selves. Had we accepted Constantinople, Americans would have ended up fighting Ataturk’s armies to hold today’s Istanbul.

After 9/11, however, our neoconservatives, who had been prattling on about “global hegemony” and a “crusade for democracy” since the end of the Cold War, sold President Bush on their imperial scheme: a MacArthur Regency in Baghdad.

And so it is that we have arrived at this crossroads.

What Fallujah and the Shi’ite uprisings are telling us is this: if we mean to make Iraq a pro-Western democracy, the price in blood and treasure has gone up. Shall we pay it is the question of the hour. For there are signs Americans today are no more willing to sacrifice for empire than was Harding to send his nation’s sons off to police and run provinces carved out of the Ottoman Empire.

In bringing Bush’s “world democratic revolution” to Iraq, we suffer today from four deficiencies: men, money, will, and stamina.

First, we do not have the troops in country to pacify Iraq. Some 70 percent of our combat units are committed in Afghanistan, Iraq, and South Korea already. If we are going to put more men into Iraq, U.S. military forces must expand.

Those who speak of democratizing Iraq as we did Germany tend to forget: in 1945, we had 12 million men under arms and four million soldiers in Europe. German resistance disappeared in 1945 with the death of Hitler. There was no guerrilla war against us. Today, our army is only 480,000 strong and scattered across 100 countries. And we have 129,000 troops in an Iraq that is as large as California and an escalating war against urban guerrillas.

Second, we are running out of money. The U.S. deficit is $500 billion and rising. The merchandise trade deficit is headed toward $600 billion, putting downward pressure on a dollar that has been falling for three years. Nations with declining currencies do not create empires, they give them up.

Then there is the deficit in imperial will. President Bush sold the war on Iraq on the grounds that Saddam was a man of unique evil who could not be trusted with a weapon of mass destruction. Today, whatever threat Saddam posed is gone.

While America supported the president in going to war, we have not bought into the idea that we must democratize the Islamic world or we are unsafe in our own country. Polls show that nearly half the nation believes we should start coming home.

Which brings us to our fourth deficiency, stamina. Empire requires an unshakeable belief in the superiority of one’s own race, religion, and civilization and an iron resolve to fight to impose that faith and civilization upon other peoples.

We are not that kind of people. Never have been. Americans, who preach the equality of all races, creeds, and cultures, are, de facto, poor imperialists. When we attempt an imperial role as in the Philippines or Iraq, we invariably fall into squabbling over whether a republic should be imposing its ideology on another nation. A crusade for democracy is a contradiction in terms.

While it would be nice if Brazil, Bangladesh, and Burundi all embraced democracy, why should we fight them if they don’t, and why should our soldiers die to restore democracy should they lose it? Why is that our problem, if they are not threatening us?

What Iraq demonstrates is that once the cost in blood starts to rise, Americans tend to tell their government that enough is enough, put the Wilsonian idealism back on the shelf, and let’s get out.

If attacked, Americans fight ferociously. Unwise nations discover that. Threatened, as in the Cold War, we will persevere. But if our vital interests are not threatened, or our honor is not impugned, most of us are for staying out of wars.

That is our history and oldest tradition. It may be ridiculed as selfish old American isolationism, but that is who we are and that is how we came to be the last world power left standing on the bloodstained world stage after the horrific 20th century.

Americans will cheer globaloney. They just won’t fight and die for it. Nor should they.

May 10, 2004 issue Copyright © 2004 The American Conservative

[johnb838]

Bush's 'tax cuts' on the credit card for this generation are tax increases for the next.

Now that is dung. That is just stupid. If you really feel that way, you don't belong here, you should find another board more to your viewpoint.

[jpsb]

That is a mighty thin line you drawing tribune, .... cool handle, i like it.

[Tribune7]

Even more than a century later, the success of the Philippines is too early to judge.

Of course, you can't judge it a failure.

The failed U.S. nation building projects I can think of in which we made a significant effort are Liberia, Cuba and Haiti.

And we never occuped Liberia.

Note: the populations of the successful project are much, much higher than the failed ones.

[Tribune7]

What kind of people were the Indians? Same kind of 'religious freaks' with a completely different culture from their British overlords.

Many, many of whom were Moslems.

[Beenliedto]

We are trying to make the liklihood of terror -- especially on U.S. soil and against Americans in non-war zones - less than it was three years ago.

And in all likelihood, we are accomplishing exactly the opposite.

[johnb838]

Actually, I would say we underestimated the degree to which the population would remain terrorized by the ex-Saddam forces over a year later. Apparently they had planned to go underground and are really quite organized.

In Vietnam, the population in the country was not really against us. The VC would come in, kill the chief, and tell the villagers they'd better not cooperate with us or they would all die. So we started seeing them as the enemy.

The majority of the Iraqi people are in a similar fix. Hell, they don't want another national socialist junta like the ba'athists ruling. They also don't want the door broken down at 4:00 a.m. followed by death by grenade or automatic weapons fire. I don't blame the people. This war is ours to win and THEN they will help us.

[johnb838]

Really, we've beaten down the big uprising of the first week in April. Things still aren't good but they're better than it looked like they might be.

[Tribune7]

That is a mighty thin line you drawing tribune,

I know. But you have to consider it. Is it that 130,000 troops is not enough or is it that we can't maintain 130,000 troops on the promised rotations schedule? They are different problems and require different solutions.

Or is it that we would put more troops in Iraq if we had them? Our leaders say no, and true, they can be lying or particpating in wishful thinking. OTOH, I'm not seeing any reports -- except from pundits and political opponents who I don't trust-- that this is the case.

I'll leave the Toomey thing on for a little bit more. I'm still not over this election.

[johnb838]

It was FRANCE and BELGIUM that created the conditions that made Hitler possible with their draconian surrender demands at Versailles and by occupying the Ruhr valley after WWI. We need to not let FRANCE and BELGIUM take the world to war again by trying to project power that they do not possess.

[johnb838]

There were fewer terrorist strikes in 2003 than in any year since 1969. We are winning this war.

[hchutch]

Great, "blame the victim" for Hitler's actions. I don't buy it.

[WOSG]

"That he is so attacked and maligned on FR is proof in itself that those that dispute his defense of the Conservative values are themselves not truly Conservative at all (i.e. Neo-cons and/or Liberals)."

Ahem, he is attacked because well-meaning conservatives think he is *wrong*. His arguments against "empire" are strawman arguments, and many other points he made are questionable at best. Tell what 'neocon' advocates empire - give us a quote. It's BS. there is no "empire" here, just a global war against terror and rogue regimes that sponsor them.

When Saddam invaded Kuwait, Pat B. opposed kicking him out of Kuwait. Pat B. thought 'sanctions' were enough - well we saw how ineffective they were ... had we listend to Pat B. by 1993 Saddam would have had nuclear weapons and a chokehold on the worlds oil supply. WAKE UP MAN, we couldnt make the world economy a hostage to a genocidal maniac.

But with the policies of Pat B. and Sen Kennedy, we almost did. (Thanks to GHWB, though, we didnt.)

Do you really think Pat B was right to oppose the Gulf War I and accuse it of being driven by the Jewish "amen corner"???!?

[WOSG]

In some respects we are in a worse situation in Iraq vs Vietnam wrt to the Arab population, since the Arab Muslim culture encourages bigotted attitudes against the West. This is not just saddam, but the whole culture for 50 years has been bred on anti-western propaganda.

Still, we have 90% of Kurds loving us, and most of the them are muslims, so it perhaps is not Islam itself, but the "Islam" defined by the particular clerics that preach it.

I dont think we should be harming prisoners at all. On the contrary, we should be using the most effective brainwashing techniques we can find to "re-educate them".

Start by telling the Jihadists that Muhammed was a Jew. There is proof in the Quran! That'll mess with their mind.

[johnb838]

That's not fair. I'm not saying they created Hitler. I'm just saying they displayed a marked tendency to take advantage of the situation after WWI and it blew up in their faces. Now they are doing something similar with regard to Iraq and the European Union. Playing games with things that no one should ever play games with. May they not get burned, but I can see it happening.

[johnb838]

I like the way you think!

[iconoclast]

Do you know what their reason for attacking us was?

Yep, and it has nothing to do with "freedom and democracy".

[iconoclast]

That means we don't have enough troops to provide for the planned rotation of troops from Iraq.

Wow! If I were you I'd get my resume into Rummy!

[shhrubbery!]

Nobody can state clearly what we're trying to accomplish with this war, how we're going to accomplish it and what our exit strategy is.

Not quite right. It CAN be stated, "what we're trying to accomplish with this war," but it would be too politically incorrect and dangerous for the Bush administration to state it. So I will: We are trying to re-shape the Middle East.

Do you not understand that the Middle East has been THE major source of instability in the world, and THE source of 99% of all terrorism? And, that had we not toppled Saddam, it would have continued to be the launching pad for Armageddon? (Now that may be slightly hyperbolic -- but only slightly.)

How we are going to accomplish it? We've already accomplished a lot: Look at what has happened with Libya. Other terrorist states will fall into line -- provided we stay the course.

Exit strategy? Exiting is going to take a long time. It took a long time in Germany and Japan, too.

[iconoclast]

but we have to keep an eye on it because we can't let Iraq become an exporter of terrorism again.

I'd be afraid to ask for a show of hands here of those who think Iraq sponsored 9/11.

[iconoclast]

Actually, I would say we underestimated the degree to which the population would remain terrorized by the ex-Saddam forces over a year later.

Oh, PUHLEEZE!