Democratic Progress in Iraq

Much has been written about the George W. Bush administration's attitude toward promoting democracy. President Bush often spoke of ending tyranny in the world and the unselfish, humanitarian benefits he hoped to achieve. But he never argued, in public or private, that America should go to war in order to spread democracy.

Neoconservatives, including myself, were accused of wanting to spread democracy by the sword. But I saw no evidence of that. We supported war in Iraq to defend America against threats. The Saddam Hussein regime was posing serious dangers, as the United Nations containment strategy for Iraq deteriorated.

The war would open a way for a new democracy to arise, as it did with Germany, Italy, and Japan after World War II. If democracy grew successfully, America, as well as the people of Iraq, would benefit.

Democracy's progress around the globe in the 20th century contributed to America's security and freedom. The experience of that century suggests that war is less likely between democratic states than between states that are not democratic.

Congress passed the Smith Act, which made it a crime to advocate the violent overthrow of the American government.

Can the Smith Act be used to stop a "peaceful" overthrow of the American government?

The Bush administration did not go to war in order to spread democracy. But we saw that the war would create an opportunity to promote democracy in the Middle East. And we understood the U.S. interest in capitalizing on that opportunity, if possible.

Exactly!

I disagree with the timid apologists for democracy.

Because democracy is the *main* goal. Advancing the democratic revolution around the world has been the good goal of America since its own democratic revolution.

And every tyrant in the world is cowed by democracy. They even pretend that they are democratic, calling themselves democratic even when they are tyrannies and dictatorships. This shows their fear of the democratic revolution.

But democracy knows their lies, and continues its advance against those who hate and fear it. Every American president who has advanced democracy around the world has this as his legacy. Most of the rest, who just held the line and protected other democracies from destruction, hold a lesser honor, but still honorable.

And the very few who have abandoned democracies to evil live in shame. Like Jimmy Carter. They failed their office, as they failed America, and they failed the free nations of the world.

George H.W. Bush has earned his seat in the first tier of US presidents in many ways. He has purchased the freedom of more than 30 million lives, and opened the eyes of countless others to the hope for freedom and the need for democracy throughout the Middle East.

Then freepers need to read GWB Foreign Policy Statement when he came to office. It reads like a Wilsonian Policy of using US power (mainly soft, but implication is if target nation resists, then hard power (military) can be used) to spread human rights, democracy, free market and etc, etc, etc. Nothing wrong with its goals, but it will cause nondemocratic nations to see the policy as US interference in their internal affairs. If that happens then the US better have the manpower and treasury to back up the policy assuming the worst scenario happens (dictators support wars of liberation, economic warfare and asymmetric warfare) that will require US forces to deal with terrorism and insurgencies. GWB necons wrote a foreign policy that does not have sufficient military manpower to back up the worst situation that can happen. Personally, I think we should deal with each threat on a case by case basis and use realpolitik factors (war versus cost of war) to make policy decisions. I think one of the good outcomes of the Iraqi war, is it has tempered the overconfidence of the empire building neocons as GWB paid in the public polls over the war.

I agree with you to a large extent. The plan of the invasion of Iraq and Rumsfield’s actions show that Rumsfield was more interested in trying to prove that a revolution in military affairs had occured which would allow the US to leverage its technological supperiority over any nation opposed to US interests.

His insistance on using a light force was not just bad in hindsight, but also completely against the Powell doctrine as well as the teachings of Clausewitz who wrote things such as “Superiority of numbers admittedly is the most important factor in the outcome of an engagement... It thus follows that as many troops as possible should be brought into the engagement at the decisive point... This is the first principle of strategy.” And also “The best strategy is simply to be strong in general and to be strong at the decisive point.”

The plan also contradicts two of the Army's principles of war - mass, and economy of force, which calls that minimum combat power be allocated to secondary efforts and the rest of combat power be placed in the main effort (did we need hundreds of thousands of soldiers in places like CONUS, Korea, and Germany instead of Iraq).

These issues didn't really get relieved until a realistic assessment of the situation in Iraq was made, Rumsfield was replaced by Gates, and GEN Petraeus took over in Iraq.

However, Barrack Obama’s foreign policy is as ideologically based as Bush's foreign policy under Rumsfield was, just in a different way. His insistance on soft power alone is naive and dangerous, too.

Rumsfeld represents the digital mentality of the new generation of businessmen. They assume short decisive wars that will require no industrial base, just in time logistics and technology. They also represent the typical X gen mentality of assume the best, hope the worst will never happen and finally adopt a strategy that if you win big, you win big, but if you screw up, then you lose big. War has not changed since ancient times, it is still a industrial age process where mass mobilization, time to ramp up production, stockpiling of spares and parts prior to war, etc, etc, etc are needed just in case a short war does not materialize. I think the Iraqi experience has tempered the over confidence of the civilian leadership and any future president to use force without measuring twice before one cuts. Our generals (Shinseki and Powell) were correct. There are good things that came out of the war, experienced troops (pool of combat experienced junior officers/NCO who will have a major future impact on DoD when they become generals and senior NCO leadership), a military that knows how to coordinate economic and local political strategy to defeat insurgents, and a large base in the Middle East to launch air and ground forces against Syria and Iran without begging Saudi Arabia for acess and saving countless lives in the Navy if we had to commit carriers into the confined Persian Gulf in the age of air to surface missiles. I hope more vets run for Congress to temper the GOP hi techies and hold the Dem traitors to accountability.

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