It Didn’t Work (Buckley declares Iraq a failure)

National Review Online ^ | 02/24/06 | William F Buckley Jr

[CometBaby]

"I can tell you the main reason behind all our woes — it is America." The New York Times reporter is quoting the complaint of a clothing merchant in a Sunni stronghold in Iraq. "Everything that is going on between Sunni and Shiites, the troublemaker in the middle is America."

One can't doubt that the American objective in Iraq has failed. The same edition of the paper quotes a fellow of the American Enterprise Institute. Mr. Reuel Marc Gerecht backed the American intervention. He now speaks of the bombing of the especially sacred Shiite mosque in Samara and what that has precipitated in the way of revenge. He concludes that “The bombing has completely demolished” what was being attempted — to bring Sunnis into the defense and interior ministries.

Our mission has failed because Iraqi animosities have proved uncontainable by an invading army of 130,000 Americans. The great human reserves that call for civil life haven't proved strong enough. No doubt they are latently there, but they have not been able to contend against the ice men who move about in the shadows with bombs and grenades and pistols.

[joseph20]

I just think it is a lost cause.

I'm glad you're not the President! Seriously, it's way too early to be declaring things a "lost cause". Fortitude my friend, fortitude.

[fragrant abuse]

How about the Iran-Iraq war?

Slain and pimple.

[Billthedrill]

Oh, dear, it does look as if Mr. Buckley is a bit out of touch. It doesn't surprise me a great deal given that he is quoting - mind you, this is Bill Buckley - given to quoting the NY Times. The poison has taken hold, and it's a shame, but that does not change the fact that Mr. Buckley is simply incorrect.

I can understand a certain seduction for a conservative who is uncomfortable with U.S. military adventurism overseas of the point of view that they're all too, well, foreign, for the dream of democracy. Unfortunately for Mr. Buckley they are not, and it is disappointing but not entirely unpredictable that he might draw the false conclusion here. These are sensational events and he has succumbed to sensation. They are also entirely superficial and he has, alas, succumbed to superficiality. Too much reading of the NY Times will do that to a fellow.

I do not think that he intends to fill Cronkite's shoes, but that is in fact what is transpiring. Again, a pity, but Buckley is an observer, not a doer, and when an observer loses his detachment all sorts of silly things are prone to come out of his mouth. This is one of the sillier. To declare defeat at a cusp such as this is the not the mark of a detached intellect, it is the mark of an old man swayed by emotion, and while forgivable in circumstances where it matters less than this, it isn't here, IMHO. He really should know better. His reading of history should tell him better. What has happened here is a failure of courage. His.

I am simply sorry that a monolithic media that he has fought all his adult life has at last won, at least with respect to Buckley himself. With his successors it won't be quite that easy. Not with me, in any case. What is happening in Iraq now is not defeat, it is incipient victory. The only people that can defeat us is ourselves.

[LZ_Bayonet]

To: Billthedrill

You drilled it Bill! Good post!

[jennyp]

"You mean I don't have to feel vaguely inadequate as I drift into a stupor waiting for him to finish his sentences, with all those big, obscure words, intoned ponderously?"

Would you prefer hip-hop?

Pygmy? Bushmen 'click'?

It's just that erudition & a big vocabulary can be used to clarify difficult topics, or merely to impress the hoi polloi, and I always get this queasy feeling when either reading or listening to him that he's...

But maybe it's just me. :-)

[Dr. Frank fan]

[we are trying to help bring a reasonably sane, consensual government to a people that has never seen one.] The same statement applies to WWII Japan.

Ok. So Iraq's taking longer. And? Is there a point in there somewhere?

One difference between 2003 Iraq and the 1945 Japan we had found ourselves with, was that two of Japan's cities had been nuked, I believe. So, cutting to the chase, do I take you, in these few comments, to be essentially asking why we don't just nuke some Iraqi cities? Which ones?

[it's the inexplicable and needless impatience] Needless perhaps, but not at all inexplicable. The idea of a "return to normalcy" is a part of our national character.

But that's just it: who of us, and in particular who of the whiners, every really left normalcy? There are the military people doing the actual work, of course (but most of them wish to persist). But for the rest of us? I dare say that for 99% of the people who whine and gripe, the only difference between normalcy and now is that now, they repeatedly get on the internet and whine about how Iraq's not going fast enough and how tired they are of it and how they want to get back to normalcy.

That's why I find it inexplicable. Most of the impatient people I'm referring to may as well be complaining about being tired of a plotline on "Desperate Housewives", for all any of this has actually affected their lives.

[KDD]

Most of these posters on here today wouldn't know the difference between the YAF and the SDS

They call themselves conservatives and they aren't intelligent enough to clean the head on his boat.

In the mid to late fifties Whitter Chambers(renounced communism and put Hiss away...hated forever by leftists) and he became friends and exchanged correspondence over the years. He once asked Chambers to join the staff of the then new National Review in one of his letters expressing exorbitant hopes for the role the publication might play in human affairs.

Chambers answer, which Mr. Buckley called "a paragraph unmatched in the literature of supine gloom, even though finally resisting despair" was thus...

It is idle [he rebuked me] to talk about preventing the wreck of Western Civilization. It is already a wreck from within. That is why we can hope to do little more now than snatch a fingernail of a saint from the rack or a handful of ashes from the faggots, and bury them secretly in a flowerpot against the day, ages hence, when a few men begin again to dare to believe that there was once something else, that something else is thinkable, and needs some evidence of what it was, and the fortifying knowledge that there were those who, at the great nightfall, took loving thought to preserve the tokens of hope and truth,

[Bahbah]

I read that with my morning coffee. I was a great pleasure.

[Fruitbat]

Now, if I could just get my attention surplus disorder under control...

LMAO...

[Fruitbat]

It's going to take years and perhaps decades. This should not be surprising. Iraq was a Stalinist dictatorship for decades. Yet for some reason people seem to want it to wrap up with a big "we're finished making a perfect democracy" ceremony faster than an episode of American Idol. Sorry, but, it's going to take years and perhaps decades. Ok? I knew this going in. Didn't you? Didn't everybody? If not, why not? And when are they going to come to terms with it do you think?

Yeah, I agree. Just throwin' it out there rhetorically. A lot can happen during that time as well however and we're precariously walking a fine line between them becoming overly reliant on us and them becoming dependent on us for handling most things.

As well, people tend to have short memories. I don't think it's a real reach to consider that at some point, "anti-American" sentiments for one reason(s) or another could spark some sort of backlash against our own troops.

We also have to remember, it's still muslim too. Islam and muslims have their own set of inherent issues.

[kabar]

Do you mind me asking, do you think we can win? How would we do that? And do you think that if the current status quo continued for years (ie..we need to be there for the next decade) does that constitute success?

We can win by continuing to do what we are doing now, i.e., maintain the overall security while gradually turning over more and more responsibily to the Iraqis. We are training their military and police forces to assume the security responsibilities. The infrastructure is being repaired and upgraded, which should ensure future economic success. We should encourage the Iraqi political class to work together and share power. There are limits to what we can do, but time is on our side.

Hopefully, the status quo won't obtain, but rather, improve. If we have the proper resolve, the level of violence will decline and the insurgency will go out with a wimper, not a bang. I believe we will be in Iraq for some time, but our military profile will continue to decline. Success will be defined in terms of political stability, a reduced level of violence, economic prosperity, and an improved infrastructure. Our presence will be needed for strategic reasons. Syria and Iran represent a real threat to Iraq and to ourselves as part of the global war on terror. Success in Iraq is not an option. We must achieve our objectives.

[Fruitbat]

Oh boo hoo. We don't have a "guarantee of success". How spoiled we now are! I can only thank goodness that in 1943 we weren't so plagued by natterers braying about not having a "guarantee of success".

I'm all for being over there until the job's done, but how long's that gonna be given [...]

No honest person can tell you the answer to your question. We will just have to find out. Ok?

As you know, we still have troop presences in Germany and Japan.

Yes, I know. I could probably list the bases, populations, and future plans for you too.

The questions are rhetorical since you're such a genius yourself. ; )

Your responses are somewhat predictable. It's funny how some people once they make up their minds, close their minds to any further discussion on the issue(s).

But it sounds as if in your mind success is guaranteed and that it's only a matter of time if I read you correctly.

Here's a clue: Germany and Japan weren't Islamic. That means that they weren't muslims. ; ) If you dont' see any difference between muslim and non-muslim in this world today, along with the host of accompanying "volatilities" associated witht the former, and more specifically between the two groups, well, then I can certainly understand your seemingly smug position.

[aruanan]

Well, at least in the above excerpt, the point is that the trouble is coming not as a result of U.S. intervention, but in spite of it. In most places in the world the existing culture is such that long-entrenched rivalries (think religious or linguistic or ethnic Hatfield/McCoy) make impossible the kind of civic life found here in the United States and, to a lesser degree, in Europe. Several things follow:

1. Unless one of those groups is so strong as to surpress the others, there will be open trouble between the groups. Some ways of dealing with this have been extermination of the subordinate groups (think Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Rwanda) or expulsion (15th century Spain and the expulsion of Jews from Arab/Muslim countries during the 20th century, the forced relocation of certain American Indian groups) or assimilation.

2. If the iron hand of that surpressing group is removed, the long-entrenched factions become more well-defined and will scramble for ascendency or independence (viz the former nations taken over by the Soviet Union reasserting their national identities).

3. Although many different ethnic groups have come to the United States with a yearning to be free and have been successfully assimilated into the U.S. culture, it doesn't follow that, given a chance, these same ethnic groups in their places of origin, simply because of their yearning to be free, will be able to recreate the U.S. experience.

4. The success of the United States has depended upon the willingness of those arriving here to become American: you leave behind your claim as an ethnic group (whether defined principally by language or religion) to be the ultimate and true expression of humanity and learn to fit in with everyone else; what you do is more important than what group you belong to.

This was done very successfully by nearly all of the ethnic groups before the middle of the 20th century. The reemergence of segregationist politics in the latter 20th century, though, has made this increasingly difficult. People seeking to use the "black" or "Latino" or "Muslim" vote are working, wittingly or unwittingly, to recreate the factionally fractured appearance of most of the rest of the world and this at the same time that leaders in the U.S. believe that by using U.S. military strength to create a "level playing field" they will be able to see freedom and toleration and interdependence spontaneously emerge.

It may be a wise thing to use military power to take out a threat (Hitler and the Japanese), but what you have to deal with in the aftermath depends a lot on what was there before. In the case of Europe, touted as a success of the Marshall Plan, it may be that any sense of European unity is the result of having had to fight against Hitler or having been subjugated by him. Earlier, though, the similar experience of World War I in fighting Germany didn't unify Europe enough to be able to deal with Hitler.

At any rate, a more serious threat to the U.S. is not what some group overseas (whether a country or a faction) is trying to do to against us but the loss, by identity politics, of the American culture that made voluntary assimilation possible. When the government starts making policies that strengthen factions, then we're heading to disaster. And one of these policies has been the turn away from expecting everyone to learn English.

[F16Fighter]

Buckley must use his microwave oven to "roast" his Thanksgiving turkey.

[SteveMcKing]

I, for one, did not know the difference between SDS and SDS.

Wish I could remember a certain poster who said it -- he awakened me to the reality that the "Greatest generation" was somewhat relative, and despite our nostalgia and genuine fondness for them, they had all of the same social problems, cultural issues, and loathsome individuals we face today.

If our systems collapse by their own malfunction and corrupt attitudes, then there is little we can do but keep flowery hope for that "time capsule" you described in Chambers' letter. But the human cost will be terrible, and it may be only a dream that we could ever repair ourselves to the levels you and I may envision.

[stocksthatgoup]

Buckley is losing this argument!

[kabar]

Was any of it -- the billion dollars a week of US tax money, the 2000-plus AMerican military deaths - necessary for the protection of American interests? No.

The answer is yes. On 9/11 we lost more people than on December 7, 1941. We were attacked by a global terrorist organization, which had its headquarters in Afghanistan. We invaded Afghanistan, despite the fact that the Taliban was not involved in the 9/11 attack. Why? Because we could no longer tolerate state sponsors of terrorism with a global reach. It was called the Bush Doctrine.

No. Iraq didn't have WMDs, didn't have anything to do with 9-11, and with a 6th rate military, didn't pose a threat to the US.

Iraq did have WMDs. It used them against the Iranians and the Kurds. They failed to account for the destruction of their inventory of WMD, which is why there were UN inspectors in the country for almost a decade. The real question is what did Saddam do with his WMD.

Iraq was a state sponsor of terrorism and was listed as such on the State Department's list for over a decade prior to 9/11. Saddam harbored such terrorists as Abu Nidal and one of the culprits responsible for WTC I. Iraq paid the families of Palestinian suicide bombers. Saddam had terrorist training camps. Per the 9/11 Commission report Iraqi intelligence had contacts with AQ, but evidence of an operational relationship could not be found. The jury is still out as more and more information is discovered, e.g., the Saddam tapes. Iraq was behind an assassination plot against Bush 41.

Prior to 9/11, US and British aircraft were enforcing no-fly zones over Iraq. They were being fired upon on almost a daily basis. Our planes were also bombing Iraqi installations. Congress passed a resolution under Clinton that regime change was our objective in Iraq. The truce that followed the end of the Gulf War was not a peaceful one. The question after 9/11 was how could we fight the global war on terror and allow Saddam to remain in power using Iraq as a sanctuary for terrorists. Saddam's track record, i.e., previous use of WMD, invasion of two of his neighbors, terrorist connections, deceptions used against the UN inspectors, etc., ruled against the status quo.

Iraq is part of the WOT in much the same way that Afghanistan was. Iraq was not a military threat against the US, but its use of terrorist surrogates against us was. We are learning more and more about Saddam's ties to AQ. The Oil for Food scandal demonstrated that Saddam had ample funds to bankroll terrorist activities and to purchase WMD from North Korea and people like AQ Khan. We could contain Saddam's 6th rate military, but not the use of terrorist surrogates.

We are fighting AQ today in Iraq. Zarqawi was in Iraq before we invaded. We are at war with AQ and should fight them wherever they are, including Iraq and Afghanistan. Our national interests are at stake.

[P.O.E.]

Just found a bunch of 60's era issues of the "National Review". Articles were incredibly prescient and many are still relevant.

National Review charges to access the online archives, probably just to force the underpriviledged to have to resort to the public library.

[P.O.E.]

"underpriviledged" s/b "under-privileged". Mo' coffee.

[slowhand520]

Just because Buckley disagrees with our position we shouldn't dismiss him as senile. For crying out loud. He has sided before on unpopular positions. One of the best debates was Buckley vs. Reagan (regarding the ratification of the Panama canal treaty). He has an opinion just like us. We shouldn't need a commentators words to secure our own beliefs in the war. If you are looking for solace there are other conservative commentators like Rush Limbaugh who will do that for you.