It's time to Bail
In the fall of 2002 I warned everyone who was willing to listen that the President's threats to invade Iraq weren't threats but promises and that it would turn into a disaster of the Good Old U.S.A. I even protested against it right up until the time the bombs started falling. It's a little too late to try and stop a war that's already started. Rather than protest what I felt was an amazingly stupid decision it was time to go home and root for the home team. It was time to hope that I was wrong, and my pessimism unjustified.
Turns out I was right all along, but then how many Middle Eastern specialists came out and backed what the Administration had planned? Can you name one-- except maybe the New York Times' Tom Friedman and he was reacting to what he saw as an inevitable spiral into Samuel Huntington's Clash of Civilizations. The Bush Administration is probably the most clueless in history. Want proof? They sent Condoleeza Rice around the Middle East to try and isolate Hamas and they announced her intentions beforehand! Even if they didn't like Hamas no self-respecting Middle Eastern politician is ever going to back the U.S. against a democratically elected Arab government, particularly when they're seen as Islamist! Quiet diplomacy might have done a teeny bit of good, but the public pronouncement guaranteed equally public rejections of Washington's positions wherever she went. Which proves that 1) the Administration still doesn't get it 2) they're still much more interested in their poll numbers than peace on Earth, or 3) all of the above.
At the same time pulling out isn't exactly an easy thing to do. First of all, it's an open admission of defeat. No country likes doing that, and few political leaders long survive it (a notably ironic exception being Saddam Hussein). If victory still seems possible, even if that possibility is dim and fleeting then you quit at a time when it can be argued you still might win. Or at least find a face-saving exit. Soldiers especially hate pulling out, for they have paid so dearly to give up now. It feels like abandoning the dead. But if you don't pull out and lose anyway a whole lot of additional capital and lives will have been spent for no reason whatsoever. George W. Bush's poll numbers aren't worth the life of a single soldier. He'd say that too even though he wouldn't mean it.
That time has finally come. The destruction of the Golden Dome in Samarra and the widespread retaliatory attacks and murders that have followed have pushed Iraq to the brink of civil war. And we're getting the blame for it even though America in no way wanted or sanctioned such attacks. We'd have stopped them if we could. But the Shi'ites-- who have up until now been very accepting of what we have done-- have turned against us. Increasingly they blame us for the destruction of the temple, and although they're wrong, they also have a point. As Colin Powell warned George Bush before the war, "You break it, you bought it." We broke it, and so we bought it as well. The temple would be standing today if we had not invaded. So in a way we do deserve some small degree of blame.
Of course one might hope that the chaos of the past few days might lead everyone to take a deep breath and step back from the brink. I'm sure some people have. But I'm not hearing it. Sunnis and Shi'ite leaders call for calm and then turn around and threaten each other. Sunnis still haven't owned up to the bombing. Shi'ite leader Muqtada al-Sadr has called for calm at the same time his own militias have been burning Sunni mosques. Even Ayatollah Sistani has begun forming of his own militias. The worst part is terrorist tactics in effect gives any small group of cranks a unit veto on peace. if it only takes a few guys to blow something up and they do, well retaliatory bombings can't be far off.
You see, the nuts are running the hen house. They people who want peace the least are in control of events. And there is no way whatsoever to take it back from them. No way but blood. We can't do a damn thing to stop it. If we intervene anywhere, even to separate them we'll be seen as favoring one side or the other. In effect, we will become partisan combatants just like we did in Lebanon back in 1983. Or has everyone forgotten about that little misadventure?
Folks, we're toast. The grand experiment is over and it's a failure. Iraq will divide into three, an oil-rich Kurdish state to the north, an oil-rich Shi'ite state in the south. and a dirt poor and pissed-off Sunni state in the middle that's used to ruling and has lots of guns. If we're not careful our soldiers will have to fight their way out of Iraq.
Democracy will not flourish in Iraq. War will flourish, war and hatred. At the end I bet much of the hatred will be directed at us.