Rather than engage in a serious debate about America’s future course in Iraq, President Bush and the Republican Congress have again opted for sound bites and partisanship. Yet all the choreographed posturing and a one-week flurry of good news cannot blot out the larger picture of dubious trends and dismal prospects. Not only is the glass less than half full. The water level, viewed over months rather than days, is not noticeably rising…. No upbeat presidential trip to Baghdad or flag-waving Congressional resolution can long divert attention from the sorry reality. More than 130,000 American troops are now spending their fourth year mired in a dangerous and ill-defined mission with no realistic plan for success and no end in sight.
It’s beginning to appear that, at least on some primal, subliminal level, the White House is beginning to understand that the war in Iraq has all the hallmarks of a Vietnam-like quagmire…a war without end, amen. Of course, no Republican White House staffer worth his or her Lexus can or will admit to this truth. Still, you can tell by the way they keep orchestrating feel-good events designed to push up Our Glorious and Benevolent Leader’s poll numbers that they recognize the futility of their struggle against the truth.
This White House, long famed for it’s bunker mentality, now has the look and feel of devotees who can read the hand writing on the wall, but they’ve been drinking the Kool-Aid for so long that they can’t admit to what they know to be the truth. That would mean having to admit that the policy of the man they have devoted so many long hours to supporting has been horribly, misearable wrong. It would mean that they have directly participated in justifying a senseless war that has now killed more than 2500 young Americans (and counting). It would mean that they have blood on their hands…and that’s a lot for anyone to have to come to grips with.
It is meaningless to talk about Iraq’s taking charge of its own security when the police forces that patrol its cities and run its prisons are rife with sectarian militias and death squads that would sooner wage a civil war than prevent one.
While Mr. Bush holds out visions of Iraqi security forces standing up so that Americans can stand down, Iraq’s deputy justice minister more candidly told The Washington Post last week that “we cannot control the prisons; it’s as simple as that.” He added that “our jails are infiltrated by the militias from top to bottom, from Basra to Baghdad.”
And if you cannot control your prisons, what hope do you have creating and sustaining a thriving democracy? When three different communities are hell-bent on subverting the other two (never mind an insurgency created by the American invasion), and are willing to do so by any means necessary, is any reasonable hope of a functional democracy even present?
It appears that the Bush policy is to attempt to create a political entity modelled on the former Yugoslavia- a country artificially held together by a strong central government with the power to enforce it’s will upon the populace. The problem, though, is that Iraq lacks two things that were basic to the existence of Yugoslavia- a strong, nimble, and highly charismatic Supreme Leader, and a military and police infrastructure beholden to that strong leader…and willing to do whatever it takes to enforce the will of that Supreme Leader. There is no leader in Iraq today charismatic, capable, or ruthless enough to force his upon the populace and enforce the notion of a strong central government. And even if there were such a person walking the streets of Baghdad, the Iraqi military and it’s police are more Keystone Kops than trained, efficient, and able/ruthless.
Consider also the level of sectarian violence, a clear indicator of whether Iraq is moving toward national unity or sectarian conflict. In May 2003, there were five recorded incidents of sectarian violence. In May 2004, there were 10. In May 2005, there were 20. Last month there were 250. This is a very discouraging trend, as is the predictable response: thousands of families fleeing their homes.
Or look over the abysmal record of America’s multibillion-dollar reconstruction effort in Iraq, ground to a near halt by the lethal combination of military insecurity, incompetent Pentagon management and rampant American and Iraqi corruption. Electric power output has virtually flat-lined for two years. Baghdad residents still have power for only five to eight hours a day. Oil output, the key to Iraq’s paying its bills, remains below depressed prewar levels and not much higher than two years ago. Health clinics that were supposed to build good will toward America are so badly over budget and behind schedule that most may never be built.
Pretending things are better than they are will not make them so. America has some very hard strategic choices pressing down on it in Iraq — much more complicated than whether to set an arbitrary target date for troop withdrawal.
There is nothing of the many ways in which this war was sold to us that has come true. It has been ineptly, inefficiently, and dishonestly handled from Day One to the present. Why people like Our Glorious and Benevolent Leader, Paul Wolfowitz, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld aren’t up on war crimes charges is something I find difficult to understand. It would appear that the American sheeple has been swallowing the Big Lie for so long now that they’ve accepted it as the truth.
WE DESERVE BETTER.
