That’s the attitude taken by commentator Charles Krauthammer on the situation in Iraq.
He writes:
This whole debate about civil war is surreal. What is the insurgency if not a war supported by one (minority) part of Iraqi society fighting to prevent the birth of the new Iraqi state supported by another (majority) part of Iraqi society?
By definition that is civil war, and there’s nothing new about it. As I noted here in November 2004: “People keep warning about the danger of civil war. This is absurd. There already is a civil war. It is raging before our eyes. Problem is, only one side” — the Sunni insurgency — “is fighting it.”
Indeed, until very recently that has been the case: ex-Baathist insurgents (aided by the foreign jihadists) fighting on one side, with the United States fighting back in defense of a new Iraq dominated by Shiites and Kurds.
Now all of a sudden everyone is shocked, shocked to find Iraqis going after Iraqis. But is it not our entire counterinsurgency strategy to get Iraqis who believe in the new Iraq to fight Iraqis who want to restore Baathism or impose Taliban-like rule? Does not everyone who wishes us well support the strategy of standing up the Iraqis so we can stand down? And does that not mean getting the Iraqis to fight the civil war themselves?
Hence the gradual transfer of war-making responsibility. Hence the decline of American casualties. Hence the rise of Iraqi casualties.
So for Krauthammer the question is not whether there’s a civil war in Iraq but how do we make sure the right guys win it:
Civil wars are not eternal. This war will end not with an Appomattox instrument of surrender. It will end when a critical mass of Sunnis stops supporting the insurgency and throws in its lot with the new Iraq.
How does this happen? The stick is military — the increased cost in the Sunni blood of continuing the fight. But the carrot is political — a place at the table for those Sunnis, some of whom are represented in parliament, who are prepared to abandon the insurgency for a share of power, a share of oil income and a sense of security and dignity in the new Iraq.
This is doable. That is not to say it will be done. It is to say that those who have decided that because of “civil war” it cannot be done have been unreasonably panicked by something that has been with us all along.
Since the beginning of the war I have had a nagging feeling that unless the Iraqi people actually fought and defeate their fanatical oppressors our efforts would be in vain. I do not believe that the U.S. would have ever become a great nation had France simply liberated us instead of the Revolutionaries fighting and dying for their freedom.
Similarly, I wonder what Christianity would have looked like had the early Christians not been willing to die for what they believed in.
If we end up losing in Iraq, it will be because the only people who fought for what they believed in were the fanaticals…
We could do, and did do, what they could not do for themselves: got SH outta there. But we can’t do what they won’t do: settle their own differences. Bring the troops home.
Bring the troops home.
And ensure that the fanaticals will be the only ones to ever fight?
“bring the troops home.” A very appropriate comment on the 33rd anniversary of the day our last combat troops left South Vietnam. Yeah, let’s repeat the errors of the past and abandon people to the wolves of the world. Watch the dominoes fall again.
What’s funny is that, when the troops eventually do come home, the lefties will take credit for it… “Bush finally bowed to our pressure and brought them home”, no matter how long the troops will have been there, or what they will have accomplished.
News flash: Everyone wants the troops home, even Bush. Maybe especially Bush.
My Dad was a cop, and I’m sure my Mom was always praying that he would “come home”, but that doesn’t mean she would have wanted him to skip out in the middle of a bar fight and leave his buddies behind in order to come home and take his usual seat in the La-Z-Boy.
She wanted him home, AND she wanted him to do the honorable thing by kicking tail and taking names alongside the other cops.
In many ways, the U.S. is not only the world’s policeman, but the world’s EMT, and if you don’t belive that, look what happens after any major disaster. Either massive relief efforts by the U.S., or complaints that we haven’t done enough, or both.
And like a cop, if we do nothing, people will complain that we are callous and don’t really care about the suffering of others.
If we give food and work and money, people will complain that we didn’t give enough, or that we were inefficient, or helped the wrong people too much, or didn’t give the right kind of food…
If we do anything that requires force, people will complain that we are brutal repressors who should mind our own business. Even the ones who dialed 9-1-1 in the first place will cry foul if we have to get rough. My Dad saw this many times, and often found himself being struck and spat on by the same woman who called to report that she had been beaten by her drunken husband husband (who my Dad was now dragging to his squad car).
That’s life. We are a wealthy country, and that makes it incumbent on us to help out when we can. But we shouldn’t expect it to be any fun, and we shouldn’t expect any thanks.
Yes, bring them home. No one has addressed my point that we can’t do what the Iraqi’s won’t do, namely govern themsleves. Now, if you want to set up a colony over there, I’m open to the evidence. Don’t ask an army to act like cops, the entire web of social assumptions needed to make each work are different (which is the cop analogies above are soooo bad.) But, what do we care whether they adopt democracy? Who says that’s the best for them? Tribal governance worked for the Jews for a long time, are the Iraqis more civilized than 2nd millenium BC Jews? We went from a good goal (getting SH out) to a bad, or least an impossible one, establishing democracy in a land with ZERO democratic sensibilities. And a lot of honorable men are sacrificing their lives not to save the oppressed now, but to set up a form of government that might, very truly, be in no one’s interest. Why is that such an unthinkable objection to continued war there?
“‘bring the troops home.’ A very appropriate comment on the 33rd anniversary of the day our last combat troops left South Vietnam. Yeah, let’s repeat the errors of the past and abandon people to the wolves of the world. Watch the dominoes fall again.”
You are correct. Because of our failure to win in Vietnam the Communists have succeeded in taking over one country after another. Let’s not let that happen again.
Tim, my post here is unrelated to political matters, much less to the war in Iraq, something that I, a Marine, am all to familiar with. I speak, rather, to your post above. I do so as the son, brother, nephew, cousin, and (now) uncle of various NY & NJ cops.
Thanks, Tim, for the family you hail from. I am safer, today, because of your Dad’s courage.
God bless.
Anonymous-
Do you really not see that the current situation in Iraq gives the people of that country the best chance they have had in a century for a really stable and humane government?
No, there is no guarantee of success, but I am damn proud of the fact that we have given normal human existence a fighting chance over there.
“Don’t ask an army to act like cops”.
How should they act?
And, Thanks Jim for your kind words. I gratefully accept them for my Dad and Mom and for all cops and their families.
Tim has just conceded my point, that the army is over there (under orders) to establish a new form of government. The army should act like an army: kill the enemy, and come home. Let civilians (who live there) work out the kind of government they want.
My lefty friends rained on me for supporting military force against SH; my righty friends dump on me for opposing the use of force to impose an alien form of government on a people. Oh well, I’ve been consistent before, and it’s gotten me in trouble. Oh, and since we’re apparently in the business of emotional one-upmanship (you know, where only those with “personal expereince” have a right to express views), I’ll show this post to my brother the cop, too, (who thinks the boys should come home).
Anonymous-
Are you seriously suggesting that we should have removed Saddam and then just BUGGED OUT before any alternate form of government had a chance to form?
Brilliant.
I can understand those who think we should have just let things be, but I can’t believe that anyone would actually assert that we should have just left the Iraqis with no government at all. I have never talked to anyone who held that opinion before.
TJ: It’s a caricature of my postition, but at least it’s a response to it. I was getting tired of being only one responding to to the other side. 2 monologues don’t equal a dialongue. but please spare the sarcasm. I am serious in this: a powerful nation might have a duty to exercise a third-party right of self defense (which we did) but have, not only no duty, but no ability to impose a specifc form of government on an alien people. If i resuce a baby from the train tracks, do i have to raise it?
here are two simple questions: 1. is it right to use military force to impose a specific form of government (democracy, monarchy, tribal unions, whatever) on an alien people; and 2, does any thing in iraq in the last 50 years, make that 500, (make it 5000) give any sign that they are ready for participative democracy? i think the answer to both is no, but do you, who think the answer to both is yes, think that it is so clearly YES to both that no one could possibly reach a different conclusion than you?
in my own travels, and from my own guests from many nations, i hear them saying, “Deep down, we know you Americans are the most generous people on earth. Generous with money (or food or medicine, etc) and generous with your lives (armies to save Europe, etc.) But, we mean this, you are so dumb about how other nations think. You really think they all think like you do, and from that totally wrong assumption, you make all sorts of blunders.”
Anyway think about my 2 questions, and if we disagree, fine, but ask yourself how you can be so cock-sure of your answer as to treat disagreement as necessarily a joke, or sacracasm, or insanity or lack a patriotism.
Anonymous-
You say that I made a caricature of your position.
How? Please tell me.
You did not answer my question. Are you seriously suggesting that we should have removed Saddam and then just LEFT before any alternate form of government had a chance to form?
In the case of the baby, of course you are not morally obligated to raise it… but I would think that you would be morally obligated not to leave it laying by the tracks after you rescued it (him/her).
ok, TJ 1 last try. I have a day job. Look what you just wrote: “You did not answer my question. Are you seriously suggesting that we should have removed Saddam and then just LEFT before any alternate form of government had a chance to form?”
But, don’t you see? You just changed the US mission in Iraq from “leaving before any alternate form of gov. had a chance to form” (which might be blameworthy) to “imposing THIS SPECIFIC form of gov., participative democracy, on you and we’re staying till you get OUR idea of what’s best for you right.” (which IS blameworthy)Ok? You either see the difference, or you don’t. And you’ll either think about my two questions, as i have clearly thought about yours, or you won’t.
A clear mind can answer “Yes” or “No”. A muddled mind cannot.
“1. is it right to use military force to impose a specific form of government (democracy, monarchy, tribal unions, whatever) on an alien people;”
No that would not be right, and fortunately that is not what is happening. Is there some serious group in Iraq putting forward the idea of a monarchy? Have I missed the angry press conferences by frustrated leaders of the Tribal Union movement? The Iraqi people will ultimately decide – democratically – what kind of government they want for their country.
All those Iraqis waving their purple fingers in the air and dancing in the streets didn’t look too imposed-upon to me. Our military is there to maintain some semblance of order while the Iraqis hash things out for themselves, which is happening.
“…and 2, does any thing in iraq in the last 50 years, make that 500, (make it 5000) give any sign that they are ready for participative democracy?”.
Well, the purple finger syndrome I mentioned before is a pretty good indicator. I expect that the British thought the same thing about the American colonies in 1776. It had to have looked like some kind of mad New World fever that had taken hold of the people. Those barbarians really think they can rule themselves?
We are not imposing democracy, we are giving Iraqis a chance at democracy. Ultimately, they will accept or reject it, and I think everyone realizes that.
And I think if they can begin to reject the fascists among them, they are capable of anything.
Oh, and I should point out… I think you can militarily impose dictatorship on people, or monarchy, but I think forced democracy is an oxymoron. It’s like saying the Peace Corps is forcing clean water on Africans.
A tribal or feudal system is something that bubbles up from the interaction of family, religious and geographical relationships, and really can’t be imposed on people, either, though if Afghanistan is any indication, feudal/tribalism is just another word for chaos.