View from the Right
Just got mail from our old pal Duffy this morning. He writes:
Things look bad for Bush, with a tough road to hoe. Sabato, a truly nonpartisan from my observation, also shoots holes through your pathetic rant on press biases. Much of your recent stuff, with the exception being your astute observation on SPR, has been almost unreadable to me and quite frankly, unworthy of comment. My only hope is that Sabato's observed trend reverses itself when the public comes to the realization that the politicization of Iraq policy has hurt the work being done there, providing aid, comfort and optimism to our enemies. Much will depend on the hand-over of "sovereignty". I remain optimistic that the inherent human desire for freedom will overcome the fanaticism and fascism trying to hold sway in Iraq, and that things will improve as the populace becomes increasingly aware that they control their own destiny. Hopefully that happens before November.
I reply as follows:
Duff –
You wrote (in part):
the politicization of Iraq policy has hurt the work being done there, providing aid, comfort and optimism to our enemies.
On this set of words we agree 100%, although I suspect they probably mean something different to me than to you. IMO, the “politicization of Iraq” began around 1998 by the PNAC (Project for New American Century, as you probably know), who had a bug up their butt about Saddam to the exclusion of all else. In 2002/3, we saw the consequences of the politicization of intelligence, the perversion of US policy through the machinations of the criminal Chalabi (now finally getting his due, it seems) and his neo-con buddies, and, worst of all, the politicization of the military, whose professional estimates and plans for the post-war period were discarded to meet the political requirements of Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and the inner circle of appointed leaders.
It was clear to a lot of folks in 2002/2003 that Iraq was not a good war for us to fight at the moment, as it would divert resources from critical anti-terrorism efforts in Afghanistan and elsewhere, needless alienate our allies, and be a disaster on the ground from the minute we succeeded in uprooting Saddam. Bush chose to ignore all this and pinned the war on a false set of assumptions and a lousy set of plans. It could possibly have worked out for him if he had been really lucky (or really did have God on his side). Unfortunately but predictably it didn’t. Not only that, it’s weakened and overextended our military capabilities, drained our treasury, killed a lot of brave soldiers, made our troops and civilians the target of every lunatic terrorist in the region, made heroes out of thugs like Al-Sadr and al-Zawahiri, discredited and humiliated our intelligence organizations, destroyed our international prestige and moral authority, and made us dreadfully unpopular with the folks we went to “liberate.” And this is even before the so-called handover, which may be the first shot in a civil war that could make matters even worse.
So let me say this slowly so you can understand it. Many of us who were against the war were against it because we didn’t want these things to happen. It’s not because we loved Saddam, or hated Bush, or were soft on terror, or were opposed to all war ever for any reason. It was because almost everything that’s happened in Iraq in the last year was the completely logical outcome based on the sad facts of the region, and the very worst thing that could happen to America is for us to start a war we couldn’t win – especially when we’re fighting a war we must win against Al Qaeda and stateless terrorism. Bush ignored this because he allowed his optimism (let’s be charitable here) to get the better of his intelligence (ditto). I’m genuinely sorry that it turned out this way and I’m not cheering for our defeat. On the contrary, I’m mad as hell at the dumb bastards who got us into this without a thought for the consequences.
It’s wonderful to have faith in the goodness of mankind and the “inherent human desire for freedom” but it’s a very bad bet. Conservatives, of all people, should know this. You’re the hard-headed lot who distrusts social engineering and the power of the state to impose virtue. But you all let partisanship get in the way of your principles here. Clearly genuine conservatives felt it was more important to support Bush in his folly than challenge his misguided plan at the time. It’s clear not everyone on the Right is or was happy with the neo-Con agenda, but you stuck with him and made anyone who spoke up against the war last year sound like hippies or traitors. Now Bush, in the words of Bill Krystal, has run you up on the rocks (along with the rest of the country) and everyone on the Right is trying to blame someone else for their problems (example here).
Sorry. Not this time. We’re not losing in Iraq because of the media, or some puny anti-war protesters at home, or lack of support from Congressional Democrats (for all the good it would have done). Bush got everything he wanted. He steamrolled all opposition in Congress, the UN, the media and the public. Support for the war was something like 70% back in March or April of 2003. According to a study by FAIR, only 3 out of 77 interviews on network news (plus PBS) in the month leading up to the war were of opponents of the policy. Bush could do exactly as he liked, and no one could stop him.
Support has evaporated for one simple reason. Bush f*cked up. The media isn’t making up all these nasty stories from Iraq: they’re reporting events that are actually taking place. We’re losing because our strategy was misguided from the start and the war planners were and remain incompetent to handle the challenges of the occupation. That’s what happens when you let wishful thinking take the place of the hard work of planning and analysis, give political cronies and ideologues power over trained professionals, and supplant the deliberative processes of consensus-building and diplomacy with impulsiveness and impatience.
Thanks to the genius of this plan, America’s prospects are reduced to hoping “the inherent human desire for freedom will overcome the fanaticism and fascism trying to hold sway in Iraq, and that things will improve as the populace becomes increasingly aware that they control their own destiny.” Iraqis. You know, those wonderful people with the long history of peace, democracy, ethnic harmony and political moderation. Yeah, good luck with that.
Please don’t interpret this as reveling in our failure. I’m angry as hell about it. America is a great country with high ideals, uniquely able to use its power for good in the world. We should never have to face the situation we’re in now, and we should fight like hell to make sure it doesn’t get any worse. But the people who got us into it – against the weight of evidence and common sense – have done more damage to this country than a brigade of Benedict Arnolds or a 747 full of Osamas. Providing "aid, comfort and optimism to our enemies" indeed!
“Politicization of Iraq?” Hah! Iraq was political from the start, a national nightmare undertaken to gratify Bush and the neocons’ ideological obsessions, founded on falsehoods and pursued with wishful thinking. Politics may offer us the only way left for us to finally wake up.
10:15:49 AM 
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