Dubya Bush likely received a valuable political lesson from his father, but may have been only half listening. “War will make you popular,” I can imagine the old man saying, “…so long as it’s short and successful.” Junior probably wandered off about when he heard the “so long.” As a result, the younger Bush shares his father’s love of bombing and invading other countries, but lacks George Senior’s horse-sense about picking the right fights – namely, easily winnable ones. Hence Operation Iraqi Fiefdom and, in effect, the war in Afghanistan as well, which by any reasonable standard is also a dismal failure in achieving the original stated objective (i.e. destroying al Qaeda and capturing/killing Bin Laden). So… how do you finesse such spectacular under-achievements? Well, if you’re none too subtle and you have a very low opinion of the masses, you move the goal posts. And you do it again and again. That’s certainly the modus operandi in both of these wars, but particularly in Iraq, where six month strategies stretch into 18 months with barely a word from the president on the last set of “benchmarks” left unmet.

Perhaps it’s just Dubya himself, the substandard student, the frat-boy drunkard, never making the grade but expecting promotion nonetheless (and seldom encountering disappointment in that regard). It could be that he simply doesn’t understand what objectives are. But I think the problem goes far beyond this one man. We have to confront the likelihood that if this war had gone successfully and ended quickly, it would have been popular even with the same odious goals and bogus rationales. Sure, I know… that’s like saying, “If my grandmother had wheels, she’d be a wagon.” But this war would have been wrong even if it had been short and easy. It would also have been enthusiastically supported by something like a majority of Americans, and maybe a far greater proportion. Remember Panama, Grenada, and “Desert Storm.” Kill a few thousand locals and we’re standing tall. Everybody waving their little flags.

That makes me wonder about us, quite frankly. Do we really need to be directly connected to suffering before we recognize it for what it is and act accordingly? Does the dead person have to be a relative or a friend or a close neighbor for us to give a shit? Perhaps. I remain convinced that the American people have the power to stop the Iraq war if we insist upon it. It just hasn’t hit most of us yet, so we ignore it. We are so quiet about our distaste for the war that the Bush administration has actually felt bold enough to abandon the fiction that our presence in Iraq is a short-term necessity. Indeed, they have started talking in terms of a permanent military presence in that country. Now… this, of course, was manifestly obvious from the beginning, and they have been building permanent bases there for four years, but until now they’ve at least softly denied that there was an intention to stay permanently. Not anymore, apparently. Likely we’ll be presented with the mirage-like possibility of troop reductions – Petraeus’s announcement of next spring’s drawdown like it’s something new; Gate’s vague suggestion of further reductions by the end of next year.

Question is, when do we get to zero? Answer: never. They didn’t take Iraq just to leave it later. They want to stay, and only the American people can derail that policy.

luv u,

jp

September is here, and the progress reports are rolling in on the Iraq project. The president brought several high ranking administration officials along on a “surprise” visit to a fortified base in al-Anbar province, there to crow in his trademark way about what he sees as evidence of success in his “surge” strategy, but which is actually the result of a coincidence of purpose between U.S. forces and Sunni tribal leaders there who had resolved to rid themselves of al-Qaeda types some time ago. I can’t tell you how many times I heard about insurgent groups in central Iraq turning against that stark minority of foreign jihadists through the course of last year. That is not the work of our military strategists – that is probably the Iraqis taking on a destructive force they feel they can actually defeat, as opposed to fighting the U.S., which they can bleed but not defeat. No one should kid themselves into thinking that this is the beginning of a long-term alliance, unless our government is planning on playing the imperial minority-rule card again, and lord knows that game won’t work now. The moment Sunnis push the jihadis out, they’ll turn the guns back on our troops… if they’re still in country.

But Bush’s Iraq policy isn’t even mainly about Iraq anymore, it seems; it’s really more about Iran now. Iran is practically every third word out of the administration’s mouth these days, a fact illustrated by the mainstream media coverage. Pat, prefabricated phrases linking Iran to extremist Shiite militias and weapons causing American deaths (explosive-force penetrators, etc.), sourced to various military and administration officials, appear with sickening regularity. Reading and listening to all this, you might be excused for forgetting that the principal parties in the U.S.-backed ruling bloc in the Iraqi parliament are Dawa and SCIRI, both of which are led by former exiles and both of which have extensive ties to Iran. If Washington has a problem with Iranian influence in the middle east, they might have considered that factor before invading Iraq on false pretenses. For fuck’s sake, Iraq is probably 60% Shi’a and shares a long border with majority Shi’a Iran. Is this going to change any time soon?

Of course, now that we’ve invaded Iraq and caused more Iraqi deaths than Saddam himself, we are demonstrating the degree to which we and the reviled “Butcher of Baghdad” see eye-to-eye. We despise the Iranians, as did Hussein. We persecute Moqtada al-Sadr and his many followers – the poorest of the Shi’a poor – as did Hussein. We live in Saddam’s palaces, fill his prisons with dissidents, torture our enemies, and pray for a “strong man” to emerge who will preserve Iraq’s territorial integrity and serve as our local administrator. Imagine for a moment that our government’s fondest wish were to be fulfilled and a stable, pro-American government coalesced in Baghdad – one that would tolerate the permanent presence of the U.S. military. What would happen next in this extremely unlikely scenario? Probably a repeat of the 1980s – an attack on Iran launched in part from Iraqi soil, which is, in a sense, what is happening right now. The decades may change, but the broad themes remain the same.

Bush’s war policy may be a joke, but it’s not a very funny one. If they succeed in prolonging this project indefinitely in the face of majority public opposition, we may be in for similar adventures in the coming years.

luv u,

jp