Article

2007-02-21 Home Front: Politix

By Terence Jeffrey

When then-Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte published his Annual Threat Assessment last month, he admitted a startling fact. We know where al-Qaida's leaders are hiding.

"Al-Qaeda's core elements are resilient," he wrote. "They continue to plot attacks against our homeland and other targets with the objective of inflicting mass casualties. And they continue to maintain active connections and relationships that radiate outward from their leaders' secure hideout in Pakistan to affiliates throughout the Middle East, Northern Africa and Europe."

Interestingly, no leader of either party has called for invading Pakistan to shutdown this "secure hideout" for the people who attacked America on Sept. 11, 2001. Keeping that in mind, consider something Sen. John McCain said Monday about former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

"We are paying a very heavy price for the mismanagement, that's the kindest word I can give you, of Donald Rumsfeld, of this war," said McCain. "I think Donald Rumsfeld will go down in history as one of the worst secretaries of defense in history." But which is more responsible for the tough situation we face in Iraq today: Donald Rumsfeld's management of the military or the assignment of that military to an impractical political mission promoted by John McCain and President Bush?

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Under Rumsfeld, our armed forces swiftly accomplished the core military mission in Iraq. They removed the perceived threat posed by Saddam Hussein's regime. After that, the U.S. mission in Iraq was essentially political, not military -- and in John McCain's view that meant a U.S. "commitment to revolutionary democratic change."

This was central to the moral case for the war, McCain argued in a March 2003 op-ed in The Washington Post. "The true test of our power, and much of the moral basis for its use, lies not simply in ending dictatorship but in helping the Iraqi people construct a democratic future," said McCain. "This is what sets us aside from empire builders: the use of power for moral purpose." As nice as this may sound, it is wrong.

There is only one moral justification for war: self-defense. And self-defense alone is not sufficient. A war of self-defense must also be a last resort, must have a reasonable chance of succeeding and cannot be anticipated to cause more damage than it prevents.

For this reason, the virtue that ought to govern in war, as in all areas of foreign policy, is prudence, which means knowing the facts as well as they can be known, accurately foreseeing the consequences of alternative courses of action and then choosing the course that leads to the best result.

Famously, the CIA got the facts wrong about Saddam's WMDs. That caused the national debate on whether to use force against Iraq to be based on an inaccurate assessment of the threat Iraq posed. But McCain also based his case for war on an inaccurate assessment of the chances the United States could create a democracy in Iraq.

"'Experts' who dismiss hopes for Iraqi democracy as naive and the campaign to liberate Iraq's people as dangerously destabilizing do not explain why they believe Iraqis or Arabs are uniquely unsuited to representative government, and they betray a cultural bigotry that ill serves our interests and values," McCain wrote.

In fact, there were serious reasons before the war to conclude it would be difficult to establish a stable government in Iraq, let alone a democracy, if Saddam were removed. One reason was Iraq's well-known ethnic-sectarian divisions -- Sunni, Shiite and Kurd -- and the historic tensions between them. Another was that Iraq was the birthplace of Shiite Islamism, and that many of Saddam's tyrannical acts had been aimed at suppressing leading Shiite Islamists, some of whom had fled to Iran where they plotted an Islamic revolution for their homeland.

It was one thing to conclude that the threat posed by Saddam was great enough to run the risks of destabilizing Iraq. It was another to accuse of "cultural bigotry" those who did not discount that risk. So back to the question: Should the failure thus far to establish a stable democracy in Iraq be blamed on the management of U.S. troops, or was the concept of using U.S. troops to create an Iraqi democracy flawed?

The fact that not even John McCain is now calling for sending U.S. forces into Pakistan -- a nuclear-armed Islamic country run by a pro-American general who originally took power in a coup -- to shutdown a sanctuary for the leaders of al-Qaida points to an answer.

Sometimes the pursuit of a just cause, no matter how well managed, can cause more problems than it solves.

Terence P. Jeffrey is the editor of Human Events.

Posted by ryuge 2007-02-21 05:39|| || Front Page|| [11137 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 a nuclear-armed Islamic country run by a pro-American general who originally took power in a coup --

Moose will one day get whacked and his intelligence service, secret police and the radicals will quickly move in. We'll face the kak sandwich of all time when that happens, and it could happen any day. The only thing that will save us at that point will be India and their willingness to smash the Pakiwakis once and for all. The Chinese are the wild card, I don't even want to go there.

Posted by Besoeker 2007-02-21 09:11|| 2007-02-21 09:11|| Front Page Top

#2 True, Besoeker. I've often wondered the *unthinkable* about Paki-Waki. Musharraf, as much as I despise him, is the "lesser of 2 evils" to run that country. Overthrow him/his regime, and *instantly* the jihadis have nukes. I've gotta hope that we have contingency plans (or Mushy does) to take out the nukes if'n he gets seriously threatened.

Posted by BA 2007-02-21 09:23|| 2007-02-21 09:23|| Front Page Top

#3 The only thing that will save us at that point will be India and their willingness to smash the Pakiwakis once and for all.

Testify!

I suspect the only reason the Indians have not dealt with this problem by now is that "pakistan" is upwind of India.

Posted by Excalibur 2007-02-21 11:12|| 2007-02-21 11:12|| Front Page Top

#4 "It was one thing to conclude that the threat posed by Saddam was great enough to run the risks of destabilizing Iraq. It was another to accuse of "cultural bigotry" those who did not discount that risk. So back to the question: Should the failure thus far to establish a stable democracy in Iraq be blamed on the management of U.S. troops, or was the concept of using U.S. troops to create an Iraqi democracy flawed?

The fact that not even John McCain is now calling for sending U.S. forces into Pakistan -- a nuclear-armed Islamic country run by a pro-American general who originally took power in a coup -- to shutdown a sanctuary for the leaders of al-Qaida points to an answer. "

this is about the most stupid thing ive read in a long time. Pakiwaki land is like what, 5 times the population of Iraq. And if we were to invade the vast majority of the population would be against us, while in Iraq in summer of 2003 only the Sunni Arabs were against us - thats like 5 million hostiles vs 60 million.

The fact that no one wants to go into Pakistan YET (and keep in mind, we dont know exactly WHERE in Pakistan OBL is, and it wouldnt be trivial for us to occupy Waziristan sufficiently to find him (remember how long it took to find Saddam), assuming hes even there, and not in Quetta, or Karachi) hardly means establishing democracy in Iraq was impossible. For all the talk about longstanding hatreds among sunnis and shia (which is coming from both the isolationist right and from the left (see Trudeaus latest on Sunday)) in fact the Shia hatred for the Sunnis has been intensified the last 4 years, as the Sunni insurgency has steadly killed innocent Shia. Had we had the force to stop that, the relation between Sunnis and shias in Iraq, would probably be better than it is now.

Posted by liberalhawk 2007-02-21 15:26|| 2007-02-21 15:26|| Front Page Top

#5 Direct hit, LH! Actually, I'd say that had we USED the forces we actually had in Iraq to suppress the Sunni terror war against the Shi'a (yes, it's been 99% a "civil war" from the get-go, but that's unimportant in itself, contrary to the current case of national vapors over the "civil war" thinggy), things probably would have gone much better.

But let's be realistic - calm, functioning and democratic would have been an unbelievable and unlikely accomplishment after only a few years. Look more closely at Germany and especially Japan in the early occupation years for a more sensible yardstick. If we'd only kept the Sunni lid on - and proceeded to systematically crush the Sunni chauvinists' will to resist or give them the dirt nap - things woulda been mighty different, I'm fairly sure.

But this peculiar, almost bizarre, obsession with accelerating Coalition departure and using only leverage and politics to contain what was obviously an implacable Sunni extremist core led us to where we are today. I've been puzzling (along with a lot of mid-level officers at MNF-I of my acquaintance during my Palace days) as to just what Casey, Rummy, Chiarelli, et al were thinking, and how those NSC/DOD/Iraq videoconferences went. I can report that mid-to-low level civilians were able to confound and provoke very senior MNF-I brass at reconstruction meetings with the simplest questions/assertions about the need for security and the failure of the odd "strategy". Really something to behold.

Posted by Verlaine 2007-02-21 21:36|| 2007-02-21 21:36|| Front Page Top

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