so i'm off dmt for a while and then i come back and jeesh, now i guess i gotta mount a defense? (as it turns out it's a long one...)
ok, it was wrong to believe Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz had a plan that would be great for the Iraqi people.
But I do think it was reasonable to think they had a better plan than, as it turns out, they did.
Most of the goals the neo-cons wanted to achieve with the invasion (not the ones I thought it was worth fighting for, this is their ideology) depended, in theory, on a stable political and security environment in Iraq -- creating a model for change other Arab states, putting pressure on Iran and Syria, maybe getting some leverage on OPEC.
None of those things are possible with the current state of affairs. So it seems as though they've pissed in their own theoretical lemonade.
I thought the war was worth fighting to diminish the likelihood of a future nuclear conflict. It turns out that Saddam was farther from a bomb than most supposedly informed people assumed. In my mind that doesn't change the potential threat, given the erosion of sanctions. It just puts it a few years farther out (5 years vs 3? 8 vs. 5?).
On this issue, eliminating the threat of a nuclear confrontation, the war so far looks like a potential success.
The weirdness of my particular view is that I think the likely theater of nuclear conflict would have been Iraq, not the US. So you could say we invaded Iraq to save it. I know that sounds callous. It's not meant to be. The other hypothetical (but not acheivable, in my view) option would have been the reimposition of strict sanctions, which as we know were quite devastating to ordinary Iraqis.
Going out on a limb in terms of prediction, I would guess in rough terms that most Iraqis will be back up to a pre-war standard of living after 3 years of occupation, and a pre-sanctions standard of living after 6.
Of course there will be an elite that is massively enriched through privitizations and other state giveaways. And there will be a new migrant force of the unemployed. But I don't see why there won't also be a relatively thriving middle class independent of civil service, in addition, of course, to a big new bureaucracy.
Now, I do differ from the neo-cons on another front. I don't believe for a second that this scenario, if it should come to pass, would diminish the appeal of political Islam. The notion that capitalism leads quickly and inexorably to democracy is ridiculous.
But I do hope Iraq could look more like Turkey and less like Pakistan.
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ok, it was wrong to believe Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz had a plan that would be great for the Iraqi people.
But I do think it was reasonable to think they had a better plan than, as it turns out, they did.
Most of the goals the neo-cons wanted to achieve with the invasion (not the ones I thought it was worth fighting for, this is their ideology) depended, in theory, on a stable political and security environment in Iraq -- creating a model for change other Arab states, putting pressure on Iran and Syria, maybe getting some leverage on OPEC.
None of those things are possible with the current state of affairs. So it seems as though they've pissed in their own theoretical lemonade.
I thought the war was worth fighting to diminish the likelihood of a future nuclear conflict. It turns out that Saddam was farther from a bomb than most supposedly informed people assumed. In my mind that doesn't change the potential threat, given the erosion of sanctions. It just puts it a few years farther out (5 years vs 3? 8 vs. 5?).
On this issue, eliminating the threat of a nuclear confrontation, the war so far looks like a potential success.
The weirdness of my particular view is that I think the likely theater of nuclear conflict would have been Iraq, not the US. So you could say we invaded Iraq to save it. I know that sounds callous. It's not meant to be. The other hypothetical (but not acheivable, in my view) option would have been the reimposition of strict sanctions, which as we know were quite devastating to ordinary Iraqis.
Going out on a limb in terms of prediction, I would guess in rough terms that most Iraqis will be back up to a pre-war standard of living after 3 years of occupation, and a pre-sanctions standard of living after 6.
Of course there will be an elite that is massively enriched through privitizations and other state giveaways. And there will be a new migrant force of the unemployed. But I don't see why there won't also be a relatively thriving middle class independent of civil service, in addition, of course, to a big new bureaucracy.
Now, I do differ from the neo-cons on another front. I don't believe for a second that this scenario, if it should come to pass, would diminish the appeal of political Islam. The notion that capitalism leads quickly and inexorably to democracy is ridiculous.
But I do hope Iraq could look more like Turkey and less like Pakistan.
- big jimmy 9-20-2003 5:31 pm