Tipping point for me vis a vis Iraq
In the last couple of weeks, something has shifted for me with respect to U.S. policy in Iraq. I can't remember exactly when it happened, but it did happen in a moment: the weight of everything I knew about the situation there flipped my opinion on what we should be doing.
I was opposed to going to war, but ever since we toppled Saddam Hussein, I've argued that it's our responsibility to restore order in the country. We broke it, we gotta fix it.
I've been appalled by the loss of life and the waste of money there. I was disgusted by Abu Ghraib. I have sat sadly watching U.S. standing in the world decline.
But all along, I believed we owed it to the Iraqi people to stick things out and make them right again.
I see now that that ain't going to happen. For quite some time the presence of our troops there has been fuel to the insurgency's fire. The conflict has reached the level of a civil war.
Yes, we broke Iraq by removing a dictator who oppressed the Shiites and Kurds and maintained a stable society. But the mess there is no longer simply explained by that. Old hostilities have surfaced; new forces are at work. Barbarians are not only at the gate but loose in Baghdad.
The Bush administration has done a horrible job of trying to reconstruct Iraq. We went in unprepared to govern and never recovered from our early mistakes.
Yet the Iraqis are responsible, too. Collectively they could have stood together as Iraqis and chosen to rebuild as one people. Instead they've chosen loyalty to their sect: Shiite, Sunni, Kurd. And yes, I understand that Iraq doesn't have a long history as a nation and that it was created during the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire by the Western powers at the end of World War I. And it's not that choosing to be first and foremost Iraqis is the right choice. Unfortunately, though, it's the choice that the Bush administration expected the Iraqis to make. When they didn't, our hopes for a smooth transition to a new post-Saddam government collapsed.
It's time now for the Iraqis to figure it out. No doubt there will be more bloodshed... more deaths to follow the countless who have already died. But I no longer get the sense that we are wanted there, either by the Iraqi people or government.
We have run our course there. We failed. Leaving now is not playing in to the terrorists' strategy. If anything is true, it's that we played into their strategy by entering Iraq, not by leaving. As long as we stay, we empower them. For every terrorist that dies in Iraq (and most that we kill there are locals fighting for their country, not terrorists), a handful more are born out of Muslim anger over U.S. actions in the Middle East.
I do not know what the path to stability and freedom in Iraq is. I do not know the way to peace in the Middle East. But we are not on it. And it's time to accept that we've spent enough American lives and treasure on the road to nowhere.
Andrew Sullivan adds this.
I was opposed to going to war, but ever since we toppled Saddam Hussein, I've argued that it's our responsibility to restore order in the country. We broke it, we gotta fix it.
I've been appalled by the loss of life and the waste of money there. I was disgusted by Abu Ghraib. I have sat sadly watching U.S. standing in the world decline.
But all along, I believed we owed it to the Iraqi people to stick things out and make them right again.
I see now that that ain't going to happen. For quite some time the presence of our troops there has been fuel to the insurgency's fire. The conflict has reached the level of a civil war.
Yes, we broke Iraq by removing a dictator who oppressed the Shiites and Kurds and maintained a stable society. But the mess there is no longer simply explained by that. Old hostilities have surfaced; new forces are at work. Barbarians are not only at the gate but loose in Baghdad.
The Bush administration has done a horrible job of trying to reconstruct Iraq. We went in unprepared to govern and never recovered from our early mistakes.
Yet the Iraqis are responsible, too. Collectively they could have stood together as Iraqis and chosen to rebuild as one people. Instead they've chosen loyalty to their sect: Shiite, Sunni, Kurd. And yes, I understand that Iraq doesn't have a long history as a nation and that it was created during the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire by the Western powers at the end of World War I. And it's not that choosing to be first and foremost Iraqis is the right choice. Unfortunately, though, it's the choice that the Bush administration expected the Iraqis to make. When they didn't, our hopes for a smooth transition to a new post-Saddam government collapsed.
It's time now for the Iraqis to figure it out. No doubt there will be more bloodshed... more deaths to follow the countless who have already died. But I no longer get the sense that we are wanted there, either by the Iraqi people or government.
We have run our course there. We failed. Leaving now is not playing in to the terrorists' strategy. If anything is true, it's that we played into their strategy by entering Iraq, not by leaving. As long as we stay, we empower them. For every terrorist that dies in Iraq (and most that we kill there are locals fighting for their country, not terrorists), a handful more are born out of Muslim anger over U.S. actions in the Middle East.
I do not know what the path to stability and freedom in Iraq is. I do not know the way to peace in the Middle East. But we are not on it. And it's time to accept that we've spent enough American lives and treasure on the road to nowhere.
Andrew Sullivan adds this.
Labels: Iraq
posted by michael at 11:22 AM
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