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Now
"The real difficulty in
changing any enterprise lies not in developing new ideas, but
in escaping from the old ones."
John Maynard Keynes
A ray of realism appeared in the confirmation
hearings for Secretary of Defense nominee Robert Gates before
the Senate Armed Services Committee. Gates himself said that
the US was not winning in Iraq, a statement with which everyone
agreed except the White House.
The US, however, is not out
of the woods. The question remains: what will be the US government's
response to the lost war and the terrible calamity that Bush
has created in Iraq?
Many Americans are still fighting
the Vietnam war. They see Iraq through the lens of the futile
Vietnam misadventure and express their dismay that America will
lose another war because "the Democrats will cut and run
like they did in Vietnam." These Americans have forgotten
that it was a Republican administration that got the US out of
Vietnam and that it was the Democrats who committed the US to
that conflict. Moreover, Democrats are not showing a cut and
run propensity.
For example, Silvestre Reyes,
the incoming Democratic chairman of the House Intelligence Committee,
says the US cannot withdraw from Iraq until it has dismantled
the militias. Reyes wants to put 30,000 more US troops into Iraq
to dismantle the militias. Reyes has forgotten that sending more
troops was the Democrats' policy in Vietnam, a policy whose only
result was that more Americans lost sons, fathers, husbands,
and brothers.
Obviously, sending more US
troops will not succeed in dismantling the Iraqi sectarian militias.
However, a US attempt to dismantle the militias will result in
the militias joining the insurgency and turning on the US troops.
The situation would deteriorate, not improve. It is frightening
that the incoming chairman of the House Intelligence Committee
does not understand this.
The appearance of a ray of
realism about Iraq in the Senate Arms Services Committee does
not mean that the US will escape catastrophe. At the Armed Services
Committee hearing (Dec. 5), some senators said that US troops
must not be used in a civil war between Iraqis, but that the
troops have to stay until stability is created. Senators have
the idea that US troops can be shorn of their combat role, but
remain to train the Iraqi army so the Iraqi government can put
down insurgency and civil war.
However, in civil war each
side has a government and an army. Which side will the US support?
If the US sides with the Sunnis against the majority Shiites,
it will be throwing in its lot with the insurgency that has been
killing its troops and find itself arrayed against the more numerous
Shiites backed by Iran. If the US favors the Shiite majority,
the US will anger its Sunni allies in the Middle East.
Indeed, civil war between Sunnis
and Shiites, with or without US involvement, could easily spread
throughout the Middle East. Saddam Hussein's Iraq was not the
only country where Sunnis hold political sway over Shiites. By
invading Iraq, stirring up extremism, and setting in motion sectarian
violence, the Bush regime may have opened Pandora's Box of civil
war throughout the Middle East.
The neoconservative Bush regime
lacked the brains to understand that defeating Saddam Hussein's
army would not give the US control over Iraq. Whatever minimum
control the US might once have had is gone.
The US army in Iraq has so
little control that it cannot even provide sufficient security
for President Bush to meet in Iraq with Prime Minister Maliki.
Since the US army has no control,
provides no security, and does not know who it is fighting, US
troops simply provide targets for insurgents. They are accomplishing
nothing positive and should be withdrawn. US troops in Iraq serve
one purpose: They are a provocation that foments Islamic extremism
and creates dangerous instability throughout the Middle East.
The senators and Robert Gates
haven't got this far in their comprehension. The question is
whether they will see the light before US troops are forced to
pay a higher price for their government's stupidity.
A minority of Americans still
believe the US can defeat the Iraqi insurgency if only the US
would use enough force. Americans hear this from neoconservatives
and from the right-wing crazies of talk radio. These are the
same Americans who believe the US could have won the Vietnam
war by invading or nuking North Vietnam.
The US probably could have
defeated North Vietnam on a one-on-one basis. However, just as
General MacArthur's invasion of North Korea brought in the Chinese,
a US invasion of North Vietnam would have been an extreme provocation
for the Soviet Union and China and could have ended in nuclear
war.
Many Americans have the absurd
notion that the only limit to US power is the will to use it.
This absurd idea provides the Israeli lobby with a vocal American
minority that is easy to exploit in behalf of "standing
tough" in the Middle East. The main reason that neither
Republicans nor Democrats can come to their senses about Iraq
and America's disastrous Middle East policy is that the Israeli
Lobby will not let them.
Right-wing Israeli governments
suffer the same delusion as neoconservatives about limitless
US power. They believe that the power of their lobby can ensure
that American power will be used to destroy all of Israel's enemies.
The US is likely to remain
mired in Iraq until Israelis cast out this delusion. No amount
of US power can make it possible for Israel to both steal Palestine
from Palestinians and have peace. No number of US invasions of
Islamic countries can win "the war on terror." As long
as right-wing extremism prevails in Israel and as long as the
US interferes in the internal affairs of Muslin countries, the
formula for calamity remains in place.
Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury
in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the
Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of
National Review. He is coauthor of The
Tyranny of Good Intentions.He can be reached at: paulcraigroberts@yahoo.com
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