Macro Iraqi Studies 101

The subject line is certainly not intended to infer that I will be taking others "to school" as it were. On the contrary. As I voiced to Jambo the other day via text messaging, I wish to delve into the macro question of "why" - why did Saddam's Iraq become the focal point of US national security and by definition foreign policy in post 9/11 America?

I will do the following. I will state every clearly what I think the administration's motivations were. And I think it wise that we use the term "administration" rather then just President Bush given the heavy influence the two cabals within his White House had on the issue. Furthermore, motivation is key for it was the White House whom made Iraq the world's focal point. They alone made the case for invasion and set the chess pieces in place so that Saddam would fall. And given the hard left nonsensical claims of oil, money, or shilling for Israel will find no refuge here, then there must be some reason, some line of thinking that made them think this move was America's best at that moment. So, what was it?

So, to that end here is F.Ryan's theory.....

Paul Wolfowitz. If you haven't glanced at his resume it's incredibly impressive:

-Arms Control and Disarmament Agency
-Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Regional Programs
-State Department Director of Policy Planning
-State Department Assistant Secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs
-Ambassador to the Republic of Indonesia
-Undersecretary of Defense for Policy
-Dean of the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies
-Deputy Secretary of Defense
-President of the World Bank

He is extremely well trusted by Cheney (he was his undersecretary of defense in Bush 41's cabinet), and he has been described as one of the premier "brains" on Soviet Weaponry and was tasked by GH Bush, via Sec Def Cheney, to develop post Cold War national security strategies. A sort of "ok, we beat the Soviets, who else do we need to defeat in order to ensure America's safety" think tank. Starting there he began to employ a certain philosophy he had gleaned when serving as a top aide to none other the Henry M. Jackson, the original "Blue Dog Democrat" that perused a hard line against the Soviets and defense build ups while his party began their ever doomed move to the left regarding National Security. That philosophy was combined with his academic professor and mentor Allan Bloom from the University of Chicago -whose mentor was none other then Leo Strauss (of the Sraussian Philosophy that among other things promoted the idea of the "noble lie" as a necessary evil for all effective politicians) and this, in my opinion in its new form, became what we would historically recognize as "liberal interventionism." The entanglement in foreign conflicts that every conservative from George Washington to Pat Buchanan talked about. It is now called "preemption." This is not to say Wolfiwitz is the sole author of its newest form, hardly. But he may be its most high profile purveyor, in the Bush White House anyway. But back to my narrative - Wolfiwitz even worked at CIA for Carter, he was a Reagan Democrat - which they now call Republicans. He left the party, or it left him, as its National Security credentials went from Trumans & JFK's to the likes of Carteresque leftists. Along with Ron Perle and other leading young Republicans, as we moved into a post Cold War era, their minds were tasked, literally, to come up with strategies to combat those enemies we would now face, namely "Rouge States" as the West used to call them. From the CFR to the AEI, to the new conservative, or "neocon" cabals within the National security community a strategy evolved that basically stated: with these militarily weaker nations, in other words, not the Soviet Fleet but nations whom didn't even have a fleet, we could preemptively act militarily, remove their regime's and set up democracies in their place, which within these circles of thought it is truly believed that every man woman and child is entitled to as a human birthright. And a certain SecDef, this is my opinion of course, signed on to this strategy - Dick Cheney back in our first fight with Saddam. The notion that these third world armies would fall in a matter of months if not weeks was reinforced, if not "proven" in the Persian Gulf War - it was a route from start to finish. The neocons had their real world proof that if preemption was applied to third world armies it would work as a military action.

Now, skip ahead. 9/11 occurs and we have within the administration Dick Cheney, Wolfiwitz, Perle, and to an extent Rumsfeld given he was subordinate to Cheney and a close insider ally. Now we, and especially they, know the US will do Afghanistan. That's a given and not controversial. But it's also short term. Yes, we "get" Al Qeada and Bin Laden (presumably before the Afghan invasion) but long term there are a billion Muslims world wide. About 1% are considered radical - that's a ten million man enemy. 9/11 has horrifyingly proved that this is to be the enemy we face, as defenders of democracy, in this new century. However, there's no killing of one man, as in Hitler, or defeating one army as in the Imperial Japanese that will mark a clear end to hostilities in this new conflict. We're fighting something much more potent and much harder to kill - a radicalized ideology in which death is worshipped, quite literally. They're sitting around the situation room (the principles formerly mentioned in the administration) and this strategizing is something these men have made a career out of, its both their duty and instinctive reaction - and asking themselves what is the long term course needed to see victory? To see an end to radical or fundamentalist Islam on a pandemic scale? I think the conclusion drawn was that the only real answer, if we are really to eliminate that strain of Islam, was to inject democracy into the hornets nest as a vaccine for future generations. Bare in mind, that is based upon the assumption that once there, in Iraq, democracy will eventually spread uncontrollably to other and then all other Middle Easter Nations preventing future generations from being susceptible or subject to radicalization in the first place - the ultimate "preemption."

So, they look around the map, and they have their pick given Israel is the only functioning democracy in the greater Near East. But I'm sure that the answer became quite clear, quite rapidly. They could take the VERY legitimate issue of Saddam's repeated UN and Cease Fire Treaty violations and make a legal case for invading Iraq, assuming (and they were correct) he'd never cave to our diplomatic demands. Invasion plans had been drawn up since at least 1990 (even though Don tossed them aside). His name, Saddam's, was synonymous with "bad man" in America and the West. The umpteen broken resolutions were in place as proof - Iraq was ripe for the doctrine of preemption.

Now, I'm not describing ANY of this in hushed, conspiratorial terms. To be frank, I think these "neo cold warriors" as I describe them were very sincere in their belief that this course of action was in America's best long term security interests. And it may be regarding Iraq and preempting radical indoctrination of future Muslim generations - that's yet to be answered. But what can be answered, in my opinion, is "why", why did the administration focus on Iraq in the post 9/11 world. I think this neo interventionism as applied to vastly inferior armies of rouge states finally hit a boiling point within the conservative movement on 9/11. It was looked at within the administration as the only long term answer to our new enemy - Islamo-fascism - and the very brilliant (there's no question about that regardless of your take on his politics), Wolfiwitz, and Cheney/ Rumsefeld sect within the Bush White House decided, in a noble effort to find an answer to this new threat, that it should and would be applied to the Middle East. I think they crushed Powell along the way and convinced Bush, because of his Christian belief that "freedom isn't America's gift to the world but God's gift to man" that preemption in this region of the world would mean "being my brother's keeper" on a scale unimaginable as millions of people would one day vote and live in freedom. I think this notion of being a liberator appealed to Bush on a very personal level, and subsequently he too signed on to the strategy of democracy being the only long terms answer to confronting terror in the form Islamic radicalism.

It's an intoxicating argument. In one swoop you answer all the pertinent questions as to America's duty to her citizens and her world-wide role as the sole super power & defender of freedom in a post 9/11 world: use preemption in Iraq to begin the inoculation process of future Muslim generations from radical Islam and ensure America's future security from "Jihad"; free millions of people in a Christian, almost Moses Old Testament fashion; give us a military presence within the hornets nest; make the active US military - whom is ready and able to engage the enemy - the target for terrorists rather then the US citizenry in a drain the swamp theory; and take out a mad man. All while being able to lead a real coalition against the current offenders in Afghanistan, i.e. Bin Laden.

Personally I think it was a reasonable, and a VERY responsible burden they placed upon themselves - they felt they owed it to America to not only bring Bin Laden to justice, but lay down the leg work for a free Middle East as the only long term cure to the disease of radical Islam. I happen to agree with their approach and I think it especially noble and the only REAL long term strategy to removing such a virulent and potent religious strain that I've heard advanced thus far.

That being said they completely bungled the PR campaign on why it was important to go into Iraq. They had a myriad of legal reasons from the resolutions to the cease fire breaks to chem & bio weapons not being demonstrated were destroyed, to his terrorist training camps (the commercial rusted out plane they were practicing on) to his illegal missile (in terms of range available on the weapon) stockpile. They should have made a comprehensive case and perhaps even revealed the long term strategy of a free Middle East inoculating the world from future Jihadists. By the way, I'm not saying they lied about why we needed to go in but in terms of the grand "inoculation strategy" they certainly omitted ... it in my theory anyway. But as with all PR campaigns within this administration they let the argument get away from them, didn't control the message and it became about one thing and one thing only :WMD's and Saddam's capability of hitting us and our allies.

So yes, I agreed with their strategy, their reasoning seems ... well, reasonable in terms of how we combat radical Islam (read: not necessarily in meeting other challenges); however, they bungled the pre-war PR and Rumsfeld's light foot print was fatally flawed. Lets hope we have it right now .... only time will tell.

I'll leave you with this excerpt:

Wolfowitz explained his position in a 2002 interview with Robert Collier, of the San Francisco Chronicle, stating: "I think the premise of a policy has to be we can't afford to wait for proof beyond a reasonable doubt. That is a way in which any number of terrorist regimes have, over the last 20 years, gotten away with doing things that I think encourage more behavior of that kind." He added, apparently as clarification: "you can't wait until you have evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that somebody did something in the past, you know that people are planning to do something against you in the future and that they're developing incredibly destructive weapons to do it with and that's not tolerable."

He left the World Bank and is currently chair of the U.S. State Department's International Security Advisory Board (ISAB), which is tasked with providing State “with independent insight and advice on all aspects of arms control, disarmament, international security, and related aspects of public diplomacy.” A position given to him by Condoleeza Rice.


And I might add:

To make the threat posed by Saddam Hussien and his regime the center of post-9/11 foreign policy in the US was the single greatest mistake Bush and Co. have made to date.

Obviously I disagree. But that being said I would insist that you give the Titus version of events as to what course would have been advisable in combatting Islamic terrorism after Afghanistan. What would have been your long term strategy? Afghanistan but other then that the status quo? I don't mean that in a shitty way, honestly, I'm sincerely asking what would you have advised to combat this enemy - long term - in 2002? Not to mention, if Iraq becaomes the jewel of the Euphrates in 5 or 10 years I feel your statement will not have stood the test of time.