| TIME TO GET OUT
Much to my surprise, a friend who is an avid supporter of George W. Bush, a lifelong conservative Republican, and a person of considerable patriotic zeal said to me recently that it's time for us to get out of Iraq. I admit to some satisfaction at hearing this because my friend and I tend to disagree emphatically on political matters.
I thought it was a mistake to go into Iraq in the first place; he did not. I predicted that, though the military victory would be swift, the aftermath would destabilize the Middle East even more than anyone suspected and would make us seriously regret what we had done; he disagreed. When I made these predictions, he was in the majority. My view was not shared by the pundits, the government, or any of the experts on the Middle East (which I decidedly am not).
I hoped I was wrong but feared I was not. How could I have been right? I am not, as I said, an expert on international politics. Compared to my friend, I am an ignoramus about history and not very knowledgeable about politics (which is virtually a hobby for him). From our government to the press to most of the people I spoke to, everyone had a much more optimistic view of what would happen in Iraq than I did.
Amazingly and unfortunately, despite my abysmal ignorance, the scenario has played out exactly as I thought it would. The Iraqis are at each other's throats, the country has become a breeding ground for terror (which it will continue to export), and the possibility of establishing anything resembling democracy in Iraq becomes less likely with each passing day. A venture that was supposed to go entirely differently has turned out to be one of the most costly (in lives, money, international stability, and American prestige) mistakes that the US has ever made.
The invasion was supposed to pay for itself in Iraqi oil. Wrong -- the Iraqis and the terrorists are sabotaging their own oil production. The invasion was supposed to bring some peace and prosperity to the Iraqi people. Wrong -- it has brought chaos. The invasion, coupled with American know-how, was supposed to restore the country's infrastructure. Wrong -- the Iraqi people are frequently without power or drinkable water, and the country is a shambles; American contractors, riding a typical government boondoggle, have messed up, either through greed or incompetence or both.
As the "wrongs" pile up, it's time to admit a mistake -- something our present administration is chronically incapable of doing. It's time to stop saying "Stay the course" when the course leads only to more chaos and the sacrifice of more young American lives.
The outlook (if I dare to make another unpopular negative prediction): civil war of increasing intensity, with other countries in the area taking sides. American withdrawal with the job undone is inevitable. Indeed, the longer we stay, the worse matters will become. It's apparent that we cannot stop the Iraqis from indulging in their inexplicable passion for killing one another. The least we can do is to keep our troops from being caught in the cross-fire.
Will we have learned anything from this? I doubt it. The US has a recent history of not learning from its mistakes. Possibly the only reason that we are still a great nation is that other nations are even worse at learning from history. Certainly Iraq has not; freed of the brutality of Saddam, the only thing Iraq has reconstructed is more brutality. |
