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March 28, 2003
On war
A friend of mine asked me how I felt about the war "if you can sum up in less than 500 words". Of course it takes me about 500 words to warm up to a topic...
Let me see if I can remember what I told her: "The Job needs to be Done. I am glad it is getting done. I have doubts about Bush's ability to get it done..."
I have no doubt that America/Brittan/Australia (can we be the "Axis of Aba"? Or maybe the "Axis of countries-who-won't-take-crap-and-protect-other-nations-because-it-makes-them-feel-good-about-themselves-while-France-Whines-on-the-sidelines"?) will win this war. It's been more difficult than many of us expected it would be, but then, anything that wasn't utter capitulation when the engine of our first tank turned over would have been. Even given that, the progress of this war has been nothing short of astounding; our troops and material can move across Iraq at will. It is only our desire not to slaughter civilians with Saddam-like ferocity that has kept us out of Baghdad...
What I doubt is that Bush has the ability to win the peace. Our goal should not be to install a regime better than Saddam'sThat would be like opening a restaurant with the stated goal of making the food more nutritious than arsenic. Our goal needs to be to install a regime better than our own...
Impossible? Perhaps. But why bother being an American if we can't bother to dream big? Americas have more experience being a democratic nation than any other peoples on earth. We have a national constitution, 50 state constitutions and have had dozens more over the centuries we have been a nation. In the last 10 years we have been invited to help set up more democracies than have ever been founded in one decade. America has a history of this sort of thing; we ought to know what works...
It would be no shame to create in Iraq the sort of more perfect union that we have been striving forindeed, it would be to our credit. Bush doesn't understand this. He is going to go for "works short term" over "works long term". We know this because of his actions in Afghanistan (yes, I know things are better there than they were, see my comments about arsenic above). Bush does not believe in nation building, but it is only Nation building that will allow us to get out of Iraq in anything approaching a short time. It is only nation building which will make this war have been worth it. I pray Bush learns this lesson before the end of this conflict...
Posted by Andrew at March 28, 2003 12:03 PM