Iraq: will America ever get out?

Thomas Powers writes an excellent long essay on this in the New York Review of Books

This would form the basis of a brilliant post AS lesson, or would be a useful addition to any summer reading list of a student intent on applying for Politics at a top university.

Powers goes into some detail explaining how much of the fault for the situation in Iraq can be laid at the ex-Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld. Here I give you a glimpse:

‘He did not simply run an organization that failed; he personally made many of the key decisions that led to failure. Rumsfeld is a blustering, bullying executive with one idea at a time who dominated “planning” for the war. The one idea was to go in “light” with about a third of the forces the generals at first suggested, counting on a thundering opening bombardment—“shock and awe”—to cow the Iraqis while highly mobile US forces would dash for Baghdad. Once there, the army waited for further instruction, but the secretary of defense was flummoxed. He had no idea what to do next.’

Powers is also scathing about Bush’s inability to learn the lessons of history:

‘A better-read, more reflective man might have seen what was coming. Regretting adventures in the Middle East is one of the constants of history. The Greeks, the Romans, the Crusaders, the French, the British, and the Russians all sent armies and were forced in the end to bring them home again. Did the President worry about the difficulty of occupying and rebuilding a country of nearly 30 million people with ancient scores to settle? It appears that he did not.’
And where do the current crop of presidential aspirants stand?

‘Obama and Clinton have both promised that the course would be changed on the first day; ending the American involvement in the Iraqi fighting would be the new goal, troop numbers would be down significantly by the middle of the first year, and within a reasonable time (not long) the residual American force would be so diminished in size that any fair observer might say the war was over, for the Americans at least, and the troops had been brought home.

The presumptive Republican candidate, John McCain, has pledged to do exactly the opposite—to “win” the war, whatever that means, and whatever that takes. Politicians often differ by shades of nuance. Not this time. The contrast of McCain and his opponents on this question is stark, and if they can be taken at their word, Americans must expect either continuing war for an indefinite period with McCain or the anxieties and open questions of turning the war over to the Iraqi government for better or worse with Obama or Clinton. Which is it going to be?’

When considering the race for the White House, fast forward four years and you can see why the unpredictability of events might make even the best laid plans go wrong:

‘We are committed in Afghanistan. We are not ready to leave Iraq. In both countries our friends are in trouble. The pride of American arms is at stake. The world is watching. To me the logic of events seems inescapable. Unless something quite unexpected happens, four years from now the presidential candidates will be arguing about two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, one going into its ninth year, the other into its eleventh. The choice will be the one Americans hate most—get out or fight on.’

Read the full article here