Derbyshire is right on Iraq

The Supreme Crunchy: "he gives voice to my own view"

I'm also skeptical about America being in the "nation building" business, mostly because, with rare exceptions, our country has always managed to do it so very poorly. (See Niall Ferguson's book "Colossus: The Rise and Fall of the American Empire" for a good, in-depth discussion about this.)

And with Iraq, I've seen nothing to indicate our losing streak in this game of "nation building" is coming to an end. Iraq is truely a dreary jankhole of a country, but we've given it our absolute best shot, with the noblest of intentions (bringing them something like a decent democractic government that isn't using wood chippers for shredding people). But now we've got tar baby smeared all over us.

Yes, as Bush says, people have a "yearning for freedom". But, unfortunately, as is often the case, people also have other yearnings as well such as burning their neighbor's house down.

So, Mr. Dreher, what do you think we should do? Do you have a better idea?

Do we turn it all over to a three-way civil war? And just sit back and say "to Hell with it all"? How many people will die then? What calculus do you use as to what are acceptable number? Or, on the other hand, do you think that a "redeployment" on our part will have the effect of wonderfully focusing Iraqi minds on what they stand to lose in a civil war (and one which Iran can only benefit from)? Will they thus decide that they had better kiss and make up, otherwise it's curtains for everybody.

And, in the less preferable contingency, are we willing to accept many thousands of Iraqi refugees who are fleeing their country for fear of being killed on the spot for having "collaborated" with the Americans whom they trusted, a la Vietnam?

I'd like to hear your thinking on these matters in more detail. Are Derbyshire's views really your own? Are you absolutely sure?

What do you say? I'm all ears.>

Wow; and here I was, thinking I was the only one left. My opinions are similar to the two above, though less confrontational.

Frankly, I'm not so sure that we've lost in Iraq. Don't get me wrong---four years ago I was really thinking that this would be easy, but I like to think I've just become more of a realist in that time. What America is trying to do is really unprecedented---no country has ever really tried nation-building before, except to make a colony or protectorate. That means that yes, there's a good chance we'll fail in it; but that also means that success isn't going to come easy, and we have to give it a while to work.

I'm not going to fault Mr. Dreher---or all the other pessimistic conservatives---for their belief; though I have to admit, I don't know why it's there. There doesn't seem to have been a big thing that created it; rather, it just seems to me that people slowly are drifting away and think the war is a bad idea. I think that the war has the potential to still be a success---particularly now, with Zarquwi dead and, from what I've heard, the American military stepping up operations. In any event, I don't think we can abandon the country yet---I hope we can bring home many of our troops soon, but, to be honest, we may have to keep at least a partial presence there for a while (we are still in South Korea, after all).

Maybe all of the above optimism is all naivite; honestly, I'm practically the only person I know who still feels this war is salvagable. But with all due respect, I hope Mr. Crunchy---and Derbyshire--are wrong. God bless!>

Clarification: I didn't feel punitive rage toward Iraq. I certainly felt it toward the actual perpetrators of 9/11 and their close associates. I honestly never believed that anyone sensible saw the Iraq war as punishment for 9/11.>

Before March 2003 none of us knew whether WMDs existed in Iraq. The Bush administration thought they had good intelligence indicating that WMDs existed. And, more importantly, Saddam acted as if he had WMDs. We can speculate and second guess whether or not the neocons intentionally spun the intelligence in their favor. Call me gullible but I think they honestly believed it.

I am not for Wilsonian nation building and lean more towards being an isolationist. I wanted to believe Pat Buchanan that we had nothing to fear from Saddam but couldn't do it. That's why I ended up supporting the war -- we just had to know one way or another without a doubt whether he had them or not.

At the present time my son is a Captain in a Civil Affairs Brigade in Baghdad. When he was called out of IRR (Inactive Ready Reserve)this fall to go to Iraq I was getting sour on the war. Like Derbyshire I thought why didn't we just go in, demolish their army, hold everyone at bay while we turned the country upside down looking for WMDs and when we didn't find any say well that's that were outa here.

But I have been reading a lot of emails from my son lately about what he sees in Iraq. Civil Affairs people go out in the field and assess what needs to be done to bring the Iraqi infrastructure up to speed. He has spent most of his time visiting grade schools in the rural areas right outside of Iraq. He told the story once of asking the students what they wanted most. They said things like we don't want men with hoods on running through the streets at night and they didn't want to keep finding bodies in the nearby stream. He has been very impressed with the Iraqi interpreters that work with them and their willings to risk their lives. One of them talked to him about his hopes that a new nation was being born. That interpreter died a week or so later from an IED explosion. He has talked to Iraqi police officers and has the same impression about their dedication but realizes they can be a bit inept although mostly out of ignorance and not fear (unlike the ARVN in Vietnam).

So when I hear those kind of stories and hear about the real day to day human lives in Iraq and then compare that to Derbyshire's rant about leaving them on their own to duke it out I'm left with the impression that Derbyshire is a cold hearted bastard. This is a country full of real live people most of whom are decent and not a bunch crazed whack jobs. I agree with the post below that that is about the most un-Christian thing I've heard.

The fact is we're there and we should do the best we can to give these people a shot at a decent life because it is the right thing to do. now. Once they are on their feet, which I am optimistic is not too far away, then they are on their own and we wish them the best. If it turns out later that it all falls apart well then at least we gave them a chance. This doesn't mean we should run around the globe (i.e. Dafur) and try to save everybody. In Iraq we had a hand in creating the situation that exists now and we have a duty in doing our best to help -- obviously to a point.>

I don't see anything resembling "murder lust" - or any other fruity banality you want to throw out - in Derbyshire's article. I see reason.

The United States will definitely never win another extended military conflict efficiently, and we may not win another one at all. We're not willing to go the full route, while our enemies are. We have more to lose than they do (or at least we think we do). We're too afraid of losing comfort, too willing to trust others on the international scene, and too concerned with the well-being of those outside our borders.

If Israel waged war the way we do, they would never have survived, and although I don't buy into the bad theology behind our country's current blind faith in Israel, it's nice to have an ally with the balls to do what has to be done to win.>

Derbyshire's views may seem brutal, but his analysis of this war's folly is right on target. You may deem it "un-Christian" for Derbyshire not to give a fig about Iraqis, but his point is a cogent one: to hit Saddam for his lawless behavior is one thing; to bog down our dedicated (and dying) soldiers in an inexperiment in "muslim democracy" is unforgivable.

The "un-Christian" part always amuses me. Try getting a single tear out of a (non-fundamentalist) Christian when Palestinians turn an Israeli school bus into a portable Auschwitz oven. Good luck. Phrases like "Cycle of violence" and "occupied land" spew forth from their mouths even as Israeli parents identify their kids from disconnected body parts.

My fellow Catholics in the Holy Land frequently and explicitely engage in base tribalism on this score: the Palis are us (Christians); the Jews are not. You can read these kind of remarks every day, to the applause of our own Bishops.

Derbyshire prefers the hard truths of the real world to the multicultural fairy tales that animate this current group of failures occupying the White House. We once basked in the notion that such inanities were, for the most part, the currency of liberal Democrats, and not the Republicans. That illusion is being shattered.

God bless John Derbyshire for swinging the wrecking ball.>

Derbyshire's policy would be insane simply as a matter of realpolitik.

Let's say we smash up Iraq and don't pick up the pieces. Let's say the Baathists are hit hard enough not to recover. (And if they can recover then we've only angered our enemy, but left him in power -- not a good move). Who picks up the pieces?

Duh -- Iran. If the Shi'ites and Kurds couldn't turn to us, they'd turn to Iran. So we feel good after smashing up Iraq, and then wake up to find:

1) Iran AND Iraq's oil both at the beck and call of Ayatollah Khamenei

2) the Gulf emirates terrified of a resurgent Iran again making propaganda among their Shi'ite population and

3) thinking the US just hates Arabs so we're not a reliable ally,

4) Iran having a secure overland supply route to Syria and the Hizbullah,

5) the Kurds in Iraq being pushed to begin destabilizing Turkey again . . .

(And from a moral point of view, the Sunni Arabs would get much less mercy from Iranian Revolutionary Guards than from the Marines.)

Once again, policies based on shortsighted rage are neither sensible nor decent.

If we were going to topple the Saddam regime (which I still believe was a good idea), both morals AND realpolitik dictate that we be there to pick up the pieces.>

Oh please. the handwringing about this war is becoming rather silly. One of the problems here is so few people read history. For cying out loud. Wars take time, they are not over in prime time. sure lots of mistakes have been made in this war. LOTS of mistakes are made in every war. We are incredibly, unable to sacrifice for anything good anymore. the number of casualties in this war, barely rate a training accident in most wars. the complaint on how long this war has taken, shows little understanding of history. The French and Indian Wars, Revolutionary War, War of 1812, the two Mexican Wars, the frontier Indian Wars, Seminole War, World War 1, World War 2, Korea, Vietnam, and other small wars we have been fighting for centuries, all cost more lives than this did. And most took much longer. One thing I constantly hear is how this war is different than others. It isn't. Indian wars for instance, were low level violence, interspersed with real battles.I grew up in southern Arizona, where first the Papago's, and Pimas, then Spanish, then the Mexicans, the Anglos, fought Apaches for 400 years. Rod, your own state of Texas had wars and fighting going on 300 years before Texas was considered "pacified". You are where you are because people had more determination to not give up in those days. both Indians and Frontiersman practised forms of terrorisim. Read accounts of the Indian wars. the things that happened to victims then, were just as brutal as anything today. If you want us to pull out, at least understand the problem of Radical Islam will NOT go away. It will just move the fighting to the U.S. Sometimes wars have to be fought, even though everybody involved is tired. Those soldiers on the frontier in the Old West wanted to go home too. Waterless Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, etc. seemed just as pointless, then to many people, as Iraq does now. What if they had given up then?>