Wall Street Journal- Why Didn't Bush Admin. Pull Trigger on Zarqawi

....which was unrealistic to begin with, which he was warned to begin with, and which has has been proven to be true

...which has failed miserably, due to incompetence and various factors of which he was forewarned (pottery barn), and in fact, made his goal more difficult to attain, in both the short and long run. And the great part is, nobody has been held accountable for it. Not Rummy, not Cheney, not Wolfowitz, none of them ... and he refuses to even admit that there is a problem.

Somebody should be held accountable next week, or else it will only get worse.

Did he make a stupid gamble in search of a greater goal? Sure. Did he or should he know that it was stupid to begin with? Yes. And therein lies the problem. Pottery barn.

 

We're in agreement here- just re-read the last sentence of my first post. Bush needed to build the (illusion) of legitimacy before invading. If invading wasn't the priority, then pulling the trigger would have been pretty easy. Bush put himself in that position.

 

Max- you're being a good sport here and I want you to know this post isn't coming down on you specifically. This issue needs to be addressed.

The Nation Building Doctrine is the final support, the last crutch that those who still stand with Bush's foreign policy have to lean on. Everything else has been taken away.

"Spreading freedom" is something that Bush says often on the campaign trail and each time I hear it I cringe. If we allow his actions to speak for him, we're talking about Operation: Forcing Freedom.

I used to be on board with this idea. I think it's called the Domino Theory- once a successful secular democracy takes root and blooms, the poeples of the middle east will flock to it, clamor for it in their own cou. It's really grandiose in scope, and proposes a final solution to the problem- massive change throughout the middle east on a socio-political level.

In my opinion, the jury is still out on this one. It's not yet the time to call our invasion/occupation/transformation of Iraq a failure. I still hold some hope, and pray that we'll be able to start a solid, legitimate, secular democracy there. If we succeed, and if it lasts long-term, and if other nations fall and resurrect themselves in like manner- Bush and his fellow neocons may be hailed as visionary. But we got a lot of 'ifs' to meet before then.

Even if you accept this doctrine as the solution, the problem still lies in how this was done. The methodology has been terribly Machiavelean- the ends justifies the means. It's okay if we stretch the truth, it's okay if we're disingenuous with our reasons for invasion- the big picture, the end scenario is important enough to justify it. If people die due to poor planning and preparation, that's acceptable- we're serving a higher cause.

Well, it's a daring experiment, to say the least. But we're learning some ugly lessons on the way:
- One, it probably is not correct to assume that any and all societies will embrace freedom if offered it. Even if offered, other mitigating circumstances will be factored into success, like civilian casualties, the perceived intentions of the 'liberators', etc.
- How you are perceived by the world matters. If you want more than tepid financial and military support form other countries, you at need to at least demonstrate legitimate cause. Even then it will be hard to drum support. If those you liberate question your motives, then you're shooting yourself in the foot if your end goal is to get these people to accept democracy.
- Legitimacy matters. Responsibility matters. Accountability matters. Brushing all these aside in the name of acheiving your end goal doesn't serve your end goal.
- To ignore and deride world opinion is to hold the rest of the world in contempt. If you want to make the world a better place, which we can, and which the Nation Building Doctrine purports to do, you cannot hold the rest of the world in contempt. You cannot simply disregard what everyone else says. As we are finding out, even the worlds' greatest superpower can't do everything alone.

Finally, if we acheive peace in the Middle East by nation building, if the neocon dream comes true, then it will happen in spite of the horrible planning and execution we've seen from the administration. No significant alliance to share our burden. We went in with less than half the force the Pentagon wanted, because that's how Rummy wanted it. We use torture tactics that were pre-approved by the administration which reach the press and destroy our already horrible image in the ME. We 'get tough' on Fallujah, withdraw, 'get tough' again, withdraw. We passed up the chance to get the senior AQ operative in Iraq before the invasion because it will wreck an already feeble case for war. We went in without a plan to win the peace.

Question: if the nation-building motive for invading Iraq is so great, so powerful, why didn't the administration come forward honestly and say that that's the reason for invasion?