Washington’s New Watchword: Containment As Iraq’s weak new government takes shape, the Bush administration’s best hope is for a non-bloodbath. WEB-EXCLUSIVE COMMENTARY By Michael Hirsh Newsweek May 22, 2006 - An old word is gaining new currency in Washington: containment. You may be hearing a lot more of it as the Bush administration hunkers down for its final two years. Containment of Iraq’s low-level civil war, which shows every sign of persisting for years despite the new government inaugurated this week. Containment of Iran’s nuclear power, which may lead to a missile defense system in Europe. Containment of the Islamism revived by Hamas and Hizbullah, by the Sunni suicide bombers in Iraq, as well as by the “Shiite Crescent”—as Jordan’s King Abdullah once called it—running from Iran through Southern Iraq and into the Gulf. During the cold war, containment doctrine was based on the premise that the Soviet Union was a powerful force that was going to be around for a long time to come. Containment’s chief author, George Kennan, concluded that the best Washington could do was to keep the Soviet bloc penned up in its sphere of influence until it expired of its own internal problems (though Kennan later despaired that containment had become too militarily focused, culminating in Vietnam). The policy was carefully laid out in NSC-68, the basic blueprint for containment, in the spring of 1950. Forty years later, the policy succeeded. No such strategizing surrounds the current version of containment. Indeed, few people in the Bush administration will even concede they are thinking in such terms, because the president has not permitted an honest reckoning of the difficulties he faces. On Monday, Bush again appeared to sidestep the realities, calling the new “free Iraq” “a devastating defeat for the terrorists.” Back in Iraq, however, it was just another typical day: some 20 Iraqis died in bombings and drive-by shootings, with few or no arrests. So today’s containment is a furtive policy being developed willy-nilly behind the scenes, as Bush’s pragmatic second-term officials seek to clean up the vast Mideast mess left by the ideologues who dominated in the first term. A series of cautious concepts similar to those that came to dominate the cold war are emerging as the least worst way of holding off powerful forces that are also going to be around for along time: disintegration in Iraq, expansion in Iran, Islamism all over. In Iraq, U.S. officials say they are pleased with the forcefulness and straight talk of the new prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, especially compared to his mumble-mouthed predecessor, Ibrahim Jaafari. But every meager step forward in Iraq comes at the price of horrible bloodshed and months of indecision. According to U.S. officials, Maliki failed to fill the critical defense and interior ministry posts over the weekend because every well-known candidate was deemed too sectarian or too associated with militias. As a result, whoever is chosen, it is becoming clear that Maliki’s government will likely become a government of nobodies—in other words, inoffensive but weak individuals. That in turn means the sectarian groups—Shia, Sunni and Kurdish—will become even more influential, as will the powerful provincial governors who approve police trainees for the troubled national force. So the very best that can be hoped for in Iraq, probably for many years to come, will be a non-bloodbath, a low-level civil war that doesn’t get worse than the current cycle of insurgent killings and Shiite death-squad reprisals. This is bad, but it could be much worse. Containment, says one Army officer involved in training in Iraq, is at least "doable." He adds: "The only real question is: How do we keep Iraq from becoming a permissive environment for terrorists." The U.S. military is already gearing up for this outcome, but not for “victory” any longer. It is consolidating to several “superbases” in hopes that its continued presence will prevent Iraq from succumbing to full-flown civil war and turning into a failed state. Pentagon strategists admit they have not figured out how to move to superbases, as a way of reducing the pressure—and casualties—inflicted on the U.S. Army, while at the same time remaining embedded with Iraqi police and military units. It is a circle no one has squared. But consolidation plans are moving ahead as a default position, and U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad has talked frankly about containing the spillover from Iraq’s chaos in the region. On Iran, Western officials are increasingly skeptical that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad can be persuaded to give up his nuclear program as he consolidates power and Bush refuses to engage him directly. The New York Times reported Monday that the Bush administration hopes to establish an antimissile site in Europe design to forestall Iranian attacks. (Shades of the cold war). “I think you could describe our approach as containment,” says a senior U.S. official. Similarly with Hamas’s control of the Palestinian government, U.S. officials concede they are in for a long period of waiting until the radicals agree to recognize Israel, renounce terror and join the international community. Whoever becomes the next president will inherit most of these problems—and, it is likely, the policy of containment as well. If they win, the Democrats, insecure as ever over their national security-credentials, will almost certainly be placed in the position of the Eisenhower administration in 1953. Ike’s presidential campaign had been filled with anti-containment rhetoric (the hardliners wanted “rollback” of the Soviets), but within six months of taking office the former general had decided that containment was the only practical approach to the Soviets. The biggest problem with the new embrace of containment in this era, of course, is that it is largely unconscious—and it has gone unacknowledged in public. It may be time to call it by its name. http://msnbc.msn.com/id/12920385/site/newsweek
Victory was never an option in Iraq, nor was it an objective. Occupation, subjugation, and looting natural resources...those are the objectives.
Don't forget "creating a positive issue environent" as Karl Rove called their onslaught of fearmongering after 9/11. You know the "everything changed" meme that allegedly caused poor Basso to abandon life long values with regard to so many issues.
