Is it good, or bad for us?
All of this makes our leadership in both parties look like idiots, and that is bad for America. Even those of us who think that our leadership are idiots cringe when it becomes obvious to the rest of the world. The American public by a margin of 71:22 thinks that the Iraq War wasn’t worth it. They are against any sort of intervention because there is no-one they trust to conduct intervention sensibly.
Putin is not smarter than we are. He is simply unburdened by the illusion that most of the countries in the region should or will succeed, and he is willing to stay one jump ahead of the game, maneuvering for advantage as opportunities emerge. We are fettered by Obama’s affirmative-action approach to the Muslim world as articulated in his July 2009 Cairo address and numerous subsequent statements, and the Republicans’ ideological belief that the mere form of parliamentary democracy fixes all problems.
The intrusion of reality benefits the likes of Putin, because Putin is a realist. It hurts us, because we refuse to accept reality. Our leaders live in ideological bubbles; they are incapable of considering the consequence of their errors, because they believe in their respective causes (the innate goodness of Islam or the innate propensity of people towards democracy) with religious intensity.
Unfortunately for Obama, Kerry et al, reality has a bias toward realistics. And sadly, their disconnect with reality isn’t confined to foreign policy.
I am beginning to find “Spengler” . . . tiresome.
This ISIS/ISIL thing is made of some really bad, dangerous people. In Syria, it is really hard to support the opposition to Mr. Assad, widely regarded as an odious dictator, because of people like that opposing him.
ISIS has spilled into Iraq. Mr. Maliki is argued to be a fledgling odious dictator, but he remains the product of a democratic political process where his continuing as leader is contingent on forming a government in a parliamentary system, and he and Iraq under that systems are an ally. Whereas his army was overwhelmed, attributed to many factors but one factor being the enthusiasm of ISIS for executing military prisoners. For all Mr. Maliki’s failings, the Iraqi Army is offering resistance and is even counterattacking.
For all of President Obama’s shyness, our highly skilled military experts are in country shoulder-to-shoulder with Iraqi generals planning what to do next. Our Media, bless them, are reporting that our guys are counseling their guys to “go it slow” in retaking the conquered cities, saying “it might be a trap to draw you in”, you know, like Stalingrad. Our guys are officers, gentlemen, and dilligent scholars who know of such tactics from ancient times to very recent times.
As to all of the know-nothings on the Right who want “those people” to just kill each other with us “staying out”, and all of the know-it-alls on the Left hyperventilating “Bush, Bush”, I stand with our President on the actions he is taking. When the house is on fire, it is important to not say, “I think we should just let it burn because it was so costly the last time it caught fire, and besides, last time the fire department didn’t know what they are doing.”
For whatever they did wrong, the last bunch of guys put the fire out. To blame this new fire on what the fire brigade did last time, apart from not letting the structure burn which allows us to blame them that the structure caught fire again, is crazy talk. One should put out the fire before it becomes a conflagration. Because fires spread.
“our highly skilled military experts are in country shoulder-to-shoulder with Iraqi generals planning what to do next.”
Yes, military leadership does not spring up over night or even in a decade. AQ has spent decades building their leadership and we have hundreds of years of history for ours. Iraq started from scratch and needed our support in this area over the long term to insure they had a credible and responsible military.
The same is true for political leadership. Iraq was devoid of any institutions and culturally predisposed to corruption and other things that make it hard for a Democracy to function. They needed some community organizing to help them set up the government institutions and work on the major problems that are holding them back.
I am glad that Obama seems to be at least partially engaged now but if he had been engaged the whole time, we wouldn’t be seeing Iraq disintegrate. Listen to Obama speak on the subject, he will complain about the sectarian nature of the current government as if it is new and it wasn’t Obama’s job to use diplomatic efforts to address that problem years ago.
+1
It didn’t have to be this way.
“It didn’t have to be this way.”
Of course it didn’t. The US State Department *could* have swallowed its pride and prejudice, and followed the orders of the President. They were ordered in early 2002 to help the Iraqi National Congress (INC) set up a group to quickly take over governance of Iraq (May, 2003, at the latest). That could have beaten Al Zarkawi and other Al Qaida types to legitimacy in the eyes of Iraqi Sunnis.
Instead, they followed their prejudice against Achmed Chalabi, and any other Shia democrat, as though they were nothing but Persian agents with a good Arabic accent. The US State Department delayed the first meeting of the INC with other Iraqi groups until January of 2003, far too late to organize what was needed. This reflected the prejudices of professional Arabists in the the State Department, who worked 50 years with Sunni Oil Sheiks. That has left them firmly imprinted with the idea that Sunni tyrants are a far “less bad” alternative than *anyone* Shia.
After all, a Shia democratic government could have given Persian Gulf Sheikdoms’ Shia citizens the idea that Sunni repression or Khomeinist repression were *not* the only alternatives in their lives. State’s ever-so desired “ME stability” might be ruffled. So, instead, they imposed a colonial-style government on Iraq, and gave Al Zarkawi his opportunity.
That State’s ever-so highly certified careerists would have had to obey the orders of a “Texas cowboy” just made it worse. The State Dept. senior cadre had spent their careers learning the “languages of civilization”, like French, and German, and Russian, and had *no* intention of reversing that to spend their final years in dusty places far from the fountains of Versailles. Thus, the Al Quaida strategy of picking “the places in between” for their bases was partially vindicated.
Not necessarily disagreeing with you but I want to add that during the Surge, Sunnis fought against Sunni Islamic militant groups and Shia fought against Shia Islamist militant groups. Iraqis banded together as fellow countrymen rather than fight with Islamic militants out of affinity for any particular religious sect. Why did this happen? Because no one wants to live under the rule of Islamic militants regardless of Sunni/Shia affiliation.
They did it with our help during the darkest time of the was in Iraq but when the bullets stopped flying we didn’t continue with our efforts to get Iraqis to view themselves as one country. It was a hard problem for us because so many Americans have these fantasies that Sunni and Shia can’t ever work together or that a country with more than one social group is incapable of governance. When you start with the belief that failure is inevitable, failure becomes a self-fulfilling promise.
“The aide said that guys like me were “in what we call the reality-based community,” which he defined as people who “believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.” I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. “That’s not the way the world really works anymore.” He continued “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors … and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.””
well, we saw what happens when the previous administration liked to create their own reality.
Indeed we did. A brutal regime,one of the worst abusers of human rights in the world, was toppled and replaced with a parliamentary democracy. That caused a cascade of events whereby Syria withdrew from Lebanon and Libya gave up its nuclear weapons program. Even the Iraqi rebel leaders ended up supporting the US. Then came the annointed one, supported by the reality based community, and lo and behold, fanatical Islamists are ascendant.
Don’t forget Libya gave up their WMD programs in exchange for us not regime changing them and then we acted as close air support for Islamic militants to overthrow the government. That cowboy Bush just wanted to shoot everything up and never use diplomacy.
“well, we saw what happens when the previous administration liked to create their own reality.”
We are witnessing the differences between the reality of the Bush years and the reality of the Obama years. Bush looked at threats as they existed and took steps to marginalize them while Obama ignores threat to the point he thinks our enemies are our friends and the rise of AQesque militants throughout the Middle East and Northern Africa, the alienation of allies, and loss of American influence has been the result.
Sure, it doesn’t matter too much for us back in the States. I mean we have to deal with the fallout of Obama’s failed domestic policies but we don’t have to deal with AQ cutting people head’s off in the streets. The closest we have come to that in America was when the Democrat’s OWS was agitating for the grand socialist revolution that promised to weed out the undesirables. But there are tens of millions of people who do have to live with the AQ type of violence every day and it is partially because of Obama’s foreign policy which does not even admit that the problem exists.
It is like Obama really thought that the only reason Islamic militants didn’t like us was because of Bush. I would like to give some advice to Obama, you want to be disliked by these types of people. It is actually a good thing if AQ fears you and hates you for fighting back against them. This isn’t like high school where you go make friends with the bully in hopes to be left alone or that you get to help bully people.
Your argument would be stronger if it incorporated the reality of Obama’s drone strikes and special forces raids.
Who, here, is not acknowledging them?
I thought Wodun wasn’t. You did. By the way, I liked your initial comment.
You mean those shadow drone wars? Democrats are cool with that now?
Obama does have contradictory policies. On the one hand he is engaged in shadow drone wars but on the other he uses drones in support of Islamic militants. Sometimes Obama will agitate for the removal of a dictator and the MB to take his place, totally contradictory.
It has been pretty clear that Obama’s fp includes trying to put distance between us and our allies while acting conciliatory toward our enemies in the hopes they will change.
I think many Democrats are very cool with killing terrorists from the air. But many are not. And many are “cool with it” overall but vary in the degree to which they are concerned about civilian casualties.
If you want to understand Obama’s policies, you have to start with the premise that some of the Muslims in question are good while others are evil. Reagan, Bush-41, Clinton, and Bush-43 all believed this, so the current President’s belief is nothing new.
No, the current president’s belief is that the evil of the Muslims who are evil has nothing to do with Islam. To be fair, the Bush administration tried to pretend this as well. That was also nutty.
The difference is that the previous administration probably wouldn’t have said that someone shooting down people shouting “Allah Akbar,” after allowing him to rise to the rank of major in the Army, was “workplace violence.”
(I started with Reagan because of Afghanistan.)
“you have to start with the premise that some of the Muslims in question are good while others are evil.”
Oh, I am well aware which is why I don’t think throwing our Iraqi friends under the bus is a good thing nor turning our back on Afghanistan, as Obama has done. I think the Iraqi people’s lives have value and they are worth fighting groups like ISIS for.
I disagree that that is Obama’s foreign policy. If it is, he has a terrible track record of picking the “good” Muslims. He armed and trained Islamic militants in Libya and Syria and he installed the MB in Egypt. Remember when the Obama administration was out there saying that the MB was secular? And then after deposing Mubarak, Obama supported the MB in their actions to turn Egypt into a Caliphate.
What we have seen from Obama’s foreign policy, is that he doesn’t understand the Muslim world any more than he understands Russia, China, or any other country. Obama just lurches from crisis to crisis, reactionary with no plan or strategy, often times creating bigger problems than the one he “solved”.
Like when he cut and run in Iraq only to see a decimated ISIS rise from the civil war in Syria, which Obama thinks we need to help ISIS and their allies, and invade Iraq. Then we see how Obama failed with the diplomatic efforts needed to see Iraq become a stable country in the long term. Sure, Obama promised to cut and run but now we are seeing how leaving Iraq irresponsibly caused some very big problems for the Iraqis, the good Muslims who fought with us against Islamic militants.
Rand,
This is an off-topic comment specifically directed to you – I don’t want to derail the conversation on Iraq.
I wonder if you’d be interested in blogging about the following story – I know I’d enjoy hearing what you have to say about it, and more generally, I’d be interested in what non-left-leaning libertarians think about it.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-28106900
A case was brought by a 24-year-old French woman, who argued that the ban on wearing the veil in public violated her freedom of religion and expression. French law says nobody can wear in a public space clothing intended to conceal the face. The penalty for doing so can be a 150-euro fine (£120; $205). […] A breach of the ban can also mean a wearer having to undergo citizenship instruction.
The article also notes that “Masks used in ‘traditional activities’, such as carnivals or religious processions” are exempt from the ban.
My reaction is right out of that cheesy Lee Greenwood song: I’m proud to be an American, where at least I know I’m free.
Whoops, I somehow dropped the headline and nut graph:
European Court upholds French full veil ban
The European Court of Human Rights has upheld a ban by France on wearing the Muslim full-face veil – the niqab.
Anyway, I wonder if your anti-Islam sentiments are in any tension with your pro-liberty sentiments.
“This isn’t like high school where you go make friends with the bully in hopes to be left alone or that you get to help bully people.”
Which rarely worked in High School once the bully recognized that you are an easy mark.
Works even less in real world, life and death politics.
You post is not parsing to me.
Are you telling me that you do not support President Obama in the actions he is taking?
A little of both…
I don’t know what the breakup of Iraq, per se, means for us in the future. Not sure that the political entity of “Iraq” matters.
What matters is who is in control of what territories…who are they allied with, and what sort of relationship (friendly, neutral, adversarial) they want with the US.
For example, we could probably have a really good working relationship with the Kurds.
As we should have learned from Vietnam, it isn’t precisely what flag they fly. It’s what political system do they build and what their views of relations with the US are.
It’s only going to get worse because principles and maturity have gone away.
This is simple. Nations deal with nations. Everything else is done with spies.
Overt national policy should not care what happens within nations. It doesn’t matter what tyrannies occur within nations. It only matters when they leave their borders.
Like when they ship their children into our country.
Why stop with nations? We could save a lot of effort and anguish if we just stopped hiring policemen, and walled off our violent inner cities.
As I’ve said before, a breakup is just temporizing. It may be worthwhile in the long run because it enables some island of sanity to exist in the middle east (probably the kurds) which might serve as an example. Nevertheless, the problem of dealing with extreme sectarian violence and violent religious fundamentalism is not balkanization. Whether people are hating and killing their neighbors across the road or their neighbors across the border it’s all the same problem in the end.
The middle east doesn’t have a sectarian violence problem, it has a “not getting along with fucking anyone else” problem. No matter where you draw the boundaries that problem needs solving, and I can imagine scenarios where drawing the boundaries too closely to the conforms of sectarian groups will just make things worse. See, for example, the partition of British India and the multi-decade clusterfuck that created.