by Jerome a Paris
Sun Nov 12th, 2006 at 04:56:39 PM EST
Robert Kagan and William Kristol get the red carpet treatment in tomorrow's Financial Times (Europe's main business paper), and get ot publish a lengthy op-ed piece (probably behind sub. wall) there suggesting that Iraq is still winnable, and basically acting as if the election this week had never taken place.
There are, of course, other grave issues that will consume the Bush administration over the next two years: the continuing need to defend Americans from terrorist threats; Iran's efforts to acquire nuclear weapons; containment and weakening of a nuclear-armed North Korea; an increasingly belligerent Russia; and manifold challenges presented by a rising China. But the fact remains that Mr Bush (correctly, in our view) took the nation to war to remove Saddam Hussein, and the success or failure of that war will be central to his legacy.
While this should not come as a surprise coming from some of the most prominent neocons, the arrogance of that article is quitebreathtaking.
The trajectory is downward towards failure. Indeed, this has been the case for more than three years, ever since Pentagon officials decided to put far too few troops in Iraq to bring stability after Hussein's ousting.
Ah yes, it's Rumsfeld's fault. He waged the war incompetently, and did not send enough troops. What troops, you may ask? They have the answer:
Those who claim that (...) more troops do not exist to send to Iraq are wrong.
That's it. That's the extent of their argument. Their critics are wrong. Full stop. And they are basically saying that it's still not to late to change things:
President Bush could finally demand of his top advisers a strategy to succeed: provide the US force levels necessary to achieve even minimal political objectives. This could begin by increasing US troops in Iraq by at least 50,000 in order to clear and hold Baghdad without shifting troops from other parts of Iraq. These operations could then be expanded into areas of insurgency. This strategy would not stabilise the country right away but could secure Iraq's vital centre and provide real hope for progress.
and Americans agree with them, they say:
The Republican loss was largely due to lack of confidence that Mr Bush had a victory strategy for Iraq, not a belief that he was not exiting fast enough. If the president makes clear he has such a strategy, he will have the support to do what is necessary.
That's the only mention of the election in their article: a signal to send more troops. I know that for them, anything is a sign to wage more war, but this, again, is quite a stunning analysis to make.
In passing, they note that a US military presence will be required in Iraq in any case.
A peaceful, federated Iraq will, however, require no less of a commitment of US troops to provide security than a unitary one.
If not peaceful, to make it so; if peaceful, to keep it so. Hmm, with permanent military bases, maybe?
The only semi-interesting information in that whole article is their analysis that the Baker-Hamilton ISG effort is just a figleaf to organize the retreat from Iraq:
Now, many Americans are looking to the Iraq Study Group, the commission headed by James Baker and Lee Hamilton, for a face-saving, bipartisan way to withdraw from Iraq as quickly as possible.
So they spend a couple more paragraphs (which I'll spare you) to explain how unrealistic that is, and how impossible it is to acknowledge defeat like this when things are not really lost yet (Iraq is only "closer" to civil war right now, they tell us)
Again, this is not really surprising coming from these guys; what's really worrying is that they still seem to be able to get such easy access to major media outlets. To Europeans who will read this (the leading business/political class which reads the FT), the signal can only be that the USA is still a country that considers itself at war. In addition, the message that the elections last week were essentially irrelevant is being pushed across the board (we've been getting lots of "don't get your hopes up, Dems are just the same as Bush on international policy" articles recently here in Europe) and that the only way out is with more war, led by Bush.
It's been quite scary to see a number of things that took place in the US a few years ago happen in the same sequence here in Europe, despite the fact that we now know how things turned out. But no, we're told that a war footing is essential, and that terrorists threaten us ever more, and that dealing with Iraq is vital, and that Europe must act militarily, and that civil rights are a luxury in this century, and that, oh by the way, taxes must be cut.
And now we get the neocons behaving as if they - and the Bush administration - were not totally discredited, and acting as if the recent elections were a signal for more of their policies - and we get full media campaigns in that vein here in Europe. It's coming from the USA, so it must be good is the underlying theme - but of course only the worst extremist rightwing ideas seem to make it across the Atlantic. No wonder so many Europeans turn anti-American when that's all we hear.
Please, dear American friends, now that you are back in power, please take back these people - and put them in jail, maybe?
