Lion and the Lamb
August 30th, 2002 - 12:10 am
David Ignatius on our course in the Middle East:
What the Bush administration needs to do now is fashion a strategy for the Middle East in which its strike against Iraq won’t seem crazy, but part of a sensible plan for a new and stable order in the Middle East. That shouldn’t be impossible; the status quo, after all, is a mess — and has been for decades.
That’s the problem with those who argue for caution and inaction. They’re defending a status quo that’s rotten — one that has left the Arab world perpetually unstable, and one in which U.S. interests seem constantly at risk. A new order would benefit everyone, most of all the Arabs.
You read much the same thing on this site two days ago. Ignatius is right
You are quite right about the tyrants who rule the Arab and Muslim world. However, what about their subjects? If we can talk over the heads of the rulers and mullahs to the people some of them will respond to our call. The Muslim world has been desperately casting about for some means of modernizing for the last two centuries. Every means adopted has failed. If we offer a new approach we may attract support. It can’t hurt.
Bernard Lewis, in “What Went Wrong”, noted that the Arab world adopted Freedom to mean Independence. When they got independence and still failed it soured them on the idea of Freedom. The alternative to them is justice, which is what the Islamists claim to bring, a just society.If we can redirect their attention to freedom and show that such freedom will also be a just society, I hope we can win them over. But first we shall have to beat the hell out of them to convince them we are correct.
The Frenchman you mention is correct. We should be looking at staying in Iraq ten years and directing change, chivvying the locals into a better way. I thought we ought to do that after the Gulf War in 1991, which if we had we might be done by now. Let’s do it right this time.
I’m a historically illiterate fool. I could be mistaken but wasn’t the Cold War a protracted low intensity conflict due to necessity. The Soviets had a huge and formidible military and, of course, nukes, and both sides were weary after the destruction of WWII. If we could have intervened in, say Hungary or Czechoslovakia, we could have ended the Communist nightmare decades earlier. But it wasn’t realistically feasible.
With Iraq, more so than any other of our numerous enemies, we have the ability to do something ahora, instead of waiting 50 years while generations (theirs) are lost and the aftermath scenarios only get worse.
The go slow advocates don’t seem to realize that over 40% of the population in Iraq is under the age of 15. Most of the other middle eastern countries have similar demographics. These facts would indicate that time is not on our side.
Heisbourg’s comments epitomize why France is no longer a great power. At a fundamental level, they no longer understand the very tenets of war and conflict.
Sun-Tze points out: A protracted war serves no one, least of all the sovereign.
His point is that protracted conflicts not only exhaust a nation’s treasury and saps morale, but since war is filled w/ uncertainties and unintended consequences, it is ALWAYS risky. Protracted war just exacerbates the risk.
As Tokyo points out, the Cold War was protracted in no small part because it had to be. But it wrought massive changes world-wide. Michael Lonie’s point about STAYING a long-time is very different from choosing to wage the war for a long-time.
It is always amusing to me how academics will claim that Generals fight the last war, while failing to recognize that their own recommendations are based on the last war as well….
I would point out too that the soviets didn’t just, y’know, clobber Solzhenitsyn over the head and get rid of him because they cared about the opinion of our liberal class; they believed, correctly, that as long as they refrained from total brutality towards dissidents, the liberals would to a large extent side with them, sowing dissension in our own ranks and benefitting their geopolitical ambitions.
But what similar pressure is there upon the middle eastern fiefdoms? They already behead, gas, or stone their dissidents, not to mention many of their more ordinary outcasts. And the liberals side with them anyway. So what’s the point of bringing up their human rights abuses? They not only have no shame — after all, these abuses are ordained by God, or so they convince themselves — but they gain no benefit by doing so.
I have to say, that this is the first time in over 15 years I have heard the Commodore 64 called “modern”, and not broken out in laughter.
Stephen is right about the Arab leaders not being hypocrites. They are barbarians. When a civilization is faced with barbarians, it has three choices: surrender (not acceptable), try to civilize them (good luck with this bunch), or kill enough of them that the survivors say “I will fight no more forever.” I fear our model must be, not the Cold War, but the Indian Wars.
Riyadh delenda est!
I think the model should be the aftermath of WWII. We went in, kicked butt and made them Democracies. Whether they wanted it or not. That’s the deal, you win the war you dictate the terms. That was the problem with WWI, the Allies, particularly the French, wanted to humiliate Germany. After WWII we, the US, decided the treaty and fixed the problem. Of course now they don’t like us, but they’re not shooting at us.
Faster Please.