The Roman Empire is falling. That, in a phrase, is what the Baker report says. The legions cannot impose their rule on Mesopotamia.
Just as Crassus lost his legions' banners in the deserts of Syria-Iraq, so has George W Bush. There is no Mark Antony to retrieve the honour of the empire. The policy "is not working". "Collapse" and "catastrophe" - words heard in the Roman senate many a time - were embedded in the text of the Baker report. Et tu, James?
This is also the language of the Arab world, always waiting for the collapse of empire, for the destruction of the safe Western world which has provided it with money, weapons, political support. First, the Arabs trusted the British Empire and Winston Churchill, and then they trusted the American Empire and Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the Truman and Eisenhower administrations and all the other men who would give guns to the Israelis and billions to the Arabs - Nixon, Carter, Clinton, Bush...
...The nations we supposedly hated - Iran and Syria - are now expected to save us from ourselves. "Given the ability [sic] of Iran and Syria to influence events and their interest in avoiding chaos in Iraq, the United States should try to engage [sic] them constructively."
I love those words. Especially "engage". Yes, the "influence of America" is diminishing. The influence of Syria and Iran is growing. That just about sums up the "war on terror". Any word yet, I wonder, from Lord Blair of Kut al-Amara?
Thursday, December 07, 2006
Circus Maximus Tragicus
Robert Fisk:
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3 comments:
Maybe the next Dark Age will be short. Also let's aim more for post-Viking than post-Rome.
History tends partially be sort of a list of dissappeared empires, so, why would the American one be anything different? The irony is, though, that just a few tears ago, with a meltdown of the Soviet Empire, the U.S. strenght was deemed to be sure and long lasting. Even the strenght of the U.S. might not be enough to pull out of the unbelievable mess that this incompent president managed to create with his ideological and myth based foreign policies. Is there anything that this man did to strenghten the American position in anything? If there is, i would like to hear about it.
It's hardly an unbelievable mess. The difficulties the U.S. currently face in Iraq are evidence of how much easier it is to an opposing army than it is to set up new democracy. It took many years and two wars for the rather thankless task of setting up a legitimate government in the Kaiser's and then Hitler's Germany. And then another 50 years to integrate the Eastern half back into a unified Germany.
North Korea is still up in the air and may well cause Japan to rearm.
Progress in human rights in the People's Republic of China is Agonizingly slow.
Confirmation that there are currently no nukes or nuke programs was immensely helpful. Removal of Saddam Hussein from power is on balance a good thing even if he acted as a counterweight to Iranian influence in the region.
History has shown that the introduction of local constabularies as was done for a century in Latin America is insufficient to meet our interests and has resulted in no shortage of ill-will in that region of the world.
I find it ironic that the one time an American President stands up and tries to go beyond dropping the most friendly thug into power, he is roundly lambasted by the very people allegedly so concerned with human rights.
The idea of delivering the Iraqi people over to Syrians, Saudis and Iranian Special Forces with small arms and a bad attitude and their local Iraqi thug auxillaries is incomprehensible to me. Especially when the first thing they will do is open the gates for Iranian tanks and heavy weapons.
Military strength is not an issue, but our will to persevere is. Because I have been doubtful of our will to export democracy, I would not have recommended this adventure. My only hope is that our forces are not reduced to such a level that we cannot assist the Iraqis in repelling a large-scale foreign invasion as happened in South Vietnam in the wake of Watergate.
I believe President Bush has made the best of an evil choice between doing nothing as was done by the previous administration, and doing just barely enough in this one instance.
Despite President Bush's inaction on closing our own borders let alone closing Iraq's to foreign fighters, I believe supporting a democratic Iraq strengthens our position in the world if only we can leave strong enough local security forces loyal to the new Iraqi government in our wake.
Should it survive its infancy this new government would be of extraordinary strategic value as a bulwark against islamo-fascism, much as a revitalized Germany proved key to the eventual retreat of the justifiably paranoid Soviets from Eastern Europe.
The best case scenario for me is that some Iraqi politician will stand up on the floor of their legilative body and read us the riot act and then tell us to go to hell without subsequently sitting down and purchasing the tickets for us.
Counter-insurgency is the nastiest form of combat and a direct consequence of the DOD's exceptional advancement in all other forms of warfare. Counter-insurgency is an up close and personal activity with a much greater personal cost to our combatants. It will remain so until tactics and technologies to reduce losses are developed and deployed.
The first Gulf War bred our forces for speed, precision, and striking power. This allowed us to disarm and depose Saddam and also caused forces that should have been destroyed on the battlefield to instead refuse battle and draw us into urban combat. This came at great cost to our adversaries because it meant the loss of their heavy weapons.
So now they try to return to power with home-made bombs, rifles, pistiols and RPGs (both imported from Syria and Iran as well as those inside Iraq that were not secured in a timely fashion). Add to this the desire for payback among the Shia who now have the means to exact their revenge.
Not a happy picture surely, but a picture still. A distinctly different situation from when people were executed under Saddam without the benefit of documentary evidence.
I would also credit the President with preserving the economy in the face of massive economic disruptions (9-11 and the Internet bubble)and corporate malfeasance on an Enron scale. By which I mean he stayed the hell out of the way. (Outside of arresting Ken Lay and Martha Stewart).
In any case we are not an Empire. Long-term direct administration of foreign lands IS a recipe for disaster. That's why we should retreat as quickly as possible from Iraqi internal affairs. And then as quickly as possible from the country itself to help promote the new government's legitimacy and independence.
Even if that means we have to go in again and lend a hand when their enemies make an attempt on their sovereignty in order to prop up flagging dictatorships in Tehrean and Damascus by quarantining democracy in Iraq.
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