Wes Clark: Seven Countries in Five Years
According to Wes Clark's new memoir, the Bush administration was at least considering a plan that would "take out seven countries in five years," starting with Iraq and ending, apparently, with Iran.
Well, I'm...speechless...
[via Metafilter]
According to Wes Clark's new memoir, the Bush administration was at least considering a plan that would "take out seven countries in five years," starting with Iraq and ending, apparently, with Iran.
Well, I'm...speechless...
[via Metafilter]
posted by Winston Smith at
8:20 AM
6 Comments:
During the Blitzer interview, Clark backed off slightly, conceding that the memo "wasn't [necessarily] a plan. Maybe it was a think piece..."
Since Islamism is generally held to be the product of tyranny and its resulting poverty, overturning that diseased order seemed worth a thought.
Those are more-or-less the thoughts I was just having walking back from the office, just as I was walking back up the stairs. If it was a kind of brainstorming paper, then...well, lots of ideas should be put on the table at that phase/in that form.
My guess--if I had to make one--would be that that's what it was: brainstorming.
But note why we'd think that: because the idea is so freakin' crazy.
Thus: if it was MORE than that, then that's a big problem, and we should get that on the table explicitly.
Unfortunately, given the way this administration has behaved, one must at least *worry* that it was more than that.
Well, we hightailed it out of Lebanon under Reagan, and Iran has twice the people and a lot more mountains than Iraq. I don't see how actual warfare was in the cards, unless it was the Afghanistan model, where we helped the existing Northern Alliance insurgency rather than carry the whole load as in Iraq.
But there are no other such relatively secularist insurgencies. What was apparently wrong about the Project for a New American Century thinking (read neo-conservatism) is that it's uncertain that the Muslim (particularly, the Arab) world really wants "freedom" or views "tyranny" in any sense that the West recognizes those terms.
As Martin Amis pointed out, democracy in the Arab world has brought Hezbollah, Hamas, and Ahmadinejad. And neither am I convinced that the West's---including non-neo-cons--- great hope for reform, the Western-style emancipation of Muslim (particularly Arab) womanhood, is what the great majority of those women actually want.
What the West as a whole is guilty of, left and right, is a one-size-fits-all thinking that does not take the specifics of the philosophy and culture of the Muslim world into account. There's more to it than which way you face when you pray to the putatively universal God.
That all men (and women) do not necessarily yearn to breathe free is a tough proposition for we children of the Enlightenment to swallow.
Well, just because it would be crazy to invade Lebanon and/or Iran doesn't mean that this bunch wasn't considering it. Heck, they're STILL considering it in the latter case. Invading Iraq was a disaster, but they did more than just consider that...
So the "it would be crazy" argument can't get us the "so they weren't considering it" conclusion.
But as for your later points: agreed.
"What the West as a whole is guilty of, left and right, is a one-size-fits-all thinking that does not take the specifics of the philosophy and culture of the Muslim world into account."
Let me take a moment to say that, even though I'm usually in the position of disagreeing with him, this is one of the most insightful statements Tom has ever made. Our decisions have often been made from an extreme point of egocentrism, with little regard to how we and our actions are perceived in the Muslim world.
I would say more specifically that that is what was wrong with the logic behind the war in Iraq. What the neoconservatives did was cherry-pick Iraqi dissidents who were clever enough to tell them what they wanted to hear and confirm their pre-existing biases. That and a shitload of hubris.
The net result of miscalculations like this is typically to strengthen the hand of authoritarian power by providing nationalistic fodder around which it can rally the population; never underestimate the force of distrust of foreign powers, particularly of those that have shown a previous willingness to meddle in others' affairs.
History seems dangerously close to repeating itself with Iran, and I would suggest that people familiarize themselves with the thinking of those within Iran who are in a position to know the philosophy and culture there. This would result in an understanding that while many Muslims may indeed desire an authoritarian government based on strict Islam, many in fact do not. This seems like a good place to start:
http://bostonreview.net/BR32.3/ganji.html
Some important excerpts:
"Some recent remarks by U.S. statesmen, too, have helpfully distinguished Iran’s cultured and peace-loving people from its repressive and fundamentalist state. Unfortunately, the impact of these welcome observations has been significantly diminished by the Bush administration’s escalating belligerence."
"The United States, by invoking the threat of a “Shia Crescent” or “Crescent of Crisis” extending from Iran (which is 90 percent Shia) through Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria, perpetuates the cycle by imagining a unified political enemy, and perhaps creating that unity in reality. The war that is now underway in Iraq—inflamed by al Qaeda and the former Baathist power holders—is much more a dispute between Iraq’s ethnic and religious communities over power and resources than a war between Islamic sects. Sunni and Shia religious teachings never endorse the abduction and murder of innocent people in streets and marketplaces or the destruction of religious sites."
"Politicizing the Shia identity will only increase tensions in the Middle East, and may even destabilize North Africa and parts of Central Asia. Of course, some Islamic extremist groups see their political life as hinging on these polarizations. But encouraging these forces would only bring them from the fringes of the Middle East’s political arena to its volatile center."
There is a lot more in there about the actual threat posed by Iran and our perception of it, as well as how military intervention would be viewed throughout the Middle East. It is worth a read.
Seven countries in five years was basically the blunt implementation of the PNAC plan to bring "peace" and "democracy" to the Middle East by permanently placing unchecked American power in the crossroads. It's all a ridiculous fantasy, though that doesn't make it any less likely, since the ridiculous PNAC fantasizers were at the levers of power - Darth, Rummy, Wolfowitz, Feith, Perle, etc. And Duhbya was pliant and intellectually overmatched.
This nightmare scenario, giddily embraced by the Bushist kooks, is why I've thought for a long time that the critical goal of the Iraq invasion was none of the pretexts that Colin Powell and others provided. Instead, the overriding goal was always to put permanent U.S. bases into Iraq.
Guess what, it's happening. Also, you may have noticed that Duhbya himself has already stated that there will be American troops on the ground in Iraq at least until the end of his administration.
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home