Jessica Mathews, the head of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, has a generally excellent op-ed in today’s WaPo. It’s titled “Match Iraq Policy to Reality”.
This op-ed, allied to previous work that Mathews and other Carnegie staff members including their “Arab Reform Bulletin” team have done, indicate to me that this small but venerable organization is probably nowadays the sanest and most constructive of the DC think-tanks when it comes to looking at Middle East issues. (Brookings’ Mideast programs having been taken over by Martin “divide and rule” Indyk; AEI still continuing in its role as incubator of the neocons; etc.)
Here is Mathews’ opening argument:
- What was an emerging opposition [in Iraq] is now a full-fledged insurgency. The United States is still without a political strategy that recognizes this reality. As a result, the military is forced into a stop-go-stop hesitancy in which soldiers’ lives are being wasted and security continues to worsen.
The sobering truth is that a path to a not-awful ending in Iraq is extremely hard to see, and there may not, in fact, be one. The United States cannot use its full power to achieve security without causing so many Iraqi casualties that it would defeat our purpose. We do not have enough additional troops to send to achieve order through an overwhelming presence. Iraqi security forces are nowhere near up to the task and will not be for a long time. Thus the paradox: While achieving a degree of security is the overwhelming priority, a change of political course is the most important step.
Attentive JWN readers will probably understand why I think Mathews is so percipient–namely, that she seems largely to agree with my own conclusions.
She continues:
- What is needed is a policy that takes deadly seriously what Iraqis believe about why the war began and what the United States intends. These beliefs — that the United States came only to get its hands on Iraq’s oil, to benefit Israel’s security, and to establish a puppet government and a permanent military presence through which it could control Iraq and the rest of the region — are wrong. But beliefs passionately held are as important as facts, because they powerfully affect behavior. What we see as a tragic series of American missteps, Iraqis interpret — with reason when seen through their eyes — as evidence of evil intent.
I actually disagree with her when she says flat-out that all of those Iraqi beliefs are “wrong”. I generally try to give people the benefit of the doubt regarding their “true” motivations, and perhaps I’m prepared to do that regarding whether the “real intention” of the Bush administration in invading Iraq was, “to get its hands on Iraq’s oil, to benefit Israel’s security, [or] to establish a puppet government”.
However, on the establishment of “a permanent military presence through which it could control Iraq and the rest of the region”, I judge that there is quite enough evidence to support the conclusion that that war goal was indeed one that motivated the decision to invade. For example, look at the haste with which, in the immediate aftermath of the invasion, the Bushies, (1) uprooted the longstanding US military presence in Saudi Arabia and moved to sever all remaining operational reliance on those bases, and (2) set about building those 14 “enduring” military bases inside Iraq…
Indeed, is there are other possible explanation for the construction of bases described in those terms??
(And of course, to provide political protection for any longterm basing agreement in Iraq– a country with a long history of deeply held anti-imperial sentiment and policy– the Bushies would then, necessarily, have to aspire to put and keep in place a compliant puppet government, as well… )
Anyway, that’s a relatively small quibble with Mathews’ broader argument… It’s just that she is prepared to give the Bushies that much more benefit of the doubt regarding their motives than I am…
Her argument continues thus:
- If controlling Iraq’s oil was not our purpose, [the Iraqis] ask, why was the oil ministry the only building (not excluding Baghdad’s nuclear complex) that U.S. soldiers had orders to guard against looting? If the United States did not intend to dismember the Iraqi state, why did it dissolve the Iraqi army? If the United States does not mean to stay, why is it building 14 “enduring” military bases? If it did not mean to control Iraq’s politics, why would it appoint a prime minister who spent two decades on the CIA payroll? If it is not pursuing a classic policy of imperial divide-and-rule by exacerbating sectarian differences, why does it continue to insist on minutely balancing Shiites, Sunnis, Kurds, Turkmen, Christians and others on every appointed council?
To succeed, the United States needs to do what it can to undermine each of these convictions. The president — no one less — needs to state formally and unequivocally that the United States will not maintain a permanent military presence in Iraq, and to repeat it at every opportunity. [Yes!! ~HC] The phrase “enduring bases” should be erased and the construction of permanent facilities halted. [Yes!! ~HC] A transparent mechanism that makes clear that no Iraqi oil revenue will touch American fingers should be created, and questions about what happened to that revenue over the past year should be quickly and forthrightly answered. The U.S. Embassy should be drastically cut in size and moved outside the Green Zone (to Camp Victory, for instance) to emphasize that the United States is no longer running the country and that it and the Iraqi government are not one and the same. A statement signed jointly by Iraq’s neighbors should pledge the United States and each of them to respect Iraq’s territorial integrity within its present borders. And the president needs to address many Iraqis’ conviction that elections held under the occupation will be fixed, by saying loudly and often that the United States favors no candidate or party and will accept whatever government Iraqis elect. [Yes, yes, yes!! ~HC]
Regarding events, there are three priorities. Right now, killing Americans is a good job in a country where the unemployment rate may be 60 percent. Every deal with a non-Iraqi contractor that can be broken, therefore, should be, and the dollars and jobs redirected to Iraqis. This is no time to follow the usual practice of using foreign aid to produce economic benefit at home…
What excellent good sense all round! Thank God there is someone out there much more “mainstream” and better politically connected than I am who is out there making these very sound and constructive arguments.
Jessica Mathews is one very smart cookie. Dare we hope that Kerry and his people are not only listening to her good sense– but also, that they’re giving her and her very good-sense views the weight they truly deserve?? (That is, considerably more weight than all the lackluster crew of highly over-politicized Clinton-era retreads with whom Kerry has thus far surrounded himself, in the foreign-policy “advice” arena.)
Nah, I’m not holding my breath. Jessica’s too smart and too well-informed, probably, to have much time for doing all the backscratching, brown-nosing, and general sucking-up that it takes to be truly listened to by any candidate in the highly politicized context of a US presidential campaign… But it’s great that she gets her views out there, anyway.
p.s. Mathews is the daughter of the well-known historian Barbara Tuchman. Tuchman always seemed to me to be strongly pro-Israeli. I don’t know much about Mathews’ current views on that score. But we can’t criticize or pre-judge someone just because of her parent’s views, can we?
I agree with Helena’s conclusion that the establishment of military bases was an important objective of the Bush administration in invading Iraq. These bases fit a pattern of US extension of power in the Middle East through establishment of such bases. The Bush claim of bringing “freedom” to countries in the Middle East rings pretty hollow when one sees that he is willing to support authoritarian governments there that allow American military bases.
And it should be noted that the neo-cons who provided the policy basis for the Bush administration’s ouster of Saddam Hussein also ginned up the Project for a New American Century (PNAC). If anyone believes those PNAC plans have been discarded by the realities of the situation in Iraq, then read Jim Hoagland’s column in today’s Washington Post. He avers that the American voter has choice between the Kerry and Bush worldviews: Kerry’s promise to change the “situation” in Iraq and Bush’s pledge to change the “world.” It seems clear to me that many government officials and pundits in Washington still think the Bush administration is capable of ushering a “new American century,” primarily through the projection of military power.
I agree with Helena, as does the Army’s peace operations doctrine, that the Iraqis’ legitimacy that matters is crafted from what the Iraqis think and believe. (Peaceops doctrine is in Field Manual 100-23. Unfortunately it is not being used.) The Iraqi’s perceptions can also be intergral to the legitimacy of their beliefs. Perception, in the eye of the beholder, is often interpreted as reality. The US must deal with both the Iraqis perception and the reality of what the Iraqis think is central to their legitimate concern(s) or fail.
One may suspect that the construction of 14 large bases symbolize the assendency of the corporate-state (the military, industrial, petroleum complex) over the sovereign nation-state. After reading “House of Bush, House of Saud,” and observing recent events, one lacks another theoretical framework to explain these actions regarding Iraq. I realize that suspicion is a stretch, but it is less of a stretch today than it was two years ago.
In my view, the Iraqis’ perception regarding the evil intent of the occupiers is probably quite accurate. If there had been any honorable and viable reason for the war and occupation, why would the enterprise have needed all those ever-shifting pretexts, lies and deceptions? And what of Abu Ghraib? Doesn’t it say somewhere in the bible, “by their fruits ye shall know them”, or words to that effect? The fruits of the Bush regime are vile indeed.
A more interesting question is wheter Mathews herself is really giving the Bush regime the benefit of the doubt, or whether she simply has to pretend to do so in order to avoid being taken for, and immediately discounted as a “shrill liberal” and “America-hater”, in the environment where she works and writes.
Helena, you claim (and I agree) that the Bushies wanted to establish a permanent base in Iraq. Perhaps you can prove that by looking at actions in Iraq, but the argument isn’t unquestionable.
But isn’t it now possible to make the case by going back to what was being discussed within the administration at the time? In the UK, for example, recently leaked documents show that Blair was in favour of ‘regime change’ in February 2003, despite his public claims to the contrary. I wonder if it is possible for a well-connected journalist to something similar in the US, finding documents from 2002 which outline the plans for Iraq as a military base. Papers that were closely guarded two years ago may be easier to get hold of now, or even obtainable under the freedom of information laws (as a Brit, I don’t know how they work in the US)
Perhaps I’m being overly optimistic, but it seems worth attempting. Up for a challenge, Helena?
hmmm, i read the article (twice), and it seems to me to be a reflection of the present neo-con public view, only voiced because american elections are close. it reminds me of what happen last week when kerry finally began attacking the administration on iraq. robert novak suddenly came out with a column, sourced from administration ‘insiders’, that bush would leave iraq next year. once again implying administration and kerry position were the same, so why change?
this article has the same ‘feel’. at no time does it dispute administration positions. in this quote;
“What is needed is a policy that takes deadly seriously what Iraqis believe about why the war began and what the United States intends. These beliefs — that the United States came only to get its hands on Iraq’s oil, to benefit Israel’s security, and to establish a puppet government and a permanent military presence through which it could control Iraq and the rest of the region — are wrong. But beliefs passionately held are as important as facts, because they powerfully affect behavior. What we see as a tragic series of American missteps, Iraqis interpret — with reason when seen through their eyes — as evidence of evil intent.”
she exposes herself. all ‘illegitimate’ reasons are dismissed out of hand, leaving the ‘legitimate’ reasons (remove a dictator, WMD’s) the only reasons standing, and left unsaid. all american actions are ‘missteps’, and mis-interpreted BY THE PEOPLE ON THE SCENE. what is the ‘answer’ to this problem? well, propaganda! we just are ‘explaining well enough!
its an adminstration position, through and through, and shows how our mainstream media has been co-opted.
i see no ‘sense’ in the column.
Warren: “its an adminstration position, through and through, and shows how our mainstream media has been co-opted.”
I agree with your comment about our mainstream media being very pliant with regard to the way the current administration governs the nation. I see no evidence of a deliberate sellout but rather of a shift in emphasis over the years. The conservatives have become so effective in “mau-mauing” the media that the press is now reticent to challenge conservative positions when conservatives are in charge of the government.
Some think this happened as a result of the Sept. 11 attacks but I discerned it as long ago as the Reagan years. I think it has become obvious to many more people during the Bush II administration because this administration has chosen to govern more radically than the Reagan and Bush I administrations did. It’s breath-taking to me that the press is so shy in questioning such a sharp departure from the governance of past administrations.
yes, mushinronsha, i agree with your post.
with this administration it started when they let the white house press corp know that if they asked bush a ‘hard’ question they would never be allowed to ask another one. that happened before 9/11. and it turned press conferences into political puff pieces. not one single newspaper that i read has avoided this trap.
it breaks my heart what is happening to us. and i fear our future if it continues.
Warren: “it breaks my heart what is happening to us. and i fear our future if it continues.”
Warren, you’re not alone in experiencing that heartache and having the same fear for our future. Many of us share the same sentiments. The nation is going through a strange period now and I’m not sure what we’ll be when/if we emerge from it. I’ve not seen the country so divided as it is now and one may have to go back to the 1860s to find a time of such similar discord.
Warren (and everyone else)– Yes, it’s deeply dismaying what’s happening to American public life; though for me, probably even more dismaying are the many very serious harms that our President’s violent, greedy, and mean-spirited policies have visited (in our name) on the peoples of Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Haiti, etc.
In addition, I do read Jessica M’s piece as arguing for more than merely cosmetic/PR changes in US policy… She spells out, for example, that “The phrase ‘enduring bases’ should be erased and the construction of permanent facilities halted.” That’s not merely cosmetic.
I wish, too, that she had called for actual changes of POLICY, and not just of rhetoric, in ALL those areas she mentioned… For example, to reassure people (especially Iraqi people) about the fairness of the elections, she shd have urged Bush to call for and himself adopt a total, nationwide election-period ceasefire in Iraq, and the deployment there of thousands of international election monitors; etc etc…
Even though she did not urge enough such concrete steps, though, what she did urge was already a good step in the right direction… The rhetoric of leaders on such issues does count, you know. (That was why, back when I was urging a policy of “zero tolerance for torture”, I wrote that we needed to have a clear presidential statement to this effect as well as the visible implementation of credible policy steps designed to enact it throughout the whole govt bureaucracy.)
And I guess I’m maybe more inclined than you, Warren, to “take what I can get” from someone like Jessica M rather than writing her off as “just another neocon”. Actually I think there are a number of important distinctions between her and the neocons.
yes, helena, there may be important distinctions between the author and ‘real’ neocons. but you play the neocon game when all you do is want to ‘tweak’ the policies.
take this quote from the author;
” Every deal with a non-Iraqi contractor that can be broken, therefore, should be, and the dollars and jobs redirected to Iraqis.”
in other words ‘if we only spread the gravy maybe we can get them to our side’ or ‘give them prosperity and they will see we mean good’. these are near neocon views, and play into their hands. she is looking to trim branches but the roots of the whole tree are rotten. the contracts she speaks of are ILLEGAL according to international law and the geneva convention. they ALL can/should be broken. it is the foundation of why the administration NEEDS and HAS TO HAVE a friendly regime in iraq. to reaffirm all the illegal actions bremer ordered is of paramont importance. without this they are all war criminals. the author ignores this, which is the whole basis of what is going on in iraq right now.
its the same old thing;
“if only they understood us better, they would know me are good.”
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