Re: [A-List] US Imperialism: Scorpions in a Glass Jar

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

Fascinating stuff from Lobe, again. This article appeared in the FT last
week, an insider's look at similar themes. It compensated for the utter crap
planted above on the  same page with the usual aplomb by Amity Shlaes.

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Bush needs a Mideast exit plan
By Stephen Walt
Financial Times, September 8 2003

The US is in deep trouble in Iraq. Resistance to the occupation is becoming
more widespread and effective, and efforts to improve the lives of weary
Iraqis are proceeding too slowly to win hearts and minds. Foreign jihadis
are flocking to this fresh battleground, where America now struggles to
secure a "failed state" of its own making. Having gone to war to oust Saddam
Hussein and "transform" the Middle East, the US now stands on the brink of a
costly quagmire. So what should it do now?

President George W. Bush should start by asking for the resignations of the
people who got us into this mess -- beginning with Donald Rumsfeld, the
defence secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, his deputy, and national security advisor
Condoleezza Rice. The architects of this war have been proven wrong on
almost every count. There were no weapons of mass destruction. The Iraqi
people did not welcome US forces with open arms and garlands of flowers.
There were no significant links between the Ba'ath party and al-Qaeda --
although the invasion seems to have forced them into cahoots.

The presence of 140,000 US troops in Iraq is not enough to pacify the
country. Instead, former army chief-of-staff Eric Shinseki's estimate that
more than 200,000 troops would be needed -- a figure that Mr Rumsfeld
derided as "wildly off the mark" -- now looks like an absolute minimum.

Overthrowing Mr Hussein did not cause other rogue states to run up the white
flag: North Korea remains defiant, Iran's nuclear programme is still active
and Syria is once again permitting Hezbollah to use its territory as a base
from which to attack Israel. Conquering Iraq did not help the
administration's "road-map" for peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
And there is no sign of an emerging "democratic transformation" elsewhere in
the region.

The president, in short, went to war on the basis of very bad advice. He
should, therefore, get rid of the people who gave it to him and bring in a
new team with a fresh perspective. The president did not hesitate to replace
his top economic team when they were not up to the job, and he should expect
no less from his foreign policy team. When you get something this important
this wrong, heads should roll.

Second, Mr Bush, who prides himself on plain speaking, should drop the false
optimism and tell us exactly what we now face. He could begin by noting a
key lesson of 20th century history: that it is extremely difficult for great
powers to occupy foreign countries and govern their populations by force.

Democracy may be a powerful trend in many parts of the world, but
nationalism and the desire for self-determination are even stronger. The
urge to throw off foreign domination eventually destroyed the Soviet,
Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman, British and French empires, and it continues to
inspire resistance movements around the world. Occupations and post-war
reconstructions are always difficult and rarely successful, and the US
should be under no illusions about the size of the hole which it has dug
itself.

Third, and most important, the Bush administration should abandon its
grandiose plans for "transforming" the Middle East and concentrate instead
on devising an effective exit strategy. The US cannot just cut and run, both
for humanitarian reasons and because doing so would tarnish its global
reputation even more than the invasion did. Most of the world opposed this
war from the very beginning, and anti-Americanism will increase if the US
leaves only destruction and chaos in its wake. But it must still get out as
quickly as it can, before Iraq becomes America's Chechnya.

The most promising "exit strategy" would begin by creating a true
multinational force. To do this will require a new United Nations
resolution, which is the price that other states have put on sending their
own troops into a war zone. The Bush administration is now pursuing this
option, but still seems intent on retaining full control. This approach will
not work because the countries whose help the US needs have made it clear
that they will not bail it out unless they are given a voice in Iraq's
future.

The Bush administration has been loath to share authority because it could
not admit that the US might need help, did not want to share future benefits
with those countries (read France) that opposed the war, and had hopes of
establishing new US military bases in a pro-American Iraq. Given the
deteriorating situation, however, the smart strategy for the US is to
abandon these imperial dreams, swallow its pride, and get help. Instead of
trying to monopolise control -- as it has done since the invasion -- it must
share authority so it can share the burden.

The US should also accelerate its efforts to prepare Iraqi forces that can
take over from it. The goal should not be to create democracy: that is up to
the Iraqi people and is likely to take decades. All that is required is a
minimally effective government that can hold the place together after the US
leaves. Sadly, this will probably be an authoritarian regime because that is
what it will take to keep Iraq from disintegrating.

Looking for the exit sign is not heroic and it will not be appealing to many
Americans. But the cruel fact is that the US simply does not have attractive
options at this point. When you make a big mistake, bad choices are usually
all that remain.

The writer is academic dean of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard
University.