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Iraq 'failure' starts with Bush, then to coalition that rolled over and public that went along
Updated: 6:45 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 13, 2011
Posted: 6:44 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 13, 2011
As an Illinois state senator, Barack Obama called the U.S. invasion of Iraq "dumb." In a ceremony Monday anticipating the imminent end of U.S. troop deployments to Iraq, President Obama hedged, saying, "History will judge." He was right the first time, and he is right to bring U.S. troops home now.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who urged the March 2003 invasion, didn't call President Obama's decision "dumb." But on Monday he said Mr. Obama and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki "failed in their responsibilities with regard to our shared security interests." Like nearly everything else about the Iraq War, however, Mr. Obama's decision traces to the Bush administration.
Mr. Obama's alleged "failure" is not negotiating an extension of the U.S. presence. The deal-killer was Iraq's insistence that U.S. troops could stay only if they were subject to Iraqi law. President Obama wouldn't agree to that. If he had, Republican presidential wannabes lambasting him for leaving Iraq "prematurely" would be calling him a traitor for handing U.S. troops over to Iraqi courts. Or perhaps Mr. Obama's critics wanted him to persuade Iraq's parliament at gunpoint. That wouldn't have fit with the claim that Iraq's newfound democracy justifies Mr. Bush's mistaken war.
That retroactive justification is just one block in the revisionist edifice that apologists have been building since the original, false justifications started falling apart soon after Mr. Bush ordered the invasion. We invaded Iraq to root out weapons of mass destruction that didn't exist. The Bush administration implied that Iraq posed a nuclear threat. It repeatedly and dishonestly portrayed the invasion as retaliation for 9/11, even though Iraq had no ties to Al-Qaeda.
In 2002, a bipartisan coalition that included Florida Sen. Bill Nelson rolled over for those excuses and authorized force against Iraq. When the excuses fell apart, the war was recast as primarily a humanitarian mission to oust a dictator.
The 2002 authorization, though, didn't hinge on humanitarian concerns. And Saddam Hussein's own atrocities notwithstanding, the invasion triggered a humanitarian disaster for tens of thousands of Iraqis killed in sectarian and ethnic attacks. It created a successful recruiting tool for terrorists and a convenient battlefield on which to attack Americans directly. It empowered Iran.
The belated "surge" that finally put down Iraq's insurgency that the Bush administration never saw coming might prove, after U.S. troops leave, to have been only a temporary success. In the circular logic of revisionists, that's why Mr. Obama had to extend the mission.
We can't afford such a perpetual deployment, one that most Americans don't want, though the public deserves some of the blame. In May 2003, just after President Bush spoke before a banner declaring "Mission Accomplished" in Iraq, 79 percent of Americans said in a poll that the war was justified even if no weapons of mass destruction were found. Today, 78 percent of Americans back President Obama in bringing troops home at the end of the year.
Suppose Americans had been told, in advance of the 2003 invasion, that by the end of 2011 - after 4,500 U.S. troops had been killed and more than 30,000 wounded, and after adding $1 trillion to a crippling national debt - Iraq would be a fragile democracy, at best, whose Shiite leaders were sympathetic to Iran and whose continued existence as a democracy might depend on an open-ended deployment of U.S. forces. Americans would have concluded that invading Iraq would be dumb. And they would have been right.
- Jac Wilder VerSteeg,
for The Palm Beach Post Editorial Board
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
Updated: 6:45 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 13, 2011
Posted: 6:44 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 13, 2011
As an Illinois state senator, Barack Obama called the U.S. invasion of Iraq "dumb." In a ceremony Monday anticipating the imminent end of U.S. troop deployments to Iraq, President Obama hedged, saying, "History will judge." He was right the first time, and he is right to bring U.S. troops home now.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who urged the March 2003 invasion, didn't call President Obama's decision "dumb." But on Monday he said Mr. Obama and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki "failed in their responsibilities with regard to our shared security interests." Like nearly everything else about the Iraq War, however, Mr. Obama's decision traces to the Bush administration.
Mr. Obama's alleged "failure" is not negotiating an extension of the U.S. presence. The deal-killer was Iraq's insistence that U.S. troops could stay only if they were subject to Iraqi law. President Obama wouldn't agree to that. If he had, Republican presidential wannabes lambasting him for leaving Iraq "prematurely" would be calling him a traitor for handing U.S. troops over to Iraqi courts. Or perhaps Mr. Obama's critics wanted him to persuade Iraq's parliament at gunpoint. That wouldn't have fit with the claim that Iraq's newfound democracy justifies Mr. Bush's mistaken war.
That retroactive justification is just one block in the revisionist edifice that apologists have been building since the original, false justifications started falling apart soon after Mr. Bush ordered the invasion. We invaded Iraq to root out weapons of mass destruction that didn't exist. The Bush administration implied that Iraq posed a nuclear threat. It repeatedly and dishonestly portrayed the invasion as retaliation for 9/11, even though Iraq had no ties to Al-Qaeda.
In 2002, a bipartisan coalition that included Florida Sen. Bill Nelson rolled over for those excuses and authorized force against Iraq. When the excuses fell apart, the war was recast as primarily a humanitarian mission to oust a dictator.
The 2002 authorization, though, didn't hinge on humanitarian concerns. And Saddam Hussein's own atrocities notwithstanding, the invasion triggered a humanitarian disaster for tens of thousands of Iraqis killed in sectarian and ethnic attacks. It created a successful recruiting tool for terrorists and a convenient battlefield on which to attack Americans directly. It empowered Iran.
The belated "surge" that finally put down Iraq's insurgency that the Bush administration never saw coming might prove, after U.S. troops leave, to have been only a temporary success. In the circular logic of revisionists, that's why Mr. Obama had to extend the mission.
We can't afford such a perpetual deployment, one that most Americans don't want, though the public deserves some of the blame. In May 2003, just after President Bush spoke before a banner declaring "Mission Accomplished" in Iraq, 79 percent of Americans said in a poll that the war was justified even if no weapons of mass destruction were found. Today, 78 percent of Americans back President Obama in bringing troops home at the end of the year.
Suppose Americans had been told, in advance of the 2003 invasion, that by the end of 2011 - after 4,500 U.S. troops had been killed and more than 30,000 wounded, and after adding $1 trillion to a crippling national debt - Iraq would be a fragile democracy, at best, whose Shiite leaders were sympathetic to Iran and whose continued existence as a democracy might depend on an open-ended deployment of U.S. forces. Americans would have concluded that invading Iraq would be dumb. And they would have been right.
- Jac Wilder VerSteeg,
for The Palm Beach Post Editorial Board
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
