As regular readers know, I've long advocated cutting France out of any post-war Iraqi settlement. No oil contracts, no peace-keepers, no influence as far as we can help it. Charles Krauthammer makes the same point today. After what the French have tried to do to destroy American diplomacy, wreck Tony Blair, and delay a war until it might actually be more dangerous for American troops, they deserve more than indifference.
A clear majority of European nations - eighteen at the last count - support the war. From Australia to Poland, we have dozens of allies, large and small. Britain, one of the few remaining non-American military powers, is contributing most of its armed forces. We may not have unanimous global support for an attack but to describe the coming war as "unilateral" is simply false.
Now Andrew, like so many neocons, is trying to make the summer Olympic team in the 200-meter backpedal. In a Time piece, he describes his three "huge errors" in donning the cheerleader outfit and grabbing the megaphone for the cause of war.
First, he says that he did indeed "overestimate the competence of government, especially in very tricky areas like WMD intelligence. The shock of 9/11 provoked an overestimation of the risks we faced. And our fear forced errors into a deeply fallible system. When doubts were raised, they were far too swiftly dismissed. The result was the WMD intelligence debacle, something that did far more damage to the war's legitimacy and fate than many have yet absorbed."
What? The overestimation of the risk was PROVOKED by 9/11? Please, Andrew, you're a smart guy and that one doesn't even pass the laugh test. The only overestimation was the calculated posturing done by the administration to somehow justify a course of action it had long before committed to following. What next, Andy, are you going to complain that the former Nigerian oil minister didn't send you the $25 million?
He amazingly adds that "the miraculously peaceful end of the cold war lulled many of us into overconfidence about the inevitability of democratic change, and its ease."
DOUBLE WHAT?? The last time I checked, the "end of the Cold War" was brought about by the eventual collapse from internal decay of a corrupt and anachronistic imperial power (hmm, note that one for future reference), involving in many cases relatively homogeneous populations and developed economies, not within the context of a western invasion of a culturally, religiously and politically diverse "third world" country.
The next error, as Andy sees it, was "narcissism, as America's power blinded many of us to the resentments that hegemony always provokes." [editor's note: see Andy's disparagement of the French above]
Narcissism? I find that to be a stretch, as U.S. military might had failed dramatically in Viet Nam, and there was no reason to suspect that beyond the military objective of defeating Saddam's troops that it could deal any better at the far more complex questions involved with reconstruction. Not self-admiration, but self-delusion and willful ignorance was at play here--and those are the best of it.
The ultimate arrogance and idiocy is found behind Door #3, however. Behind that door we have "the final error was not taking culture seriously enough."
I am practically speechless. How inexcusable is it to not understand the culture when you plan to invade and occupy a country? Isn't that one of the first steps to prepare for conflict, to anticipate the possible scenarios on the ground? What makes it more shocking is that a college sophomore taking a Middle Eastern history class could have understood this "culture" and would have taken it "seriously."
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