A couple of years ago MSNBC gave Alan Keyes his own show. Sixty minutes of Alan Keyes interviewing guests and pontificating about the virtues of excise taxes. The whole thing was so nutty that they had to call the show Alan Keyes is Making Sense because he never did. Then they canceled it. The Washington Post should do the same thing with Charles Krauthammer. They should label his column Making Sense, and when he continues to make no sense, they should can his ass.
Krauthammer has not yet come to terms with the facts. The administration did pretty much what he recommended they do, and here we are. Ergo, Krauthammer is an idiot. Instead of writing a column about what an idiot he is, he wrote the following:
We are instead trying to sustain fragile democracies in three strategically important countries — Afghanistan, Iraq and Lebanon — that form the geographic parentheses around the principal threat to Western interests in the region, the Syria-Iran axis.
We are trying to bring democracy to Iraq in particular because a pro-Western government enjoying legitimacy and popular support would have been the most enduring means of securing our interests there. Deposing Saddam & Sons was essential because they posed a permanent strategic threat to the region and to U.S. interests.
He has his tenses mixed up. No one is still ‘trying’ to do any such thing. We ‘tried’ that, and it didn’t work. People like me told people like Krauthammer that it wouldn’t work before we started ‘trying’ to make it work. I am now advising Krauthammer to recognize that we had an election and that the American people are no longer interested in ‘trying’ neo-conservatism. Neo-conservatism is for idiots. We ‘tried’ that. Now we are here.
Krauthammer recognizes that there has been ‘a failure’ but he refuses to ascribe that failure to himself or anyone that took his advice. Instead, the failure lies with the Iraqi culture. Unfortunately for Charles, there is a thing called archives on a thing called the Internets, and it shows that many people knew about Iraq’s culture even if they rarely, if ever, had dinner with Ahmed Chalabi. In other words, you should have considered Iraq’s culture before you invaded the country.
…the popularly elected Maliki government — has failed.
The cause of that failure is rooted in an Iraqi political culture that makes it as yet impossible for enough of the political leadership to act with a sense of national consciousness. We should nonetheless make a last effort to change the composition of the government and assemble a new one composed of those — Kurds, moderate Sunnis, secular Shiites and some of the religious Shiites — who might be capable of reaching a grand political settlement.
If we can’t help rig an election (see Mexico) the first time, we should take a mulligan and get it right the second time. Here’s a little clue for Krauthammer. The Shi’a in Iraq are not particularly secular. I know that Chalabi has great taste in Rhone Valley wines, but his type is not that common in the slums of Sadr City. We can have a hundred elections in Iraq and the religious Shi’ites are going to win one hundred times. It’s called demography, and you can use it to predict stuff. If you want to put together a coalition of Kurds (who also like God) moderate Sunnis, and secular Shi’a, then don’t call it an election, and don’t call it democracy. Call it a kleptocracy and start selling them tanks and helicopters, because they are going to need them.
But, just when you think Krauthammer is incapable of making any sense, he comes close.
The United States should be giving Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki a clear ultimatum: If he does not come up with a political solution in two months or cede power to a new coalition that will, the United States will abandon the Green Zone; retire to its bases; move much of its personnel to Kurdistan, where we are welcome and safe; and let the civil war take its course.
This is the kind of threat Bush is good at. It’s a threat that we have no intention or desire to carry out, but issue in the hope that it will change the natural laws of the universe (or the depressing facts on the ground in Iraq). Has Krauthammer considered the consequences his threat would have? We retire to bases in Iraq, including but not limited to Kurdistan. The county descends into full blown civil war and genocide. Our soldiers play poker and eat sunflower seeds. More people die. The Saudis get concerned. They send in their own militias. Our troops dodge mortar attacks. The Turks get restless watching Shi’a butchering Sunni. The Kurds aren’t so welcoming anymore. Our soldiers dodge truck bombs. You get the idea.
What’s the point? There is no saving our presence in Iraq. It must come to a close. Bases there will be just like the bases in Saudi Arabia were. An irritant that incites a violent reaction. Get out. Learn humility. Start making sense.