The following leaps out of the New York Times’ Week and Review and punches you in the gut. If you want to know why Dick Cheney was quickly summoned to Saudi Arabia and why subsequently the Saudi ambassador quit, look no further than this:
SOMEONE in Vice President Dick Cheney’s office has gotten everybody on this city’s holiday party circuit talking, simply by floating an unlikely Iraq proposal that is worthy of a certain mid-19th century British naturalist with a fascination for natural selection.
We shall call it the Darwin Principle.
The Darwin Principle, Beltway version, basically says that Washington should stop trying to get Sunnis and Shiites to get along and instead just back the Shiites, since there are more of them anyway and they’re likely to win in a fight to the death. After all, the proposal goes, Iraq is 65 percent Shiite and only 20 percent Sunni.
Sorry, Sunnis.
The Darwin Principle is radical, decisive and most likely not going anywhere. But the fact that it has even been under discussion, no matter how briefly, says a lot about the dearth of good options facing the Bush administration and the yearning in this city for some masterstroke to restore optimism about the war.
As President Bush and his deputies chew over whether there’s a Hail Mary pass to salvage Iraq, it has become increasingly clear that the president will probably throw the ball toward his secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice.
Make no mistake, the Rice way is a long shot as well. It’s a catchall of a plan that has something for everyone. Its goal — if peace and victory can’t be had — is at least to give a moderate Shiite government the backbone necessary to stand up to radicals like Moktada al-Sadr through new alliances with moderate Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds.
In this plan, America’s Sunni Arab allies would press centrist Iraqi Sunnis to support a moderate Shiite government. Outside Baghdad, Sunni leaders would be left alone to run Sunni towns. Radical Shiites, no longer needed for the coalition that keeps the national government afloat, would be marginalized. So would Iran and Syria. To buy off the Sunni Arab countries, the United States would push forward on a comprehensive peace plan in Israel and the Palestinian territories.
The Rice plan seems diplomatic and reasoned. But it breaks no molds. Which is why examining the Darwin Principle better helps explain the mood of the capital right now.
Let me translate this for you. Dick Cheney is frustrated. His project in Iraq is failing. American forces are not capable of restoring order in Iraq. Therefore, he is thinking about letting the Shi’ites massacre the Sunnis with impunity. He’s advocating a genocide.
If that were not bad enough, he is advocating a genocide for the sect of Iran and Hezbollah, against the sect of our allies Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia. Thus, even if it were a potentially moral strategy to condone genocide, Dick Cheney’s strategy would leave us without any allies in the region.
It’s true that the strategy is unlikely to get the green light and that there are many encouraging signs in Condi Rice’s alternative. But I am absolutely stunned and demoralized to see genocide even discussed as a potential solution to our problems in Iraq. The fact that such a solution would be an unmitgated strategic disaster as well as a moral one, only makes me more depressed.
The prospect of a Shi’a genocide against the Sunnis has been the one factor giving me pause about advocating a complete pull-out of American troops, and here I see the Vice-President advocating just such a catastrophe as a way to keep our troops there.
I didn’t think it was possible for me to have a lower opinion of Dick Cheney. I was wrong.
It reminds me of a scene from Apocalypse Now.
General Corman: He’s out there operating without any decent restraint, totally beyond the pale of any acceptable human conduct. And he is still in the field commanding troops.
There’s not much to add to this — you pretty much nailed it.
Beyond the pale is putting it mildly Boo. This evil being needs to be taken out of power. This is so sick.
We should refresh our memory of history circa 1618-1648. I hope Andrew Sullivan won’t mind the long quote from his post.
Today, in The Sunday Times, UK.
The brewing of the next 30 year war – in The Middle East
The Saudis do read. I can’t imagine for a nano-sec that they will not carry through on their promise to fund the Sunnis and just maybe – using US/British equipment – attack Iran.
The apocalypse, whatever you want to call it, is on the horizon. President Cheney’s penchant and lack of disregard for the American people serves to guarantee the next 2 years for Haliburton’s profits.
Only 85% of the world’s Muslims are Sunni. They shouldn’t mind seeing the U.S. back the Shia in the Iraqi Civil War.
Should they?
I’m not sure I believe this gossip. Not that Bushcheney would hesitate to endorse genocide if it appeared to advance their political ambitions, but because it makes no sense at all from any perspective. How would the US “back” the Shiites exactly? Join in the genocide? Give them more weapons? In that case the US would be directly participating in war crimes. Just stand aside and let it happen? Just stand there and watch? Give technical support? I suppose that would be a way to keep Halliburton contract going, but it couldn’t fly politically as the troops got fragged by “friendly” fire. There would be no advantage in this for anyone in the AmBrit imperium, and that’s all this adventure was all about, after all.
What depresses me most about all this is that the idea IS the final incarnation of the self-gratifying talking point that runs as freely through the liberal blogs as the rightwing press: that Iraqis have shown themselves to be bad children, untrainable despite all the best efforts of their benevolent and brilliant Coalition masters. So now they’ll have to pay the price for their stubborn failure to learn. Let us forget that the horror now proceeding in Iraq is entirely of our own making and our responsibility to fix. Except we can’t, because we only know how to ruin, and never did know when to stop. I believe the bill is about to come due for our decades of arrogant greed, and the price will be unbearable.
Well maybe not advocating genocide, exactly, but clearly displaying an absolutely callous disregard for the inevitable human consequences of a chosen policy. Frankly, I’m not sure which is worse.
If this doesn’t make clear what our priority must be, I don’t know what it would take. Our first and most urgent priority must be the removal of Dick Cheney from any seat of power. Whatever hope may be left to avert a regional, perhaps a global, catastrophe in the making, must begin with taking the keys away from Cheney.
Yes, I’d like to see W go down too, but even he does not pose the threat to world peace that Cheney does. If we could take them both down at the same time so much the better. But Cheney must be our priority.
And to those who worry that taking out Cheney first risks installing an incumbent heir apparent to follow W in ’08, I say our responsibility as human beings, as citizens of the world, as moral creatures, must outweigh any merely partisan calculations with respect to the next election.
Whatever it takes, whatever thread offers a opportunity to unravel the Cheney ball of yarn, we must pursue. The secret energy task force, the Plame affair, the Iraq Study Group or whatever it was called, anything and everthing that has any Cheney finger prints on it of any kind. Investigations, subpoenas, court challenges, eventual impeachment or the threat of it, whatever it takes.
Every day that Dick Cheney continues to wield power in Washington is a day closer to a catastrophe that our children and grandchildren will have to deal with.
Absolutely right on!
Imho, the man is clinically quite insane & under true justice, would’ve suffered the full legal consequence of inflicting potentially mortal injury while intoxicated.
I agree with the analysis of the consequences of “the Darwin Principle.” It is reprehensible, as well as bad policy. I am not certain it is fair to label it as Cheney’s policy. Your evidence is based on a “buzz” going through Beltway Christmas parties and the actions of the Saudi’s (summoning Cheney to Saudi Arabia and withdrawing their ambassador suddenly.)
It isn’t surprising to me that some bright light on Cheney’s staff would come up with this idea. It is typical of Cheney’s brand of thinking – decisive, clear cut, black-and-white, “tough.” Also, doomed to failure, morally repellent, simplistic, and vicious. These guys are bullies, plain and simple, all grown up and intoxicated by their power. They aren’t going to take kindly to the old heads of the ISG taking over their game.
The Pres and VP should be openly questioned about this proposal. Tony Snow should be bombarded with questions about it. Democrats should be standing up and ridiculing it as an example of the lack of useful ideas coming from the administration.The press should reveal who proposed the plan. The NYT did run the story. That’s a start.
The Administration is on the defensive. Expect more of these ugly outbursts. The party is over. It ended Nov 7th. And Frat boys get mean when the neighbors shut the party down before they are ready to go home. Sometimes the neighbors have to call the police. Are you listening, Congressional Chairs? Your phones are ringing.
Excellent point, Teach. This should be at the top of the agenda in the new Congress. This is the moment for the Dems to prove that our hopes and efforts were not for nothing.