There’s no question that the war in Iraq is THE CENTRAL foreign policy issue facing the United States. By contrast, Vietnam was a sideshow in the larger Cold War that got out of hand. In the 1960’s and 1970’s our mission was to contain the influence of the Soviet Union (and to a lesser extent, China). Vietnam was largely irrelevant to that effort. Our mission now, is to re-stabilize the Middle East. Iraq is crucial in that effort.
We left Vietnam without suffering any significant lasting damage to U.S. interests. The same cannot be said of Iraq.
The Bush administration has advanced several rationales for our efforts in Iraq. They’ve called it ‘the central front in the war on terror’. They’ve talked about the importance of bringing democracy to the Middle East. They’ve talked about the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and safe havens for terrorist organizations. All of that is bunk. Right now, our only mission in Iraq is try to put it back together somehow so that it doesn’t destabilize the entire region and lead to potentially crippling energy supply disruptions. It’s an enormous task. You might think it would be big enough and vital enough that the country could be mobilized for a draft and all our resources could be put into the effort. But, you’d be wrong. Just look at this, from the Joint Chiefs:
The Pentagon has cautioned that a modest surge could lead to more attacks by al-Qaeda, provide more targets for Sunni insurgents and fuel the jihadist appeal for more foreign fighters to flock to Iraq to attack U.S. troops, the officials said.
The informal but well-armed Shiite militias, the Joint Chiefs have also warned, may simply melt back into society during a U.S. surge and wait until the troops are withdrawn — then reemerge and retake the streets of Baghdad and other cities.
Even the announcement of a time frame and mission — such as for six months to try to secure volatile Baghdad — could play to armed factions by allowing them to game out the new U.S. strategy, the chiefs have warned the White House.
The idea of a much larger military deployment for a longer mission is virtually off the table, at least so far, mainly for logistics reasons, say officials familiar with the debate. Any deployment of 40,000 to 50,000 would force the Pentagon to redeploy troops who were scheduled to go home.
So, essentially, we are prepared, come what may, to deal with the consequences in Iraq without adding any troops. To add troops, without a draft, would require an unjustifiable burden on the soldiers already serving. And no one has the courage (or, especially, the moral credibility) to call for compulsory service. This is a stunning development.
We sacrificed 58,000 American lives on the false altar of the Domino Theory, but we’re willing to lose in Iraq without so much as a whimper from the Joint Chiefs. And make no mistake, restabilizing Iraq is much more vital to our national interests than South Vietnam ever was. But the two conflicts share some things in common. They were both launched under false pretenses and they are both unwinnable at any acceptable financial and moral cost.
Of course, there are still plenty of Blutos and Otters in the White House:
Bluto: What the fuck happened to the Delta I used to know? Where’s the spirit? Where’s the guts, huh? “Ooh, we’re afraid to go with you Bluto, we might get in trouble.” Well just kiss my ass from now on! Not me! I’m not gonna take this. Wormer, he’s a dead man! Marmalard, dead! Niedermeyer…
Otter: Dead! Bluto’s right. Psychotic, but absolutely right. We gotta take these bastards. Now we could do it with conventional weapons that could take years and cost millions of lives. No, I think we have to go all out. I think that this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody’s part.
Bluto: We’re just the guys to do it.
D-Day: Let’s do it.
Bluto: LET’S DO IT!
I imagine that is a reasonably fair representation of what it sounds like to sit in one of our National Security Agency meetings on Iraq. However, the amount of people in Washington with an appetite for more really futile and stupid gestures has diminished greatly. The Joint Chiefs are not going along with the new limited surge plan for precisely this reason.
Yet, until Bluto and Otter are impeached or forced to resign, they will still be the ones calling the shots.
We never should have started this war. It was a war of choice. It is still a war of choice, as shown by our meek willingness to give it up without any effort to mobilize the full resources of the country. It’s time to pull the plug and start dealing with the consequences. And there will be many.
