Necessary Anger: Thinking About 'Victory' in Iraq
Isaac, Jeffrey C.
As. WRITE in mid-May, what George W. Bush has described as "the second battle in the war on terrorism" appears to have been won. My charge is immensely easier than that presented to those...
...It eliminated something bad...
...The political culture has reacted to "victory" in Iraq with a disturbing smugness...
...Yet it is fair to say that the primary official justification, shared by many supporters not associated with the administration, was the need to overthrow the Hussein regime in the name of higher values, whether these be the values of antiterrorism, security, or "democracy" Now that the Hussein regime has been dispatched, and rather hastily, these supporters have been quick to interpret this war as vindication of the rationales offered on behalf of IC) n DISSENT / Summer 2003 COMMENTS & OPINIONS starting it—as proof of the strategy of confronting "rogue states" by means of "preventive wars," of the broader Bush national security strategy of asserting U.S...
...This war lacked a clear or consistent rationale...
...At the same time, both the "realistic" and triumphalist scenarios of the pro-war right— shared by many supporters of the war not on the right—seem also to have been disproved...
...It was a war prosecuted by an antiliberal administration, through antiliberal means, and on behalf of an arrogant and bellicose vision of world politics...
...For the catastrophic scenarios put forth by many on the antiwar left—of quagmires and inflamed Arab masses and negative domino effects— seem to have been disproved...
...No one knew that it would end so quickly and, furthermore, it is not really over...
...As of this writing no substantial weapons of mass destruction have been discovered in Iraq, thus calling into question the primary Bush rationale for the war—though, to be fair, the administration put forth a cacophony of rationales to suit whatever occasions arose...
...But I think that the "truth" of this observation extends beyond an easy post hoc judgment...
...The fulfillment of this task requires a vigorous defense of civil liberties and of the principles of political pluralism, the rule of law, and democratic accountability, all of which have been cavalierly dismissed by the Bush administration...
...troops go "liberation" follows...
...power so that its exercise improves the situation in Iraq and in the Middle East more generally...
...How can intellectual, ethical, and political pressure be brought to bear on U.S...
...But it was not a "war of liberation," in the sense of a war that was motivated by a clear policy designed to free Iraqis, and it was certainly not a war on behalf of liberal values...
...To ask these questions is to abandon leftist certainties about catastrophe and to acknowledge the possibility, slim to be sure, that U.S...
...military power...
...DISSENT / Summer 2003 n I I...
...Let me elaborate, briefly and tentatively...
...But this war proves none of these things...
...But there is also no doubt that good luck played a role in the speed of the war...
...None of this is auspicious, and pretty much all of it was predictable...
...It now remains for the United States to do what it said it would do, to help build a "new" Iraq, which would enhance the freedom and quality of life of the Iraqi people and could serve as a platform for the liberalization of the Arab world and for peace between Israel and the Palestinians...
...At the same time, it is not as if the terrorist organizations and tyrannical regimes against which Bush sets himself are promoters of liberal values...
...How are such goods most likely to be achieved...
...It is a question that supporters of the war must take more seriously than they have done so far...
...It is for this reason that creative political thinking is imperative: it won't herald a new liberal dispensation, but it will serve to sustain a sense of sobriety in a world of rival fanaticisms...
...WRITE in mid-May, what George W. Bush has described as "the second battle in the war on terrorism" appears to have been won...
...but whether it will replace it with something better is an open question...
...The military defeat of Iraq was never really in doubt...
...And there can be no doubt that extraordinary technologies of precision bombing and innovative Special Forces tactics point to new and more efficient ways of exerting U.S...
...It is true that many believed the war would last longer and that the costs would be higher...
...It suggests that making sense of the current world moment eludes a triumphalism of the right or a catastrophism of the left...
...Again, this is easy to say in retrospect, and it is a truism of politics that the future is indeterminate...
...It requires also a serious discussion about when war is justified and when it isn't, in the name of "security" and in the name of human rights...
...This is not in any way to glorify the war or to gloss over the disturbing agendas and policies of the Bush administration...
...The Iraq War has liberated Iraq from Hussein...
...It is too early to tell whether any of this will be attempted in a serious way, much less whether it will be achieved...
...hegemony might sometimes have beneficial consequences...
...And even the Rumsfelds of the world must reckon with the fact that the world often eludes their purposes...
...or whether, in the medium term, or even the short term, the Iraq operation will be another source of "backlash...
...hegemony everywhere, and of the practicality of the effort to remake the world in the image of (a certain truncated conception of) American democracy...
...I think it means that the war has proved more complicated in its immediate results than was anticipated by its supporters and its critics...
...My charge is immensely easier than that presented to those who, in winter, were asked to comment in these pages on the likelihood of war in Iraq...
...My point: it would be both morally wrong and politically foolish for supporters of the war to promote the new "Rumsfeld doctrine" in Iran or Syria or North Korea, in the expectation that where U.S...
...T T HE CENTRAL questions that we must raise in the wake of the "victory" in Iraq are the following: Can any relative goods come of the war...
...The media and the political elite failed to raise the hard questions about the likely consequences of the war and about the Bush administration's failure to prepare for them...
...What does this all mean...
...Asking the hard questions and challenging the smugness in the name of a more ethically and intellectually serious reckoning with war and with the requisites of a sane global politics is a worthy task for writers, scholars, and activists on the liberal left...
...Or so it seems...
...The example of Afghanistan, where halfhearted "nation-building" has given way to malign neglect, is not encouraging...
...Although the war, like all wars, was bloody and destructive, according to any criteria other than pacifist ones it is hard to resist the conclusion that its benefits—the ousting of Saddam, the creation of the possibility of a more civil, hospitable, and peaceful regime—have exceeded its costs (though these have not yet been fully tallied, and, as in all things, they have hardly been distributed evenly...
...It is equally hard to discern the overwhelming Iraqi popular support for a U.S...
...In the wake of the Hussein regime, what we have seen is the breakdown of law and order, the looting of cities, vengeance killings, and nationalist and religious demonstrations—hostile and sometimes violent as well—that American servicemen have met with rifle fire...
...invasion that was predicted by neoconservative ideologues of war...
...As Jonathan Schell has argued, the Bush administration is profoundly antiliberal, and liberals who imagine that it will serve their values are foolish...
...JEFFREY C. ISAAC'S most recent book is The Poverty of Progressivism...
Vol. 50 • July 2003 • No. 3
