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December 2, 2006
Civil War? That is Not the Issue
Tim Rutten of the Los Angeles Times has an interesting discussion on whether or not to call the current state of affairs in Iraq a civil war. I fully agree with one of his points.
This whole argument is purely for domestic consumption — and that tells us some instructive things about both the rigid nature of the United States' political divisions and about the way in which people on either side of that divide would like to bend the news to their advantage.
But I only half agree with how he unfolds this point.
The White House and those who still support the war in Iraq are desperate to prevent the conflict from being described as a civil war because they understand that certain conclusions are likely to follow from that classification. Perhaps foremost among them is a belief that the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and his tyranny set in motion a chain of events that have made things worse for the Iraqi people and their country's situation more dangerous for everybody else in the world — including the United States. On the other side of the divide are those whose opposition to the war is rooted in a reflexive hostility toward George W. Bush. To them, the term "civil war" is useful not because it accurately describes the tragedy in Iraq, but because — in their view — it brings the president one step closer to complete humiliation.
To be sure, there are those who want to completely humiliate the current president. In some ways, I am among them. I, for one, want to make certain that the cost of the administration's policies is so high that no one will dare repeat them. But I thing the real reason that "the other side" insists on the use of the words "civil war" is to sharpen perceived parallels between Iraq and Vietnam. Such a sharp parallel, if it existed, would provide an analogy for how it will, and perhaps should, end. Rutten implies this when he quotes David Gergen as saying, "In politics, the conventional wisdom has held for some time that if the public concludes our soldiers were in the middle of a civil war, they would think it hopeless and want to withdraw quickly." And this conventional wisdom is based on presumed parallels to Vietnam.
But at least on the issue of civil war there is little or no parallel. When we entered Vietnam there was a civil war already raging and we supported one side against the other. In Iraq, there was a stable if brutal government that we overthrew without any plan to replace it. The current violence is the direct result of the actions and lack of same on the part of the United States. Sure, at the next level down there is plenty of blame to go around. But at the highest level, it was the United States that removed the restraints that allowed all these secondary players to work their ill will against each other at the current levels.
I have no problem with the United States getting involved in civil wars. And while I find much of what Michael Medved has to say on the issue of little value, he is correct that we got involved in civil wars in Bosnia and Kosovo under Clinton and in Afghanistan "we entered a long running civil war between the Taliban and the Northern Alliance." In the latter case, we became involved for a secondary reason, to break up al-Qaeda and get Osama bin Laden. Mission not accomplished!
Here is my problem with all this. Those who correctly opposed the war in Iraq on moral grounds seem to not be able to use the fact that it was immoral to define current United States policy. The easy answer, of course, is to attempt to return the country to status quo ante. I think Jonathan Chait was suggesting something like this in last week's column. But this is not only morally wrong itself, is also impossible.
The top-level policies for Iraq are easy to draw from the premise that initial actions were immoral: confession and restitution. The details are considerably more difficult but using our unmatched financial assets and, as required, our military capabilities to make life for Iraqis better than it was before our invasion must be the goal. Every day we "stay the course" or talk of withdrawal makes that goal all the more illusive. What I am sure of is that doing the right thing will be very costly and, at this point, I don't think anyone has the stomach for it.
Posted by Duane Smith at December 2, 2006 6:26 PM | Read more on Current Events |
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