A 'Great' President

There has been mounting criticism regarding the Iraq war, and in most cases I think it is legitimate. The case for war has been damaged by the lumbering spin machine of the GOP, and the tactics it has used to propagandize the adventure.

The fact is and always has been, that the war was never about the stated objectives that the Bush administration provided be they; WMD’s, removing a tyrant from power, 9-11, creating a Middle-East democracy, etc. No, the war in Iraq had its germination long before any of those excuses were uttered. The war is and always has been about politics – specifically American electoral politics.

When Bush was first elected in what can only be generously described as a ‘squeaker’ he quickly ordered his cabinet staff to make the case for invading Iraq. In his own words to his biographer this was a war he wanted to wage, at least in part, to establish his popularity with the American people and to give him ‘political capital’ to push through the legislative initiatives he wanted.

His basis for this thinking is almost certainly found in two historical parallels; The Falkland Islands war as waged by Thatcher, and the invasion of Grenada by US forces under Ronald Reagan. In both cases a seriously out-gunned opponent is thrashed ruthlessly in a short spate of conflict, with the victorious army/navy returning home to receive the dividends of victory. These are the paradigms that the Bush war-makers strove for, all the while believing that they would be greeted with a rain of flowers and welcomed with open arms by all Iraqis.

It’s these historical cases that give explanation to the wilful blindness that seems to infect the Bush war cabinet. They really did believe they would be welcomed as liberators. They really did believe that after a short conflict they would be able to return home as heroes, with a fully functioning Middle-East democracy (completely under the thumb of the US and it’s interests) as the big prize.

What's most important about the DSM is not that the ‘intelligence was fixed’ around the policy – most keen observers have already taken that for granted based on the events so far with Powell’s castration at the UN, the Yellowcake debacle etc. No, the real importance of the DSM is that it shows that Bush wanted a war (and more specifically, a war with Iraq) for political reasons, that he had zero plan for what would happen after the defeat of the Iraqi army, and that he was going to go ahead regardless of any objection from anyone.

Iraq is a convenient target for many domestic political reasons; there is the Bush family history with Iraq and Junior no doubt would have loved to claim that he finished the job 41 started, but at, or near the top of the list is that Iraq really never posed a significant threat to defeating the US military in combat operations and could prove to be a huge benefit to giving Bush some semblance of a popular Presidency. What could be better for GWB than a quick military victory over Iraq's evil (worse than Hitler remember?), the Iraqi people rising up to greet the US army as heroes, and the resultant spike of goodwill and tidal wave of patriotic harmonious love that would catapult him through a second term?

When David Frum wrote his now infamous Bush speech about the ‘Axis of Evil’, he got two of the three correct – North Korea and Iran are both actively pursuing nuclear technologies and as such pose serious threat to their regions and beyond. But Iraq didn't have nuclear weapons, and the evidence of the DSM is that the Brits knew there was no evidence, or else why fix the intelligence?

Iraq was included on the list not because it was a genuine threat to anyone, but because they were the target the Bush advisors already approved of invading if given half the chance, and rolling them in with the actual threats gave a further sheen of respectability to the invasion.

And because everyone knew that unlike NK or Iran, Hussein was going to be a push over.

Keep in mind as well that the policy on North Korea and Iran has been largely ignored during the Iraq war. That or bungled outright as with Bush's ill advised backhand to the Iranians that drove the conserative religious voter out in masses showing of again the deaf ear that Bush has for international politics.

Iraw was well suited to an invasion for military reasons as well. Hussein’s forces had been effectively smashed by Bush Sr., and while he was no doubt interested in WMD’s as a way of shoring up his fading ability to maintain some international gravitas, it was by all accounts a program at least a decade away from bearing any fruit. He was acknowledged as a horrible despot by all but the most navel-gazing pacifists, and his presence on top of one of the world’s largest oil reserves gave the Bush administration all the remaining incentive it needed to push for the plan. The American forces are rightly considered the best in the world, and would doubtlessly rout the Republican Guard. What could possibly be wrong with this plan?

Now before I get attacked by the blogosphere denizens for being ‘soft’ on Iraq, let me say that if Bush had gone about it the right way, I would have been a keen supporter for the invasion. The right way (IMO) is to get international backing from the UN in a legal context to proceed – this gives you three key things; legitimacy, money, and troops. But doing that would require two things the Bush people lacked; skilled diplomacy and time. Once the decision to go to Iraq is made early on after his inauguration (or as I suspect even before the election itself between, Bush, Rice and Rumsfeld), Bush began moving troops and operational personnel into the region – all while insisting publicly that war was 'not inevitable'. These troop movements, naval manoeuvres, etc. are extremely expensive and could not be maintained indefinitely while Bush waited for Powell’s painful and handcuffed efforts at the UN to give them the cloak of endorsement and legitimacy. After a few more months of positioning his pieces and amping up the voltage at the UN (which must have just destroyed Powell), it was inevitable.

After 9-11 Bush (or more likely, Rice and Rumsfeld) saw his chance and quickly adopted the position of ‘you are either with us, or with the terrorists’, and that the US was ‘willing to go it alone’. In the case of Afghanistan, the world community was more or less willing to acknowledge the Taliban's role in supporting Bin Laden, and endorsed the use of American military might to affect 'regime change'.

But Iraq wasn't a part of 9-11, and the world community more or less did not accept the link that nebulous concepts like 'terrorism' and 'islamo-fascism' posit as sufficient to merit an urgent case for invasion. By all means, hunt for Bin Laden in Afghanistan, get rid of the Taliban, but what does Iraq have to do with anything?

Bush proceeded to bull his way through Europe with all the subtlety of a fragmentation grenade in a kindergarten playground, and the international community reacted en masse by listening to the protests of their own people at Bush’s increasingly hysterical rhetoric and slowly backed away from the US position as carefully as they could.

So, now the US finds itself in theatre; without sufficient troops to pacify the population, no genuine international efforts to secure co-operation from other nations, falling recruitment numbers, dwindling likelihood of sufficient political will internal to the US to provide for a draft, and an insurgency that seems to be growing in strength rather than waning. The cost of the invasion is a burden that future Americans will have to bear in the form of rising taxes and lower entitlements.

Perhaps the greatest irony of all is that the next major super-power to emerge to challenge the US will likely be China, and they have eagerly lent the US the money necessary to conduct this war. One day, that debt owed to this Communist regime will come back to haunt the US in its efforts to manage and contain Chinese ambitions in their region and in the world.

At the end of this mess, however it finally plays out, whenever someone asks “How did we get to this point?” the true answer will track back to one man’s overriding ambition to be remembered as a ‘Great President’.