Buckley Throws In The Towel
For William F. Buckley, Iraq is now to be counted as a defeat, though he doesn’t necessarily lay it at the feet of the Bush administration:
Our mission has failed because Iraqi animosities have proved uncontainable by an invading army of 130,000 Americans. The great human reserves that call for civil life haven’t proved strong enough. No doubt they are latently there, but they have not been able to contend against the ice men who move about in the shadows with bombs and grenades and pistols.
How to proceed, then?
…[T]he administration has, now, to cope with failure. It can defend itself historically, standing by the inherent reasonableness of the postulates. After all, they govern our policies in Latin America, in Africa, and in much of Asia. The failure in Iraq does not force us to generalize that violence and antidemocratic movements always prevail. It does call on us to adjust to the question, What do we do when we see that the postulates do not prevail — in the absence of interventionist measures (we used these against Hirohito and Hitler) which we simply are not prepared to take? It is healthier for the disillusioned American to concede that in one theater in the Mideast, the postulates didn’t work. The alternative would be to abandon the postulates. To do that would be to register a kind of philosophical despair. The killer insurgents are not entitled to blow up the shrine of American idealism.
Mr. Bush has a very difficult internal problem here because to make the kind of concession that is strategically appropriate requires a mitigation of policies he has several times affirmed in high-flown pronouncements. His challenge is to persuade himself that he can submit to a historical reality without forswearing basic commitments in foreign policy.
He will certainly face the current development as military leaders are expected to do: They are called upon to acknowledge a tactical setback, but to insist on the survival of strategic policies.
Yes, but within their own counsels, different plans have to be made. And the kernel here is the acknowledgment of defeat.
Jeff Goldstein, however, says that a civil war is still possible, but not inevitable…and I agree with Goldstein.
Things are very frustrating for the Iraqi people, and for ourselves, at the moment…but it’s very premature to say that the fight is lost. I think the latest stories are rather encouraging, and I hope that the enforced quiet of the curfew will continue when it is inevitably lifted. I’m not seeing Iraq through rose-colored glasses, I can assure you. My optimism has been deflated substantially in the last several months. We need patience, however…and we need to work overtime to bring responsible Sunni and Shia leaders together to forge a way through this crisis…let’s see what next week brings in terms of movement to repair the damage, among the Iraqis themselves, before falling prey to grand pronouncements of victory or defeat…
I was just reading through some old stories about the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon, and the conclusion I have reached is that Buckley does not give these people enough credit. I know Iraqis are not the same as the Lebanese, but before the Cedar Revolution, we never thought we could see peaceful mass protests in Lebanon. The Iraqis took a very hard hit. A national monument, of great meaning to lots of people, was hit. I think of it as similar to what Catholics would be feeling if The Vatican was attacked. Sure, there have been some hotheads causing a lot of trouble (Like Sadr, the bastard. We should hav killed that guy a long time ago), but I have been pleasantly suprised by the level of responsibility and restraint shown by the Iraqi leaders.
Just like the Lebanese, the Iraqis are capable of acting in a peaceful manner. They just need a little more time to come to grips with the modern world, and they need us to give them the chance. Buckely may be the godfather of American conservatism, but if he’s ready to give up on Iraq after all that we’ve accomplished there, and all that we’ve lost in getting to where we’re at now, then maybe the right has moved past Buckley.
I can hardly wait to see how turdblossom is going to spin Bill Buckley’s verdict that the Iraq war has failed. He could have added that the gates of hell now have opened wide and very soon we’ll be reaping the whirlwind, but being a gentleman he wished to keep his discourse civil.
Well, I’m not a gentleman anymore and I can’t be civil. Six solid years of lies and bullsh** from these fascist swine Republicans have turned me around.
I’ve finally come to believe that anyone in America who votes for a Republican this November is a god damned traitor.
And you know why. I don’t have to explain it.
And a special message to all the turd blossom trolls out there: Bend down, and kiss me royal Irish arse.
John Palcewski
http://www.palcewski.com/JP
So John, anyone who dares to cross you is a traitor. It is simply impossible to disagree with you; anyone who does will presumably will be taken out at dawn and shot. Now what exactly constitutes a troll again?
I’m not surprised at Buckley’s comments; I recall reading something by him a couple of years ago that was very skeptical on the war’s chances, for pretty much the same reasons here. It’s a fair argument, though one I think sells the Iraqi people short a bit.
“Well, I’m not a gentleman anymore….”
Translation: You never were.
[...] William Kristol has an answer, of sorts, to William F. Buckley’s pessimism: no retreat, baby, no surrender. [...]
[...] And here we have the essential Buckley, revealed. The traditional conservative position reached its most potent expression in the policies of Brent Scowcroft, the last bastion of realpolitik in government. Conservatives for decades fought against foreign entanglements and the liberation of people from tyranny for its own sake, only espousing military intervention when clear and short-term American economic or strategic interests came under threat. Buckley and Scowcroft would never have suggested that the US depose Saddam Hussein, mostly because they would not have thought that the oppression and genocide of Iraqis was worth the expense and headache of liberation. Jeff Goldstein: This is, it seems to me, a well-articulated bit of traditional conservative disillusionment with an ongoing affair… And, ummm, Decision ‘08: …[L]et’s see what next week brings in terms of movement to repair the damage, among the Iraqis themselves, before falling prey to grand pronouncements of victory or defeat… Let me just apologize to my readers here for exposing you to that hate-filled, epithet-spewing angry mob of conservatives turning on the traitor Buckley, as Glenn assured us we would. [...]
[...] As most everyone knows, the conservative icon declared Iraq a lost cause a few days ago. Buckley’s earlier missive was steeped in the language of failure and defeat. Now, he follows up with a piece that seems to argue that defeat is in the eye of the beholder: President Bush will be seen commanding his troops to march on. He will speak of victory. One’s guess is that there will be attenuation in the definition of victory. Three years ago (March, 2003) I wrote in this space, “What Mr. Bush proposes to do is to unseat Saddam Hussein and to eliminate his investments in aggressive weaponry. We can devoutly hope that internecine tribal antagonisms will be subsumed in the fresh air of a despot removed, and that the restoration of freedom will be productive. But these concomitant developments can’t be either foreseen by the United States, or implemented by us. What Mr. Bush can accomplish is the removal of a regime and its infrastructure. The Iraqi people will have to take it from there.” [...]