Romney’s Mistakes
I don’t have any pithy commentary to add here, but you really should read this article by John Ellis…
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Romney’s MistakesI don’t have any pithy commentary to add here, but you really should read this article by John Ellis… 14 comments to Romney’s MistakesLeave a Reply |
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I have tremendous respect for John McCain despite my many problems with him politically. I will vote for him in November (unless Huck is his running mate). But I must say that I find it sad that you still feel a need to bash Mitt Romney after he had the sense and decency to step aside for the obvious winner. Mitt’s out; just let him go. Do you really need to nip at his ankles as he exits?
Decency? Seriously? You are talking about the guy who bowed out by saying that voting for Hillary or Obama is surrendering to terrorists, right?
I thought that the piece was quite complementary toward Governor Romney — probably the most so I’ve seen from someone who was not one of his supporters.
The real attacks were against Romney’s team that wasn’t able to run his campaign effectively.
However, I must say that the assertion by Romney’s supporters that he is now Reagan re-incarnated because he lost a primary election to a more moderate candidate and will thus sweep 2012 certainly warrants a response. Though Romney wasn’t my favorite candidate, I still would have voted for him in the general election, but that comparison is absolutely ridiculous.
Well, Hillary and Obama have proudly professed their desire to surrender Iraq to terrorist domination, so I don’t see what’s so indecent about Romney just repeating their positions.
Oh, I get it. If you don’t support permanent war in Iraq, then you therefore are waving the white flag to terrorist domination. Who knew?
Let’s forget about the fact that invading Iraq created far more terrorists than it eliminated, or alienated our allies, or made moderate Muslims run for cover. Let’s also forget that Al Qaeda grows and prospers in what really is the “central front in the war on terror:” Afghanistan and Pakistan. Or that we’ve supported a dictator in Pakistan who rules a nuclear country which is teetering on the brink of collapse. Or most consequential of all: the report which came out last week indicating that in the event of a massive terrorist attack, we no longer have the resources here at home to deal with the potential catastrophe. In other words, as a direct result of our occupation of Iraq, we no longer have the manpower and equipment to respond following a terrorist attack.
Now let’s blame the Democrats for their desire to surrender to terrorists.
Aside from being just plain wrong — so wrong that no thinking person would dare conceive it — Mitt Romney’s statement was deeply offensive. Dismissing those who disagree with you as terrorist sympathizers itching to give our enemies the opportunity to destroy us shows how pathetically small-minded Romney is and how disastrous his Presidency would have been. His departure from the race marks the exit of someone who had nothing to contribute except insult, hot air, and serial pandering.
Peter, I agree with your conclusion on Romney – but doesn’t the continued Democratic insistence that we withdraw from Iraq seem – well, damn it, let’s not mince words – a bit cowardly now that things have turned the corner? I don’t believe you are a total pacifist, so let’s put aside partisanship and loaded language for the moment and ask the question: forgetting what has gone before, because we can’t turn back the clock, does it make sense, going forward, to leave when we are actually closer to our goal of a stable Iraq than we have ever been?…
The US cannot end the war in Iraq; it can only end US involvement in the war in Iraq.
If US involvement in the war in Iraq is over, then the Islamists will have a much easier time taking over the country. They will either be able to dominate it outright or they will come to dominate the entire region after the conflict in Iraq draws in other countries — the Sunni states to protect the Sunni minorities and Shia Iran to defend a majority Shia state from outside Sunni interference.
Did the US liberation of Iraq actually create terrorists? You could argue that it did, in the same way that 9/11 created US soldiers — plenty of people signed up to serve in the wake of 9/11.
However, did the US liberation of Iraq actually change anyone’s ideology? No; those who became terrorists were already sympathetic to Islamist ideology to begin with. A Muslim who wanted democracy wouldn’t all of a sudden begin to oppose it and strap a bomb to his chest because the Americans tried to bring democracy to Iraq. Likewise, an American who hated his country and would have loved to see it brought down would not have become a flag-waving patriot on September 11, 2001.
In any case, whether the liberation of Iraq created Islamists or simply enabled those who were terrorist sympathizers to actually join up is irrelevant. We are talking about what the aftermath of a US exit from an unstable insecure Iraq would be. The best way to avoid permanent war in Iraq is keep US forces there so that they may continue to help stabilize the country. If anyone wants permanent war in Iraq, it is those who support withdrawal.
The real place where Al Qaeda thrives is not connected to any geographic location. Al Qaeda thrives in chaos and hopelessness. A US withdrawal from Iraq would leave a power vaccuum there and give Al Qaeda a new haven — just as the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan created a power vaccuum that the US refused to fill while the Taliban was more than happy to. Who do you think will fill the vaccuum in an Iraq devoid of US forces? Iran? Sunni Extremists?
As Faoud Ajami has explained in The Foreigner’s Gift — but I guess since he disagrees with you, the Majid Khadduri Professor of Middle Eastern Studies at Johns Hopkins University isn’t really a “thinking person” — what the US realized was needed in the wake of 9/11 was a fundamental change in Arab society. They could bomb the Afghan cave hideouts of Al Qaeda for 100 years and bring about no change in Arab society whatsoever. It was necessary to bring liberal democratic governance to an Arab country to combat the hopelessness among Arabs — to show them that they could have a good life on earth and that they don’t need to kill every infidel they can find to have hope of a pleasant existense.
Oops. Didn’t mean to italicize anything after the title.
My own view has long been that we should ask for a referendum in Iraq on how long (and whether) we should stay there, and then follow what the Iraqis’ wishes are. This is different from the Clinton/Obama positions, so I’m disinclined to defend their suggestions for Iraq. If I had to choose between the two, I would take Hillary’s more gradual withdrawal.
In answer to your question:
1) Things have (at least for the time being) “turned the corner” in Iraq from the perspective of violence and insurrection, but not from the perspective of political reconciliation. It’s like saying the anaesthesia worked but the operation failed. Whether our departure would hasten reconciliation is arguable, but certainly feasible.
2) The lull in violence is due to a number of things, but the two main things seem to be the willingness of al-Sadr and the Sunni militias to decrease the amount of violence they perpetrate. If is certainly possible, if not likely, that the Sunnis will resume their violence if they are unable to find jobs or positions of influence in Iraq, and what al-Sadr does is anybody’s guess. So while the tide may have turned for the past six or nine months, it’s far too early to conclude that the diminution in violence is sustainable.
So my answer would be no: I don’t think that we should pack up and leave at the earliest opportunity (unless there was a plebiscite and they asked us to). We have caused grievous damage to Iraq and we have the moral responsibility to do what we can to make things better. Regrettably, that includes maintaining a military presence for some time to come.
Aaron:
1) “ If US involvement in the war in Iraq is over, then the Islamists will have a much easier time taking over the country.”
I’m not sure what you mean by “Islamists,” as Iraq has a predominantly Muslim population, many of which are fundamentalists. If you install a democracy in a country which has a large fundamentalist Muslim population, you may very well end up with a political leadership which reflects this.
2) “did the US liberation of Iraq actually change anyone’s ideology? No; those who became terrorists were already sympathetic to Islamist ideology to begin with.”
Rubbish. When you bomb a country, topple its leadership, cause over one million people to leave their homes, and generally take a baseball bat to a beehive – all to find WMD which were said to be an imminent threat and turned out not to exist – you will make many more enemies than friends. When pictures of Abu Ghraib are broadcast rhroughout the world, you will turn many people who might have been moderate to extremism instead. Pretending that the disaster in Iraq somehow had no effect on how we are viewed by Muslims – or the rest of the world, for that matter – is ridiculous.
3) “The real place where Al Qaeda thrives is not connected to any geographic location.” Uh, no. Their leadership roams Pakistan and Afghanistan with impunity. If you want to go fishing, you fish where the fish are. Because we backed the wrong horse in Pakistan, and then bungled Afghanistan, we have provided Al Qaeda with a place to operate, recruit, and train. This from the folks who tell you that a vote for a Democrat is a vote to surrender to terrorists.
However, this is all off-topic. If, as post four states, Hillary and Obama “have proudly professed their desire to surrender Iraq to terrorist domination,” then I’m eager to hear how the Bush administration’s “war on terror” – which none of the GOP candidates except Ron Paul distanced themselves from – is an improvement. It is difficult for me to imagine policies which could have made things any easier for the terrorists than what our government has done since 9/11. Our enemies – Iran, North Korea, Hezbollah, Hamas – are all stronger than they were in 2001. We have given Al Qaeda the best recruitment device he could ever have dreamed of, and the number of people willing to harm us is far greater than it was in 2001. Our chemical plants, nuclear facilities, rail lines, ports, bridges, and tunnels are nearly as vulnerable as they were in 2001. And, of course, bin Laden still roams free. For those who excuse the fecklessness of the last six or seven years to insist that voting for an alternative is a surrender to terror is an absurdity too gross to be insisted upon.
Peter, there may not have been a direct ‘plebescite’ on the question of America’s continued presence in Iraq, but the democratically-elected government of Iraq has made it crystal clear they want us to stay, for the next ten years, if necessary…
Anecdotal evidence and reporting suggests otherwise — I’m hesitant to place too much value on surveys of Iraqis, but it seems that they want us to leave by a subsantial margin — also it’s counter-intuitive to think that most Iraqis would prefer a foreign occupation to resolving their problems themselves — so my preference would be for the most perfect form of democracy, which would be a referendum. If we truly believe in democracy, why not give the Iraqis the opportunity to vote on the most important issue which faces them?
So our system of government is good enough for us but not for the Iraqis? Because, you know, I haven’t noticed any national referendums being held here for a while…
They may not be national, but we have referenda here in California all of the time.
I don’t think the situation in Iraq is comparable to the US for many reasons. Our system of government came organically from a revolution and then a constitutional convention; the Iraqi government came following an invasion. The issues are not equivalent (there’s no need for us to have a national refrendum — we’re not being occupied by a foreign power). Iraq is sui generis for lots of reasons, not least because never before in history has a country been invaded for the declared purpose of toppling a regime and pre-emptively eliminating the purported threat of WMD. In this circumstance, if there is in fact a consensus among Iraqis that we should stay, in my view for it to have true legitimacy it ought to come from a plebiscite.