Iraq - Still, In Fact, Going On

craner

Beast of Burden
Secondly, the idea that any great power goes to war for 'humanitarian reasons'... its just ridiculous.

But I didn't say that, did I? I said it was one of the arguments being made in favour of regime change, and some people who happened to be in government subscribed to it, but that the argument was sidelined by the security rationale. (Which is why it wasn't just a "neocon war"). The arguments, the debates, the policy making, it was all pretty loud, and it was there to read and follow.
 

sadmanbarty

Well-known member
That's a fair argument, sadmanbarty, and I'm not blaming the insurgency solely on Bremer; it's not even like there was no valid argument for de-Ba'athification, because there certainly was. I remember there being quite a lot of controversy about Iran's offer of assistance in Iraq when Ryan Crocker brought it up in a New Yorker piece a couple of years ago. I'd have to dig that up, though. From what I recall, it wasn't quite as straightforward as all that.

But the fact is, Iran was pouring people across unsecured borders almost as soon as the US tanks had started to roll, and it's reductive to pin that down to "neocon literature", particularly when there were only a handful of them talking up the permanent revolution argument anyway (and when the State Department was making cooing noises about Iran being a legitimate democracy).

Fair enough, I've probably misremembered some things. I hadn't really thought about it before, it just popped in to my head reading this thread, so I posted it.
 

droid

Well-known member
But I didn't say that, did I? I said it was one of the arguments being made in favour of regime change, and some people who happened to be in government subscribed to it, but that the argument was sidelined by the security rationale. (Which is why it wasn't just a "neocon war"). The arguments, the debates, the policy making, it was all pretty loud, and it was there to read and follow.

You're clearly suggesting that the war may have been motivated by moral reasons, out of concern for the Iraqi people.
 

craner

Beast of Burden
Plenty of work was done on "what to do next" (e.g. State Department's massive Future of Iraq project) - but what actually happened was that the post-war transition was delegated to the Department of Defense, probably the central decision leading to subsequent disaster. Rumsfeld had no interest in nation building; his view of the war was, go in, take Saddam down, leave again, job done.

Even so, none of this stuff:

demobbing a huge army of fanatics, humiliating and executing their beloved leader, impoverishing them and denying them jobs and instituting a government dominated by their enemies but not actually disarming them would lead to ISIS or something like it.

...was, you know, part of the Game Plan.
 

vimothy

yurp
The idea that great powers go to war for humanitarian reasons might be a little crazy, but not because it's false.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Even so, none of this stuff:

...was, you know, part of the Game Plan.

But it is, nonetheless, broadly what happened. You can give reasons why a peaceful, democratic Iraq somehow failed to appear after the invasion, but if the argument is that the nation-building project was left to the wrong arm of the US government that doesn't let the US off the hook in any way, does it?
 

craner

Beast of Burden
No, of course not, by my point is that there are reasons why these things happened that are real and complex and can't just be explained away by saying that regime change would inevitably have led to them.
 

craner

Beast of Burden
And, if you've been paying attention to what I've been writing, letting the US government off the hook is precisely what I'm not doing. I'm attempting to explain why specific Bush administration decisions led to the outcome. What you want me to say is that there was never a legitimate regime change argument, which I won't, because there were several.
 

vimothy

yurp
But can you imagine a significantly better outcome, given some adjustments in strategy? All of the other interventions in that part of the world seem equally disastrous.
 

craner

Beast of Burden
It is hard to, but all the examples of non-intervention have been equally disastrous. The total disengagement from the Syrian conflict at a crucial time is a compelling case in point.

People are happy to look at Libya as a major example of a terribly unfocused and hasty military intervention (certainly not at the behest of the Americans, it ought to be pointed out), and they are right to do so, but the context of the time was Gaddafi's forces surging to Benghazi in an exceptionally menacing manner.

It is also worth noting that other powers are perfectly willing to engage themselves, for example the Saudis or Iranians or Russians, particularly if the West does not engage itself.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
But can you imagine a significantly better outcome, given some adjustments in strategy? All of the other interventions in that part of the world seem equally disastrous.

Perhaps because they were all equally badly planned? Or maybe it's an inevitable response in a part of the world where people, whatever their politics or beliefs, are just sick to death with European and American meddling, whatever its supposed motivation?
 

craner

Beast of Burden
Also, I don't really like to do counterfactuals, but it is surely worth considering what would have become of Iraq without some species of intervention. Apart from other potential outcomes, the idea that in 2003 the Saddam regime was safely contained is a fallacy; on the contrary, both Russia and France were very interested in dealing with it again. Iraqi society was in a state of dangerous decay from within, while the Ba'athist leadership was gaining an increasingly strong hand, through rogue state connections, UN corruption and various international overtures. Iraq was not a problem that was by any means solved, and the country remained technically in breach of UN resolutions dating back to the first Gulf War.
 
Top