Krauthammer finally explains our Iraq policy

The good doctor has done us a favor.  In this oped inserted in the Post by his Flatheadian comrade (what an unfortunate word!), Frad Hiatt, he has finally explained to us in clear language what it is that "they" meant to do in Iraq.  It did not "pan out" and so now "they" (and we) and the Iraqis will have to settle for mere reality.  Dommage!  (That's french for Shucks!)

This must be very painful.  The shattering of adolescent (read academic) dreams is always shattering.  But, not to worry, there are always new worlds to conquer, new air strikes for other people to fly, more... Poor flatheads.  It must be a terrible thing to have been mugged by several thousand years of history.

Surely not that, not history!  That's all in the past.  pl

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/06/AR2007090602270_2.html

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/09/05/hiatt_ledeen/index.html

Comments

[Babak Makkinejad]

No Col. Lang; history is not in the past, "History is Bunk." as Mr. Ford so aptly observed.

"History is more or less bunk. It's tradition. We don't want tradition. We want to live in the present, and the only history that is worth a tinker's damn is the history that we make today." (Chicago Tribune, 1916).

[Binh]

Mr K thinks arming the Sunnis will "a well-armed and self-governing Anbar would create a balance of power that would encourage hands-off relations with the central government in Baghdad" and not create a civil war between the Sunni-dominated west and the (Shia) central government because the latter would not be so stupid as to send their army to battle the former. True enough.

But what if the Sunnis want "their" share of the northern and southern oil money and the central government resists them or gives them less than they feel they deserve? I think that's a much more likely scenario even after the bottom-up partition K describes is complete.

[Abu Sinan]

Usually adolescent pranks and misjudgements do not end in hundreds of thousands dead, a country being torn apart, and years of insecurity for our children's children.

[ked]

at this rate, the average neocon (well, mean, since they are all above avg, just ask them) will catch up with reality in another 10-15 yrs. plenty of time to attack a few more countries, even take over one of them for the second time...

[anna missed]

And speaking of neologisms, ya gotta love that "bottom up reconciliation". Reconciliation, with exactly who?
The U.S. military?
I thought so.

[Vinegar Joe]

Aside from Bush, I don't think there's a more deluded individual in Washington than Charles Krauthammer.

[Cujo359]

Krauthammer's amusing little conceit that he's way ahead of Washington shows through here:

It took political Washington a good six months to catch up to the fact that something significant was happening in Iraq's Anbar province,

As if he wasn't part of that establishment all along.

Quelle dommage, Monsieur Mallet Cabbage?

[jonst]

I love the Bridge Too Far reference....get every WWII image you can conjure up in there Charlie. That's how to win the folks over.

[Binh]

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20041101/glain

I thought readers of this blog would be interested in this piece on the freezing out of the Arab world experts.

[kim]

pat, you are, and most of your commenters seem to be, accomplished individuals in the real world.
me, i'm just this isolated senior citizen who never (so far) quite got it together.
kinda does me good, boosts my ego and morale, to read such proof that i'm actually much smarter and wiser than the goofs devising and running policy in this country.
at least, til i look at the sad consequences.

oh, well.

[Leila]

I am still maintaining my policy of ignoring Krauthammer the way I ignore the crazy guy out on the avenue who smells bad and raves of alien invasions.

[Charles I]

Notice the good Doctor's delusion allows him the satisfaction that what he describes is, after all, "second best". So the Flatheads can blithely sail on with a "Gee, so at least I got a "B" on that last little project" dismissal of their involvement in this train wreck. As if no other outcome, no other planning, once existed and was once possible, so there's no possibility that this is anything but second best, which ain't bad.

It is a terrifying narcissism of these apparently powerful cretins. No matter what I told you before, right now, I told you so, so I'm right now, which makes me right.

[Matthew]

I am perfectly willing to fight to the last Krauthammer, Kristol, and Ledeen in Iraq.

[Walrus]

I hope there is a special place in hell reserved for Krauthammer and his kind.

His work simply disgusts me.

What is especially nauseating is his assertion that the reason we have been defeated in Iraq is that we were not rough enough, soon enough, and did not kill Sadr in 2004.

It is a very small jump from there to asserting that the reason we weren't tough enough is - you guessed it - "Liberals".

My contempt for what this man stands for knows no bounds.

We are shortly going to have a Federal Election and Australia is going to elect a new Prime Minister (Kevin Rudd) who happens to speak mandarin and gets on extremely well with the Chinese. Furthermore, the majority of Australians recognise Bush as a dud, and the Washington thinktanks has simply evil.

Australia is then going to turn its back on the U.S., and towards Asia, leaving America to pursue its collective insanity to its logical and tragic conclusion.

Nice knowing you.

[johnf]

Collective noun:

A clunk of flatheads.

[Matthew]

Walrus: Can we give Crocodile Dundee back?

[Cloned Poster]

Another flathead Mark Steyn used to syndicate for the Irish Times, any sign of him out there now?

[dSmith]

As long as Charlie the K is throwing in Latin quotes here's one that's a bit more appropiate.
"Raptores orbis, postquam cuncta vastantibus defuere terrae, mare scrutantur: si locuples hostis est, avari, si pauper, ambitiosi, quos non Oriens, non Occidens satiaverit: soli omnium opes atque inopiam pari adfectu concupiscunt. Auferre trucidare rapere falsis nominibus imperium, atque ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant."
("Robbers of the world, having by their universal plunder exhausted the land, they rifle the deep. If the enemy be rich, they are rapacious; if he be poor, they lust for dominion; neither the east nor the west has been able to satisfy them. Alone among men they covet with equal eagerness poverty and riches. To robbery, slaughter, plunder, they give the lying name of empire; they make a solitude and call it peace.")

[walrus]

No, you can keep him unless we get Nicole Kidman back.

Second thoughts, maybe you could give us Arnold Schwarznegger.

Sorry for the rant before, Krauthammer brings out the worst in me.

[robt willmann]

I take a much more hardcore view of the promoters of the Iraq War and the gangster foreign policy in the Middle East, and do not find them to be motivated by academic dreams, an ideology about democracy, and so forth.

Krauthammer, whose name I will not preface with "Dr" or end with "M.D." because of his warmongering, is floating a possible fallback for the criminal invasion and occupation. His ongoing cover story, that the "objective" was a democratic and unified Iraq, is bogus and he knows it.

Then, in the form becoming more common in U.S. politics, he blames others. First, it's the fault of the new Iraqi "leaders", who are "too driven by sectarian sentiment, by an absence of national identity", blah, blah, blah. Second, it's the "post-invasion U.S. strategic errors", by "eschewing a heavy footprint" (just ask those 4.2 million refugees and the residents and non-residents of Fallujah how dainty the foot causing the footprint is), by not stopping the looting (but it was stopped in front of the Oil and Interior [Homeland Security] Ministries), and by not murdering Moqtada al-Sadr.

Now, let's get to real "objective" of those for whom Krauthammer and the other neocon flacks are running propaganda.

Here we have a curious article from the Agence France-Presse, after the Military Times newspaper broke the story.

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hMeYdNxXsPRbgtMslk-LOEHfOrLw

It says that the U.S. military was investigating an "alarming security lapse" when a B-52 bomber flew over the U.S. with six (6) nuclear tipped cruise missles loaded under its wings, and landed at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana.

Oh really?

The "alarming security lapse" was that some patriot leaked the story.

"At no time was there a threat to public safety", said Lieutenant Ed Thomas. Well, no threat to the U.S. public. But there might be a threat to the Iranian public.

Since Barksdale AFB is a place used to head to the Middle East, Larry Johnson wonders if this is staging nukes for Iran.

http://noquarterusa.net/blog/2007/09/05/staging-nukes-for-iran/

That's the real desired "objective" of Krauthammer, Ledeen, Kristol, et. al.

I mean, have any of them called a press conference to demand that nuclear weapons not be used against Iran?

[elkern]

I don't believe these creeps deserve any sympathy, any benefit-of-doubt based on a rosy assessment that they are merely misguided. They are traitors to the truth, our country, and our species.

Bush's managerial incompetence is genuine, and his half-baked "idealism" has contibuted to the mess (naively prefering impossible "democracy" over Chalabi, etc), but the real NeoCons cannot squirm away with the same excuses. Theirs are crimes of commission rather than omission.

Bremer's biggest boner - disbanding the Iraqi Army - has been a disaster for the USA, but has been a brilliant success for the "Clean Break" crowd. Anarchy locks us into the Occupation for the forseeable future (we broke it, we bought it, now we have to pay for it), and does no good for Big Oil even.

Iraq is destroyed - physically, socially, economically, technocally, intellectually, etc.

Cui bono? Iran, to some extent, but Iran had little ability to manipulate the actions of the USG (Chalabi? maybe).

The real winner is Israel. "Iraq" is unlikely to ever again really threaten Israel - it is unlikely to even exist much longer. Even if it does avoid trifurcation (?), it will be generations before they rebuild the technical and economic infrastructure to pose any threat to Israel. When & if Iraq regains real sovriegnity, Madrasas will replace the medical & engineering schools of Baghdad. Which is more of a threat - a few more theologically pure suicidal nuts, or another Dr. Khan (Pakistani Nuke sci-guy)?

Israel & her agents had motive, means, & opportunity to nudge the USG into the Invasion, and further, to bungle the Occupation.

Motive: eliminate a real, if inflated, strategic threat.

Means: agents (not necissarily "Agents" of Mossad, or any other explicit branch of the Israeli government) in positions of influence in the US Govt.

Opportunity: 9/11. (I'm not claiming that Israel is behind 9/11, merely that the Likudnik NeoCons exploited it).

There are some real questions: Why did many "real American" NeoCons go along with all this? (Woolsey? Cheney? unfortunately, I mean "NeoCons whose names don't sound Jewish", and I recognise how horrible this is). Big Oil - Cheney - wanted Iraq, but whole, complete with pipelines, not the puddle that remains.

It's easy to see how the Democrats were bought off (Campaign Fund Dependency Syndrome), but what kept the US Media on board? (Anthrax?!?)

Anyway, the whole thing is rolling again, this time toward Iran. I cry for my country; I know not what to do. Tell my (1st-term Democratic) Congressman that I'll vote Green if he doesn't grow a spine & some gonads? Yeah, sure, like that will outweigh a well-placed campaign contribution.

[Arun]

Dear Col. Lang,

Suppose we had not invaded Iraq, but Saddam had died suddenly one day of a heart attack. Suppose the succession turned into a civil war with various Baathist factions fighting each other, losing control of the country. Shias and Kurds joined in, people fled the fighting to Syria, Jordan; Turkey made rumbling noises at the border, and Iran and Saudi Arabia were pumping in arms and money to keep their Iraqi allies afloat. In the anarchy, Al Qaeda too entered the fray.

That is, basically the situation we have today, except Americans aren't yet involved.

What would the American response be to such a crisis? I believe you had had a link to some article that mentioned extensive plans made during the 1990s to handle just such a situation, but can't find it.

Why do I bring it up? Because if we go with the "let's not get into how we got into this situation, we are where we are and have to deal with it", then perhaps we ought to change our current posture to match that would have been in the hypothetical situation above.

I cannot believe that that contingency called for 150K American troops in Iraq; what was it that that contingency called for, and why wouldn't that be a viable option today?

[DeLudendwarf]

It worries me when Krautmeister speaks in the imperial "we", MacArthur like.

Might be angling to become the Viceroy of the American Raj or something.

[DeLudendwarf]

It worries me when Krautmeister speaks in the imperial "we", MacArthur like.

Might be angling to become the Viceroy of the American Raj or something.

[Edward Merkle]

See what the deceiver calls his opponents (for example "treasonous") and a sign of paranoia creeps out.

http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=5857