Terror, Iraq, and Democracy
As soon as Richard Clarke took to the airwaves to criticize the Bush Administration, Condeleeza Rice was ready with a rebuttal. Clarke says the Bush folks did not take Al Qaeda, or international terrorism in general, seriously enough, either before or after 9/11. Before 9/11, probably very few people thought there was a major risk for the U.S. to deal with, so the debate as to who was worse, Clinton or Bush, is a bit beside the point.
The allegations about the time after 9/11 are more interesting. Were there senior people, including Wolfowitz, who kept saying Saddam must be involved in 9/11 somehow? Were these people persuaded by Laurie Mylroie? (Peter Bergen via Matthew Ygeliasis' blog and via Kevin Drum).
In any case Rice denies some of Clarke's main points. She says Al Qaeda was a high priority from shortly after Bush's Inauguration; that the old methods, which were presumably advocated by Clarke, would have done no good; and that an entirely new plan was devised, and was ready before 9/11.
Before 9/11: "We would attempt to compel the Taliban to stop giving al Qaeda sanctuary -- and if it refused, we would have sufficient military options to remove the Taliban regime. The strategy focused on the key role of Pakistan in this effort and the need to get Pakistan to drop its support of the Taliban. This became the first major foreign-policy strategy document of the Bush administration -- not Iraq, not the ABM Treaty, but eliminating al Qaeda."
After 9/11: "Once advised that there was no evidence that Iraq was responsible for Sept. 11, the president told his National Security Council on Sept. 17 that Iraq was not on the agenda and that the initial U.S. response to Sept. 11 would be to target al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan."
One could paraphrase a bit unfairly: it would be truly troubling if we actually planned to expend considerable resources on Iraq; thank goodness, we weren't such idiots as that.
How then did the Iraq invasion come about? There may be a growing consensus that it was not the smartest thing to do. Defenders of Bush's actions pretty much say simply: there is no turning back, or we will show weakness. Of course they also say things could still turn out fine: democracy, and all that. It is certainly fair to say things in Iraq could still turn out OK, even if "gloriously" has become unlikely. (I envisage Ahmed Chalabi being chased out of Iraq by a mob that is shooting at him. As he jumps to avoid the gunfire, cartoon-style, he keeps shouting "Dick Cheney! Dick Cheney!")
In a way the best argument for the U.S. invasion is one that is not mentioned by Clarke (as far as I know) nor by Rice in this piece. This was to the effect that Iraq could be a model for democratizing and Westernizing in the Arab world. It was big enough, and historically significant enough, to be a real test case showing that the trend was not inevitably anti-Western and anti-democracy.
This could still be the mirror image of the WMD and "Iraq threatening the world" argument. The more certain the Bushies were that Saddam was practically defenceless, the more sense it made to invade--since this could presumably be done at little cost. Similarly, Iraq's remarkable freedom from religious fanaticism and terrorism--even, apparently, from fundamentalism on a large scale, acting through effective organizations--would be good signs. It is possible to disagree as to whether the Administration was lying or simply spinning, and even as to whether the invasion was a good thing or not, and still agree that this is what they were thinking.
Iraq was relatively secular, and (at least potentially) relatively wealthy, with an established middle class. It should be a promising place to build democracy. Of course it would be difficult to get permission for an invasion that was certainly not defensive, and was not even pre-emptive in any meaningful sense; but Saddam's regime was so brutal, it would surely be possible to get forgiveness later.
Some time ago, Stephen den Beste spelled out the "democratizing the Mid East" rationale for the war, and said the public couldn't face the truth, so some spinning about weapons and so on was necessary. Josh Marshall offered a similar analysis, but was more critical of what he called Bush's "lies." Daniel Drezner did a nice job of summarizing and then refereeing the debate, first on his own blog, then guest-blogging at Volokh.
Matthew Yglesias has an update on the Tapped site. David Brooks has given a passing mention to "democratizing the whole Mid East" in recent days, and Safire has written a column saying this is still the main reason for the U.S. invasion. But the best hope Safire can offer specifically is that Iraq may get more like Afghanistan. As Yglesias says, this would be neither a great situation for Iraqis, nor an improvement in the safety of the world.
Yglesias says the Administration has "climbed down" from their recently-announced Democracy in the Mid East initiative--which would apparently have been something like the Helsinki Accord on human rights. Recent news on Google is mixed. One story says the U.S. has challenged Saudi Arabia to free some prisoners; another says the U.S. has at least scaled back on the idea of any big new initiative.
Is the Bush team losing some of its ardour to change the world?
Yglesias also wonders if the Bush Administration has done much actual planning for the post-June 30 regime in Iraq.
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