Criticisms of Bush 

Criticisms of Bush

Srictly in terms of domestic politics, the national security issue is not exactly going the President's way.

As usual, I'll try to avoid commenting too much on the sad and crazy news we're getting from Iraq. It's difficult to know what's going on, or even whether it's generally for or against democracy, or the West.

My focus now is on what the President can be, and deserves to be, criticized for. The present investigation of decisions made before 9/11 is probably an almost complete waste of time. Clinton's approach and that of Bush before 9/11 were not as different as black and white. No one to speak of really thought an attack like 9/11 was going to happen, although of course some had warned that it might.

After 9/11, Bush focussed very promptly and properly on Afghanistan as the headquarters of Al Qaeda. Some Al Qaeda leaders were allowed to escape, and in general too much of the fighting on the ground was left to the Northern Alliance or warlords. Still, the effort could have been sustained, or expanded, but it wasn't.

Instead, the U.S. made Iraq its major focus. This is what remains mysterious. Intelligence needs to be interpreted, and the Bushies chose to interpret intelligence on Iraq in the most alarming way possible. This might have made sense if Saddam had actually attacked someone in the recent past, but he had not. The stories about Al Qaeda links were always pretty sketchy, unless like Laurie Mylroie you were determined to come up with a unifying theory that blamed Saddam for everything.

The war in Iraq did not prevent the U.S. from being active anywhere else, including Afghanistan. But it clearly ensured that troops simply were not available for a major effort. And many people are now saying a significant group of Al Qaeda leaders escaped, and have now organized somewhat independent cells in different parts of the world. The Madrid bombings may be the work of Al Qaeda, for example.

Musab al-Zarqawi may be an Al Qaeda leader, and he may be active in Iraq, but it seems that his activities there have increased, not decreased, since the U.S. invasion. (Before the invasion he may have been associated with Ansar Al-Islam, and a guest of the Kurds rather than Saddam). And he may not be the worst news for the U.S. there. Moqtada Sadr has now emerged as a leader prepared to engage in pitched battles against Coalition troops; he is even succeeding in getting Sunnis to fight with him in the anti-American or anti-Coalition cause. Ayatollah Ali Sistani speaks for a great many people as well. He has said consistently he wants mullahs to play a more limited role in Iraq than they do in Iran; Sadr is drawn to the Iranian model. Sistani may now be too much of a man of peace for many Iraqis.

Much of the violence of recent days, it seems, was neither caused nor led by Al Qaeda. It has nothing to do with 9/11, except that it was somehow 9/11 that brought the American troops to Iraq. What made an invasion of Iraq so urgent?

Of course, as we gain more and more clarity about our questions, they matter less and less on the ground. It seems that any president would now agree that it is impossible to simply pull out. Some genuine effort must be made to leave a civilian authority in place that can keep the peace. "If we simply withdraw or surrender, that will be perceived as a sign of weakness by all our enemies. We need peace with honour. We need a decent interval between our withdrawal and...something bad." This all seems kind of familiar.