Sunday, November 12, 2006
Steyn is Right Again
Mark Steyn the Magnificent has another strong, depressing column today, full of truth. From his computer screen to Bush's ears. Money quotes:
Whether or not Rumsfeld should have been tossed overboard long ago, he certainly shouldn't have been tossed on Wednesday morning. For one thing, it's a startlingly brazen confirmation of the politicization of the war, and a particularly unworthy one: It's difficult to conceive of any more public diminution of a noble cause than to make its leadership contingent on Lincoln Chafee's Senate seat. The president's firing of Rumsfeld was small and graceless.
[...]
For the rest of the world, the Iraq war isn't about Iraq; it's about America, and American will. I'm told that deep in the bowels of the Pentagon there are strategists wargaming for the big showdown with China circa 2030/2040. Well, it's steady work, I guess. But, as things stand, by the time China's powerful enough to challenge the United States it won't need to. Meanwhile, the guys who are challenging us right now -- in Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, North Korea and elsewhere -- are regarded by the American electorate like a reality show we're bored with. Sorry, we don't want to stick around to see if we win; we'd rather vote ourselves off the island.
[...]
On Tuesday, the national security vote evaporated, and, without it, what's left for the GOP? Congressional Republicans wound up running on the worst of all worlds -- big bloated porked-up entitlements-a-go-go government at home and a fainthearted tentative policing operation abroad. As it happens, my new book argues for the opposite: small lean efficient government at home and muscular assertiveness abroad. It does a superb job, if I do say so myself, of connecting war and foreign policy with the domestic issues. Of course, it doesn't have to be that superb if the GOP's incoherent inversion is the only alternative on offer.
As it is, we're in a very dark place right now. It has been a long time since America unambiguously won a war, and to choose to lose Iraq would be an act of such parochial self-indulgence that the American moment would not endure, and would not deserve to. Europe is becoming semi-Muslim, Third World basket-case states are going nuclear, and, for all that 40 percent of planetary military spending, America can't muster the will to take on pipsqueak enemies. We think we can just call off the game early, and go back home and watch TV.
It doesn't work like that. Whatever it started out as, Iraq is a test of American seriousness. And, if the Great Satan can't win in Vietnam or Iraq, where can it win? That's how China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Venezuela and a whole lot of others look at it. "These Colors Don't Run" is a fine T-shirt slogan, but in reality these colors have spent 40 years running from the jungles of Southeast Asia, the helicopters in the Persian desert, the streets of Mogadishu. ... To add the sands of Mesopotamia to the list will be an act of weakness from which America will never recover.
Whether or not Rumsfeld should have been tossed overboard long ago, he certainly shouldn't have been tossed on Wednesday morning. For one thing, it's a startlingly brazen confirmation of the politicization of the war, and a particularly unworthy one: It's difficult to conceive of any more public diminution of a noble cause than to make its leadership contingent on Lincoln Chafee's Senate seat. The president's firing of Rumsfeld was small and graceless.
[...]
For the rest of the world, the Iraq war isn't about Iraq; it's about America, and American will. I'm told that deep in the bowels of the Pentagon there are strategists wargaming for the big showdown with China circa 2030/2040. Well, it's steady work, I guess. But, as things stand, by the time China's powerful enough to challenge the United States it won't need to. Meanwhile, the guys who are challenging us right now -- in Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, North Korea and elsewhere -- are regarded by the American electorate like a reality show we're bored with. Sorry, we don't want to stick around to see if we win; we'd rather vote ourselves off the island.
[...]
On Tuesday, the national security vote evaporated, and, without it, what's left for the GOP? Congressional Republicans wound up running on the worst of all worlds -- big bloated porked-up entitlements-a-go-go government at home and a fainthearted tentative policing operation abroad. As it happens, my new book argues for the opposite: small lean efficient government at home and muscular assertiveness abroad. It does a superb job, if I do say so myself, of connecting war and foreign policy with the domestic issues. Of course, it doesn't have to be that superb if the GOP's incoherent inversion is the only alternative on offer.
As it is, we're in a very dark place right now. It has been a long time since America unambiguously won a war, and to choose to lose Iraq would be an act of such parochial self-indulgence that the American moment would not endure, and would not deserve to. Europe is becoming semi-Muslim, Third World basket-case states are going nuclear, and, for all that 40 percent of planetary military spending, America can't muster the will to take on pipsqueak enemies. We think we can just call off the game early, and go back home and watch TV.
It doesn't work like that. Whatever it started out as, Iraq is a test of American seriousness. And, if the Great Satan can't win in Vietnam or Iraq, where can it win? That's how China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Venezuela and a whole lot of others look at it. "These Colors Don't Run" is a fine T-shirt slogan, but in reality these colors have spent 40 years running from the jungles of Southeast Asia, the helicopters in the Persian desert, the streets of Mogadishu. ... To add the sands of Mesopotamia to the list will be an act of weakness from which America will never recover.
# posted by Roger Fraley @ 9:52 AM 
Comments:
<< Home
I guess there are two ways of looking at Tuesday's vote: First there is Mr. Steyn's way- the Iraq affair is a key proponent of the war on terror, it is a long gruelling process, but its necessary and if we're patient we will succeed (whatever that means). Unfortunatly, the American public is not patient and thus they sent a bad signal to the rest of the world by voting the Republicans out. We can't leave Iraq, its been a long time since we won anything and if we leave, we will feel bad about ourselves. So if we want to feel good again, we better stay and do whatever.
The second way of looking at Tuesdays vote is that the American public is saying to people like Mark Steyn- You were wrong, history is proving you wrong, you have created a major mess that we now have to figure out how to clean up. But while we're doing that, why don't you and your ilk just shut up and like Rumsfeld, go away.
The second way of looking at Tuesdays vote is that the American public is saying to people like Mark Steyn- You were wrong, history is proving you wrong, you have created a major mess that we now have to figure out how to clean up. But while we're doing that, why don't you and your ilk just shut up and like Rumsfeld, go away.
# posted by 
: 11:20 AM
: 11:20 AM
Reasons to be in Iraq
1. WMD
2. protect the West from terrorism by seeing off Saddam and establishing democracy and self-determination in Iraq
3. US is 0 and 3 in wars and badly in need of a win (kinda like the Raiders)
I don't really understand 2. but I think I prefer it to 3. At least it sounds like we're there to do something for the Iraqi people.
1. WMD
2. protect the West from terrorism by seeing off Saddam and establishing democracy and self-determination in Iraq
3. US is 0 and 3 in wars and badly in need of a win (kinda like the Raiders)
I don't really understand 2. but I think I prefer it to 3. At least it sounds like we're there to do something for the Iraqi people.
Both you guys seem to think that Iraq was sweetness and light in late winter 2003 and our invasion caused the 'mess.' Not my sense of history. Not history at all. 0 and 3? Name the 3. Thanks for commenting.
Rog,
Iraq was not sweetness and light but we did cause a mess. The current mess requires more of a political than a military solution.
Unless the Iraqis are able to pull together and eschew sectarian violence and quash the insurgency, we will have been the cause of trading a tyranny for a failed state.
As you know, follwing GW I, I never considered Saddam Hussein to have been a serious threat to either to our national secirity or even to regionasl security. A threat to Iraqis, yes. In fact, in a turn of perverse irony, he may have been a stabilizing force in the region and his deposition contributed to the Shiite resurgence.
The real problem is that Iraq has become a black hole for our resources, effectively preventing us, politically and militarily, from resolving other problems to the extent we might, starting in Afghanistan.
T.
Iraq was not sweetness and light but we did cause a mess. The current mess requires more of a political than a military solution.
Unless the Iraqis are able to pull together and eschew sectarian violence and quash the insurgency, we will have been the cause of trading a tyranny for a failed state.
As you know, follwing GW I, I never considered Saddam Hussein to have been a serious threat to either to our national secirity or even to regionasl security. A threat to Iraqis, yes. In fact, in a turn of perverse irony, he may have been a stabilizing force in the region and his deposition contributed to the Shiite resurgence.
The real problem is that Iraq has become a black hole for our resources, effectively preventing us, politically and militarily, from resolving other problems to the extent we might, starting in Afghanistan.
T.
# posted by : 9:26 AM
: 9:26 AM
the 3 was a reference to the Steyn article you quoted:
the jungles of Southeast Asia, the helicopters in the Persian desert, the streets of Mogadishu. (sounds like a line from Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick!).
the jungles of Southeast Asia, the helicopters in the Persian desert, the streets of Mogadishu. (sounds like a line from Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick!).
nicely put Tony. But i would re-iterate that while that might be the "real" problem from a US point of view, what about the Iraqis themselves? 10 years from now will they be saying "well it was certainly rough going for a few years there, but now I'm glad the US came and bailed us"? If not, it'll be a real problem.
(Thanks for doing so for us Europeans in WWs 1 and 2 by the way - those were the days, eh).
(Thanks for doing so for us Europeans in WWs 1 and 2 by the way - those were the days, eh).
Thanks, Markswrite, the operations in Iran and Samalia don't quite rank with the 8 year plus war in Viet Nam, so I was going nuts with thinking what you meant. I have officially given up on even pretending to know what the Iraqis think. I appear to have been mistaken on every thing I took as granted for all human aspirations. As we know nations can apparently aspire to destroy themselves (like Labanon or several of the nations formerly known as Yugoslavia)
Post a Comment
<< Home
