Might as well turn that around and accuse you of having an “exulted if you do, exulted if you don’t” standard. Same difference.
The most irritating thing about Iraq now is that we went in there for all sorts of reasons which are now bupkiss. And yet pundits like O’Reily and or Brooks are going on and on about the importance of confronting this or that Sadr Sistni, etc. as if any of it bore some relation to anything relevant to broader American interests that would have justified going into Iraq in the first place. We were supposed to be fighting back terrorism: instead we’ve dicking around with this or that random leader whom we never would have had to deal with had we never gone in the first place: and yet treating these conflicts as if they were anything but a waste of our time and resources in the war on terror, as if the whole point of invading Iraq was to confront some cleric who’s pissed off that we suppressed his newspaper. What the hell?
I mean, look at the rhetoric being used. We’re not fighting insurgents, oh no: we’re fighting terrorists, which means we’re fighting terrorism! Fantastic! We must really be on the ball if our plan to win the war on terrorism was to actually manufacture some stand-ins for the real terrorists out of disgruntled people who never had any power or inclination to attack us before, and then get all high and mighty about swatting them down. I can’t wait to hear out next plan in the war on terror: perhaps we’ll build some terrorist snowmen and punch them in the nuts?
Hey, we could get Bill Watterson back in business by getting him to draw illustrations of the terrorist snowmen!
And everything else is right on point: we were allegedly here to drain the swamp, not to pick fights with the alligators. What they’re doing in Iraq now has nothing to do with anything. Except that anyone attacking us must be a ‘terrorist’, and the cowboy way to respond to terrorism is through testosterone and heavy weaponry. Doesn’t matter that doing so gets us even deeper into the swamp, and stirs up more alligators.
Well, I’m certainly no shill for the Bush Administration, but I’m not sure I can agree with this analysis. The Bushistas told us that Iraq was going to be a glorious victory in the War on Terror[sup]TM[/sup] because Iraq would be transformed into a wonderful modern liberal democracy, full of delicious freedoms of the sort terrorists love to hate, which would result in a domino effect of popular uprisings against other oppressive authoritarian regimes in the Middle East, replacing them with similarly wonderful modern liberal democracies, and then the terrorists would go skulking off into the night, helpless and impotent with the loss of all potential avenues of state-level support.
Now, anyone with a sufficient level of familiarity with the Middle East (such as, say, having watched Lawrence of Arabia) and more than two brain cells to rub together could point out a half dozen blatant analytic errors in that plan. Nevertheless, that is the bill of goods that was sold, and hence maintaining order in Iraq does have something to do with something. Of course, the drooling idiots in the DoD have managed to act with sufficient incompetence that even if their pie-in-the-sky vision of Iraqis welcoming the US Army with open arms had been true, they still would have fucked the whole thing up.
No, we’re looking at that regardless of when we pull out. We destabilized and disarmed Iraq. Unless we’re willing to park our army there for the next couple centuries waiting out global political change, things are going to go south without us there. The people of Iraq are fucked, and Dubya and everyone who voted or will vote for him are the ones with their flies open.
But even if you buy that story, you have to admit that it’s pretty darn indirect chain of uncertain “if… then maybe…” “and then if… then hopefully…” clauses. Unfortunately, Iraq looks more like it’s going to set off a completely different chain: Arabs getting more and more frustrated with the clumsy heavyhandedness of American power, making them ripe for propaganda, and Iraq merely yet another breeding ground for radical Islam. At least when Saddam was in power, we neutralized him, and he neutralized the threat of radical Islam. Now that threat has spread to encompass yet another country, and we’re just dicking around inside it trying to clean up this or that mess without realizing that we’re so dirty that mostly what we’re doing is spreading it.
Meanwhile, Al Qaeda has had two years to regroup, splinter, and inspire all around the world, not having to worry about even the surprisingly meager amount of military and counter-terrorism attention we gave them before the Iraq distraction.
Face it: they won this round, not us. We threw the full might of our power against Iraq, and now we’re exhausted. But if it had any effect on terrorism, it was to help the Al Qaeda anti American propagandists and get even more people more pissed off at the US, alienating the allies we need.
Oh, I quite agree, and the foreseeability of this outcome is precisely why all right-thinking people opposed the war in the first place. I guess I just don’t see current goings-on as being in any sort of contradiction with the Bush Administration’s stated policies. This shouldn’t be seen as a statement of support. Rather, it’s a direct indictment of the willfull ignorance of that policy that I see current events as an obvious result of that policy.
I wonder if Al Q is charging a franchise fee these days? From the number of recent attacks, it seems like every terrorist group in the world is fighting under the Al Qaeda moniker.
RTFirefly (re: Iraq):
Hello? Yes, I’d like a dozen of those bumper stickers, please.
I nominate we pull all US forces out of Iraq, watch the country descend into bloody civil war, then make a worldwide referendum to call the whole thing “Bush’s Legacy.”
With any luck, we’ll replace “Benedict Arnold” with “George W. Bush” in the Most Despised American lexicon yet.
To be fair, a lot of people opposed the war because they reflexively oppose all wars and/or anything at all, because they are morons.
But of course, such people aren’t right-thinking people, so their reasons are not germane to the validity of my statement. 
[nitpick]
This isn’t true. After the feudal government fell in 1868, a European-style constitution with elected parliament was established in Japan. Granted, you can argue whether it was a true democracy, and there were strong ruling cliques, but it is still inaccurate to say Japan had no experience with democracy.
Further, the reign of the second emperor after the 1868 restoration was called the Taisho Democracy. The second emperor was very weak, and power tipped away from him and the clique of “elder statesmen” toward the parliament and political parties
[/nitpick]
Thanks. I need to read up on my Japanese history.
I hope this was hyperbole. As much as I hate Bush, his policies etc etc etc, I cannot in good conscience wish the fat of “a bloody civil war” on the Iraqis simply to have it reflect poorly on Bush.
I think that all right-thinking people in this country are sick and tired of being told that ordinary, decent people are fed up in this country with being sick and tired. I’m certainly not! But I’m sick and tired of being told that I am.
A civil war which they would have had in a few years anyway, when Saddam’s sanction eviscerated regime finally lost its grip on power? No matter what we do now, Iraq is in for a massive power struggle.
I don’t want any Iraqi civil war, with or without US forces in the way.
On the other hand, pimp-smacking George W. Bush for the chaos there and branding him as The Worst American in The History of America is just fine in my book.