Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying

George W. Bush aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln on May 1, 2003:

Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed. (Applause.)

…

This nation thanks all the members of our coalition who joined in a noble cause. We thank the Armed Forces of the United Kingdom, Australia, and Poland, who shared in the hardships of war. We thank all the citizens of Iraq who welcomed our troops and joined in the liberation of their own country. And tonight, I have a special word for Secretary Rumsfeld, for General Franks, and for all the men and women who wear the uniform of the United States: America is grateful for a job well done. (Applause.)

…

In the images of celebrating Iraqis, we have also seen the ageless appeal of human freedom. Decades of lies and intimidation could not make the Iraqi people love their oppressors or desire their own enslavement. Men and women in every culture need liberty like they need food and water and air. Everywhere that freedom arrives, humanity rejoices; and everywhere that freedom stirs, let tyrants fear. (Applause.)

…

The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on September the 11, 2001 — and still goes on. That terrible morning, 19 evil men — the shock troops of a hateful ideology — gave America and the civilized world a glimpse of their ambitions. They imagined, in the words of one terrorist, that September the 11th would be the "beginning of the end of America." By seeking to turn our cities into killing fields, terrorists and their allies believed that they could destroy this nation’s resolve, and force our retreat from the world. They have failed. (Applause.)

…

The liberation of Iraq is a crucial advance in the campaign against terror. We’ve removed an ally of al Qaeda, and cut off a source of terrorist funding. And this much is certain: No terrorist network will gain weapons of mass destruction from the Iraqi regime, because the regime is no more. (Applause.)

In these 19 months that changed the world, our actions have been focused and deliberate and proportionate to the offense. We have not forgotten the victims of September the 11th — the last phone calls, the cold murder of children, the searches in the rubble. With those attacks, the terrorists and their supporters declared war on the United States. And war is what they got. (Applause.)

…

The war on terror is not over; yet it is not endless. We do not know the day of final victory, but we have seen the turning of the tide. No act of the terrorists will change our purpose, or weaken our resolve, or alter their fate. Their cause is lost. Free nations will press on to victory. (Applause.)

George W. Bush at MacDill Air Force Base (sans flight suit) on May 1, 2007:

In 2005, nearly 12 million Iraqis demonstrated their desire, their deep desire, to live in freedom and peace. Iraqis voted in three national elections — choosing a transitional government, adopting the most progressive, democratic constitution in the Arab world, and then electing a government under that constitution. In 2006, a thinking enemy, a brutal enemy responded to this progress and struck back — staging sensational attacks that led to a tragic escalation of sectarian rage and reprisal in Baghdad.

As sectarian violence threatened to destroy this young democracy, our coalition faced a choice. One option was to help the Iraqi government tamp down the sectarian violence and provide them with the breathing space they need to achieve reconciliation — provide them the breathing space they need to take the political and economic measures necessary to make sure our military efforts were effective. The other option was to pull back from the capital, before the Iraqis could defend themselves against these radicals and extremists and death squads and killers. That risked turning Iraq into a cauldron of chaos. Our enemy, the enemies of freedom, love chaos. Out of that chaos they could find new safe havens. Withdrawal would have emboldened these radicals and extremists. It would have confirmed their belief that our nations were weak. It would help them gain new recruits, new resources. It would cause them to believe they could strike free nations at their choice.

Withdrawal would have increased the probability that coalition troops would be forced to return to Iraq one day, and confront an enemy that is even more dangerous. Failure in Iraq should be unacceptable to the civilized world. The risks are enormous.

So after an extensive review, I ordered a new strategy that is dramatically different from the one we were pursuing before. I listened to our military commanders; I listened to politicians from both sides of the aisle. I made a decision. I appointed a new commander, General David Petraeus, to carry out this strategy. This new strategy recognizes that our top priority must be to help the Iraqi government secure its capital so they can make economic and political progress.

The Iraqis cannot yet do this on their own. So I ordered reinforcements to help Iraqis secure their population, to go after those inciting sectarian violence, and to help the Iraqis get their capital under control.

This strategy is still in its early stages. Some of the reinforcements General Petraeus requested have not yet arrived in Baghdad. He believes it will take months before we can accurately gauge the strategy’s potential for success. Yet at this early hour, we are seeing some signs that give us hope. Coalition forces have captured a number of key terrorist leaders who are providing information about how al Qaeda operates in Iraq. They stopped a car bomb network that had killed many citizens of Baghdad, and destroyed major car bomb factories. There has been a decline in sectarian violence. And in some areas of the capital, Iraqis are returning to their neighborhoods with an increased feeling of security.

Terrorists and the extremists continue to unleash horrific acts of violence. Al Qaeda is playing a major role. Last week, General Petraeus called al Qaeda "probably public enemy number one" in Iraq. He said that al Qaeda has made Iraq "the central front in their global campaign." And that’s why success in Iraq is critical to the security of free people everywhere.

…

Everyone in this room knows the consequences of failure in Iraq, and that we should also appreciate the consequences of success, because we have seen them before. Following World War II, many nations helped lift the defeated populations of Japan and Germany, and stood with them as they built representative governments from societies that had been ravaged and decimated. We committed years and resources to this cause. And that effort has been repaid many times over in three generations of prosperity and peace. During the Cold War, the NATO Alliance worked to liberate nations from communist tyranny, even as allies bickered, and millions marched in the streets against us, and the pundits lost hope. We emerged from that struggle with a Europe that is now whole and free and at peace.

We look back at that history and marvel at what millions of ordinary people accomplished. Yet success was not preordained, and the outcome was not certain. Only now we can see those eras with the proper perspective. I believe that one day future generations will look back at this time in the same way, and they will be awed by what our coalition has helped to build. They will see that we strengthened alliances, offered new relevance to international institutions, encouraged new forms of multilateral engagement, and laid the foundation of peace for generations to come.

These are difficult times. These are tough times. These are times of test and resolve of free people. These are times that require hard work and courage and faith in the ability of liberty to yield the pace we want.

Mission Accomplished.

I really have one question today I would like answered. My blogger friend from Iraq, Miraj, has not posted since January 29 2007. In the last post she wrote, she said: "* No one dies in this story so please do not worry *"

While it is easy to toss around grand words like "resolve", "courage", "faith" and "liberty" I want to know that those who bear the brunt of the rhetoric of this disconnected President can survive his folly.

Miraj, I look forward to your next post.

Today is National Dress-Up Day. On May 1st, 2003, President George Walker Bush declared victory in Iraq. As Atrios points out, the television pundits hailed it as a triumph of machoness over wimpyness. Everyone rejoiced. There was merriment all around. The Iraqis threw flowers at our feet. It was a wonderful day for the cause of liberty and freedom. The Almighty’s gift of freedom was given to the Iraqis. It was a heck of a day.

For all you naysayers who continue to report bad news from Iraq 3 years after the war ended, I say wake up! The war is over, we have won, the Iraqis are dancing in the streets. It is time to end your fictional reporting about daily mayhem in Iraq. The Mission was Accomplished and now it is time to move on….to Iran.

I recall quipping to a friend a few weeks ago that I thought the way out of Iraq for this Administration was through Iran. What I meant at the time was that since this Administration had haplessly shifted the center of gravity of Iraqi politics to Iran, without Iran having to fire a shot, that the only way to exit out of Iraq with "credibility" was to attack Iran. Iran then becomes a continuation of a larger war "on terror" and it can then not be said that Iraq was lost since it will only become an unfinished chapter in a larger war.

I of course was being cynical. I knew then that there have been people within and outside the Administration who have been advocating for an attack on Iran from the time that "Mission Accomplished" was declared in Iraq. Neo-conservatives had focused their attention on Iran as the next domino in the new American Domino Theory. Some of the most rabid of the neo-cons advocating war were the usual suspects such as Daniel Pipes, Frank Gaffney and Charles Krauthammer. But I had calculated that the appetite for war had waned in Washington due to Mr. Bush’s flagging approval ratings, the disaster in Iraq, the Congressional scandals, and the overextension of the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan. I had obviously underestimated the hunger for war in Washington.

Today the Washington Post reports that the United States is planning for a nuclear strike on Iran. This report comes nipping at the heels of Seymour Hersh’s tour de force in the New Yorker magazine on the same topic. Mr. Hersh has been doggedly pursuing this story for some time, with a report in January that the United States was already engaged in covert action inside Iran.

The drumbeat for war with Iran has been ongoing for some time. The rhetoric and the diplomatic doublespeak is eerily reminiscent of the run up to the Iraq invasion. But what is different this time is that the United States is considering using nuclear weapons as a first strike option against Iran. Apparently the civilian leaders in the Administration have surveyed the options against Iran’s nuclear facilities and concluded that a conventional attack will not cause the requisite amount of damage. So like any group of people bent on destruction, they have decided that if the bomb you are using is not big enough, get a bigger bomb - in our case, a nuclear bomb. This is the kind of thinking I have been able to coax my five-year-old out of over the last year. My daughter has matured to a point where she now tends to utilize thought and consider more the longer-term consequences of her actions instead of first resorting to brute force when confronted with a difficult task.

There is likely to be much discussion of this story in the days, weeks, and months to come. Instead of focusing on the primary story which I suspect will be widely discussed in today’s talk shows and on the web, I would like to use the remainder of this post to highlight two aspects of this story that are particularly frightening.

Seymour Hersh’s writes about Mr. Bush’s determination and motivation in attacking Iran:

A government consultant with close ties to the civilian leadership in the Pentagon said that Bush was “absolutely convinced that Iran is going to get the bomb” if it is not stopped. He said that the President believes that he must do “what no Democrat or Republican, if elected in the future, would have the courage to do,” and “that saving Iran is going to be his legacy.” [Emphasis added by me]

It has been widely reported and speculated that Mr. Bush sees his mission in remaking the Middle East very much in biblical terms. If Mr. Hersh’s source is accurate in his assessment then we are confronted with a President with messianic and evangelical zeal that will not be tempered by reason or the facts. In this case, war with Iran is inevitable. This is a frightening development, and the dangers may actually increase as Mr. Bush’s popularity slips further. He may feel that the urgency to accomplish his mission becomes greater as his position in office become more tenuous.

The Washington Post reports on a possible timetable for attack and Israel’s role in setting that timetable:

Israel is preparing, as well. The government recently leaked a contingency plan for attacking on its own if the United States does not, a plan involving airstrikes, commando teams, possibly missiles and even explosives-carrying dogs. Israel, which bombed Iraq’s Osirak nuclear plant in 1981 to prevent it from being used to develop weapons, has built a replica of Natanz, according to Israeli media, but U.S. strategists do not believe Israel has the capacity to accomplish the mission without nuclear weapons.

…

Israel points to those missiles to press their case in Washington. Israeli officials traveled here recently to convey more urgency about Iran. Although U.S. intelligence agencies estimate Iran is about a decade away from having a nuclear bomb, Israelis believe a critical breakthrough could occur within months. They told U.S. officials that Iran is beginning to test a more elaborate cascade of centrifuges, indicating that it is further along than previously believed.

"What the Israelis are saying is this year — unless they are pressured into abandoning the program — would be the year they will master the engineering problem," a U.S. official said. "That would be a turning point, but it wouldn’t mean they would have a bomb." [Emphasis added by me]

The Israelis have been pushing the notion of a point of no return, or "turning point", for quite some time, arguing that even though the actual bomb may be sometime away the date on the calendar that we should be concerned about is much sooner when the Iranian program reaches a technical threshold that once achieved cannot be reversed. Israel has chosen a timetable for attack by the United States by the end of this year by indicating if this attack does not happen, they will launch the attack unilaterally. Israel has also been at the forefront of the nuclear strike option.

The timetable set by Israel for the United States dovetails nicely with the November Congressional elections. An attack on Iran would politically rescue Mr. Bush and the Congressional Republicans from the disaster in Iraq. The actual attack does not have to occur before the elections, in fact it is better politically that the attack take place after the elections. The drumbeat to war and the tension and fear it will generate for the public is much more useful as a political tool than the war itself. By this time in early November, with any luck for the Republicans, the daily death toll in Iraq, the Congressional scandals, the NSA spying and the fallout from the NIE leaking should all take a backseat to the coming war with Iran. With these constraints, the likely strike date on Iran will be in late November or early December of this year, just in time for the Christmas season.

In many ways, war has already begun with Iran. The conversation has changed. It should give all of us pause that on this day in the 21st Century we are considering the possibility that the greatest experiment in Democracy in the history of the world is about to launch a nuclear first strike against another sovereign state. May our children forgive us.

When my five-year old daughter accidentally does something wrong she is in the habit of saying, "Look what you made me do!." In response, I try to explain to her the concept of personal responsibility, of free will, of taking credit or blame for one’s actions. I suspect that it is a lesson that most parents teach their children at an early age.

My daughter’s protestations came to mind when I heard the President’s latest speech seeking to defend his Iraq policy.  The President laid blame at the feet of Saddam Hussein for the chaos in Iraq. According to the official White House transcript, the President said:

These are the kinds of tensions Iraqis are dealing with today. They are the divisions that Saddam aggravated through deliberate policies of ethnic cleansing and sectarian violence. As one Middle East scholar has put it, Iraq under Saddam Hussein was "a society slowly and systematically poisoned by political terror. The toxic atmosphere in today’s Iraq bears witness to his terrible handiwork." 

For the sake of argument, let me agree with the President that Saddam Hussein’s policies created the conditions for sectarian strife in Iraq. If that is and was indeed the case, why did the Administration not anticipate this sectarian strife? Why trot out this argument now? This argument is wholly inconsistent with what we were told before the war - that it would be a cakewalk, bed of roses, etc. If we grant the President the benefit of this argument, then the Administration appears completely unprepared and incompetent, now by its own admission, in dealing with post "Mission Accomplished" Iraq.

It seems to me that in trying to find someone, anyone, to blame for the debacle in Iraq, the Administration has finally and inadvertently admitted failure and defeat. I think it is long past time that the Administration accepted the reality in Iraq and its role in bringing about that reality. There can now be no doubt that the invasion of Iraq was ill conceived; and the decision to invade Iraq and unleashing the very predictable sectarian strife and responsibility for that decision lies solely at the feet of the President and this Administration.

I have the same hope for this Administration that I have for my five-year-old: that they accept responsibility for their actions.