The Iraq situation seems to have as many facets as the Great Game between the Great Powers in Central Asia a century ago. While the sultans and emirs might have been replaced by dictators and tyrants, the parallels are similar. In like manner, the consequence of a lack of understanding of the political situation and superficial support from local potentates has caused a spiral of chaos that will take much to unravel.
It might be a truism to state that wars are not won on battlefields, but history has often enough recorded the manifold subtle actions that make up the unraveling of great plans, and what greater plan than a war?
Wars are also won and lost as much through words as through the actions of men. The Germans lost the First World War as much because of internal anti-war resistance and protests as because of their defeat in the ground war. Often enough, as Siegfried Sassoon noted, "In war-time the word patriotism means suppression of truth." On the other hand, being anti-war can often mean supporting a particular war, or either side, for there are no neutrals in wartime. As Stephen Douglas said in 1861, speaking of the American Civil War, "There can be no neutrals in this war, only patriots - or traitors."
During the Second World War, the neutral European states — Switzerland, Portugal, Sweden, Spain and the Vatican — may have been 'self-interested non-combatants' but were tainted in one way or another, as history has shown, by covert collaboration or silent support of Nazi actions, in the case of Spain, being openly fascist.
It is for these reasons difficult to separate patriotism from pragmatism, and war from peace. A 'just war' has its proponents and its opponents. Some of the most righteous wars may be the most unpopular. The 2003 Iraq invasion is perhaps singular in terms of popular global opposition despite its stated objectives against a military dictator. Its aftermath has been no less controversial. Victory, peace, democracy have all seemed within grasp a number of times, before being supplanted by death, violence and feudalistic anarchy.
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Article comments
1 - Dave Nalle
How can Iran fill an 'arab leadership void' when it's not an Arab nation and is dominated by a sect of Islam which most Arabs despise?
Dave
2 - Aaman
Did you read the linked article, Dave, Iran can be the force behind a Shiite crescent that would supplant the Sunni Arab crowd
3 - ss
Nice post, Aaman.
I read this yesterday and I just have to mention it here:
Kamal Sayid Qadir, an Iraqi journalist, got pardoned yesterday and released after serving 4 months of an 18 month sentence for the crime of accusing a top Kurdish official of corruption on a web site.
I'm going to assume Iraq will stay a democracy, at least in terms of the mechinations of elections, because that's the style of government those directing the flow of history (EU, US, IMF, etc)at the moment prefer to deal with. This spreading of democracy is great if freedom goes with it, there's nothing particularly great about this if it doesn't. IMO
I'm also going to assume that Iraq will stay one country, at least on the map. I'd imagine we'll leave troops there forever if need be to assure this. I'm not saying partition isn't possible, but that would put a lot of egg on our face, and you don't stay the hegemon by sheepishly wiping the egg off your face. You stay the hegemon by making others live with your mistakes, even if that means neighbor killing neighbor, forever, in Iraq. At least that's one way to do it, and with our powers of persuasion atrophied by our military dominance, that's the way we'll have to do it.
My question is:
If we spread democracy with simulated freedom and not the real thing, if our powers of persuasion never develop past the barrel of a gun and we end up forcing others to live with our mistakes, what have we created except those three armies mentioned at the end of the post?
4 - Mark Schannon
Great article and analysis. It does appear that we're powerless to stop the Balkanization of Iraq and what may follow, the rest of the Arab world, which, as you note, was cobbled together by the British and its allies after WWI.
It's never been a stable region. Our continuing refusal to pay attention to history--which led us into Vietnam--continues to plague this nation's foreigh policy.
In Jameson Veritas
5 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Aaman,
Well written as usual. But I disagree strongly with many of its conclusions. Look at it this way. The Indian Empire of Victoria Regina was cobbled together by the British and flew apart as soon as the Viceroy was gone. Would you try to reunite it? More to the point, if you had the power to do so in 1950, would you have tried to reunite the Indian Empire?
6 - Bliffle
Mark: "It's never been a stable region. Our continuing refusal to pay attention to history--which led us into Vietnam--continues to plague this nation's foreigh policy."
True. Sometimes it seems like we're spending wildly to support a decision made in the 20s by English colonialists. How foolish.
If the Iraqis themselves don't get together pretty soon they will find themselves bereft of foreign support and thrown to their own devices: constant turmoil and fits of genocide.
7 - Aaman
Ruvy, a United Indian Empire doesn't sound too bad, as long as we don't have to deal with an influx of destitute refugees and illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, etc. and prop up failed states like Bhutan, Pakistan,etc. - wait a minute - we're doing that already!
8 - Bliffle
Aaman: "...doesn't sound too bad, as long as we don't have to deal with an influx of destitute refugees and illegal immigrants from..."
Oops! I thought, for an instant, you were switching the topic to Illegal Mexican Immigration!