Not-So-Deep Iraq Reading

The rationale for a free and democratic Iraq is as compelling today as it was three years ago. A free and stable Iraq will not attack its neighbors, will not conspire with terrorists, will not pay rewards to the families of suicide bombers and will not seek to kill Americans.

Though there are those who will never be convinced that the cause in Iraq is worth the costs, anyone looking realistically at the world today -- at the terrorist threat we face -- can come to only one conclusion: Now is the time for resolve, not retreat.

The case for a free and democratic Iraq really isn't the point being debated. It's the point of whether or not this administration is capable of building a free and democratic Iraq that is. If only Rumsfeld and the rest had an ounce of resolve on that point.

Case in point:

... more than any presidency in living memory, George W. Bush's will be judged by a single problem -- Iraq, where on May 30 the war will be twice as long as was U.S. involvement in World War I. Today the impotence of Iraq's quasi-government is prompting ethnic recleansing: The government is too weak to prevent private groups from pursuing coercive reversals of Saddam Hussein's various ethnic cleansings. And in the absence of law and order, Iraqis seek safety in sectarian clustering.

The intensity of the power struggle in Baghdad was brought home to me when my phone rang shortly after a column reporting that Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jafari is fighting to keep his job was published last week. The president of Iraq, Jalal Talabani, was calling to say that he, too, is dug in: The Shiite alliance that backs Jafari should present an alternative candidate so a "national unity" government can be formed "in the next two weeks."

Talabani, an acquaintance of 30 years, would not discuss his reasons for opposing Jafari now. But speaking in English, he emphasized that the presidency needs new powers to block "extreme demands from the other side."

As they say, stay tuned.

Indeed.

Muean Aljabiry has a more worthwhile entry (there's others, but the reading time is limited)

What I witnessed in the year or so I spent helping U.S. officials on the ground in Iraq, and what I have seen more recently, has made me doubtful about our competence for nation building, an exercise the United States initially claimed to have no interest in carrying out. Perhaps for that reason, America didn't seem to have studied Iraq's long history of repulsing occupiers. When the British attempted to build a nation in Mesopotamia at the end of World War I, it was confronted with a great revolt that continues to be a source of pride to Iraqis. I sometimes worry that, like the British enterprise, the U.S. effort to build a pluralistic, democratic society in Iraq will be remembered primarily for the insurgency it has spawned.

UPDATE: I neglected this Washington Monthly review of Gary Hart's "The Shield and the Cloak." I've only skimmed through Hart's too-brief booklet. He's got another one on faith in America. For now, I'll just leave you with Chollet's review. It's likely more favorable toward Hart than I'm inclined to be, but these two grafs do seem to indicate a bit of shared sentiment toward Hart's style:

Hart also argues that America's security cloak needs more than just better policies abroad. It requires a fundamentally different approach to challenges at home. He explains that we have to expand the very idea of security into something that encompasses nearly every aspect of American life. Personal security matters just as much as national security. Hart's stress on the elements of U.S. competitiveness?a strong domestic economy focused on savings, better education emphasizing science and math, and more opportunities for civic engagement?will appeal to many progressives. So will his argument that President Bush's focus on political freedom alone is not enough to make us secure because freedom means little if one cannot provide for their family, educate their children, or have access to clean water or health care. By emphasizing issues like poverty and the threat from global warming, Hart places himself squarely in the progressive mainstream, echoing the warnings of those like former President Bill Clinton and British leaders like Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.

This is where Hart's book is less fulfilling than hoped. As important and convincing as many of his arguments are, they are less innovative than he makes them out to be. He certainly overstates the originality of both his description of the new world defined by globalization and the policy proposals that flow from it. Hart cogently summarizes much of what is already accepted as the conventional wisdom in foreign policy and progressive political circles and widely understood among the general public. He could have written much of this book years ago?and in many ways, such writers as Thomas Friedman, Joseph Nye, and Clyde Prestowitz already have.

That, in a nutshell, is the essence of Gary Hart - redefine the question so that it sounds like the answer is original, when it's really anything but. Hart's a smart guy ... sometimes just too smart for his own good.

UPDATE 2.0 The other Galbraith somehow enters into the debate on the meaning of Iraq these days. The other Galbraith being the Econ prof at UT - not the guy who tried to alert the world to Saddam Hussein's genocide in the late '80s. Not a lot of economics in this analysis, but there is a mix of good and bad analysis that warrants sifting through.

On the bad, I think Galbraith leans too heavily on Cold War methodology of statecraft - the reliance on military bases strewn throughout the world in order to solidify alliances. That's spectacularly godawful reasoning given Galbraith's profession as an economist. I highly recommend the guy check out some Thomas Barnett to clear his head. Economic connectedness, or for fans of Mead - a Hamiltonian leaning on world affairs - is still our greatest strength as a nation. Galbraith never comes close to recognizing that.

Galbraith also leans a bit on the Yglesias meme of "the incompetence dodge" by folks such as myself - liberal/progressive hawks. I think it goes without saying that nobody could have realistically predicted the scope of this administration's incompetence. Sure, there were some that made that claim well in advance. But those folks have cried wolf anytime a Republican is elected dog catcher, too. That the naysayers were proven mostly correct by the Bush administration isn't proof of their central thesis on modern governance - it merely proves the point that even a broken clock is right twice a day.

On the positive - what there is of it - Galbraith raises the specter of what our efforts in Iraq have done for the value of other nations to be connected to the US. A bit gloomy, perhaps, but Galbraith has rarely made his coin by pointing out the brilliance of others. Instead, it's easier to keep crying wolf.