If you bother to read the mainstream press or, God forbid, look at the frothing at the mouth inanity that passes for television news these days you might be thinking we’re in over our heads in Iraq. Like my Mom keeps saying, look at Afghanistan. We didn’t do much over there, they’re still pretty much a mess. Why is Iraq any different? I mean really, people are dying over there.
Too right, one or two Americans every day – regrettable but understandable. Meanwhile the Baathists are being killed or imprisoned at a much higher rate. It may seem like a trade-off now – which scares the bejeezus out of the Vietnam generation with their inflated memories of bodycounts on the evening news – but to the rest of us, not saddled with false memories of a bad war it’s just the way the game is played. Look at our accomplishments in the last week alone, we whacked the two runners-up to the Iraqi head office. We’re close on the tail of the main man. We’ve nicked his bodyguard and now have 37 of the top 55 most wanted either in custody or six feet under. Pretty much everywhere outside the Sunni triangle is calm, cool and collected with people increasingly happy as the concept of liberty begins to soak in. I’d say we’re doing pretty damn well considering we underestimated almost every aspect of our post-war plan.
The Iraqis didn’t rise up to help us. In hindsight understandable, since we left them twisting in the wind 12 years ago. The infrastructure is almost entirely collapsed – we didn’t see that one coming. Who’d have thought Saddam would let his power and water subsystems completely collapse while scooping up the latest bargains on gold plated winky massagers? Hell, we damn near left the old government – albeit decapitated – in power.
Well, now we’re sorting it out. Kill all the bad guys and start from scratch. It’ll be a long and difficult process but it will work out in the end. Comparisons between Iraq and Afghanistan are utterly useless. Afghanistan has nothing with which to construct a pluralist democracry. They’ve no natural resources apart from heroin, no middle class, no educated group of people to step up and take charge. In 20 or 40 years when several generations of kids newly educated in the schools and society we’ve left behind have advanced to leadership positions there may be hope. In the meantime the best we can hope for is some sort of federalist society where the central government generates enough order to keep the very worst elements out of the country while the warlords continue to run their fiefdoms.
Iraq is completely different. It has a learned people: doctors, lawyers, entrepreneurs, engineers, etc. It has resources in oil. It has a generally secular society due to its fascist/communist past. What more do you need to make a functioning democracy?
Just the knowledge that the beast will not return and that the people can count on Uncle Sam to help them rebuild.