The Elusive Rationale of Iraq

With our Iraq misadventure, we have engaged in a continuing shifting rationale to try to continually justify the support of the American population in what has become a huge mistake. But no rationale is credible any longer.

When we initiated America’s first unprovoked first-strike war by attacking Iraq, it was to rid the world of weapons of mass destruction in the hands of an unstable dictator apparently willing to unleash them. We all know how that rationale turned out.

When no such weapons were found, we discovered instead that our real mission was to rid the Middle East and the world of that same horrendous dictator (conveniently ignoring other bad leaders in the world).

Despite having been told on the deck of an aircraft carrier “Mission Accomplished,” we found out instead that in the course of removing that dictator we had simultaneously destroyed Iraq’s economic, social and organizational structures with no plane to recreate these. (So much for Iraq paying for its own liberation with its own oil revenues ...) Most of the trained Iraq workforce (police, military, infrastructure, teachers, etc.) were sent into the streets to now be unemployed. So our mission then became to bring democracy and stability to Iraq. To a country that had already had stability (albeit in its own undesirable way) but with absolutely no experience or preparation for democracy.

As we began to fail on both the democracy and stability fronts, our mission then became one of defeating terrorists in Iraq before they could hurt us here at home. Of course, there were no terrorists in Iraq until we created an environment and haven for them to eb there.

And now as Iraq descends into outright civil war between the Sunni and Shi’ite Islamic sects, we escalate our troop levels to buy time for the transitional government to take control of its own country. Except that it is a Shi’ite government trying to take control over a Sunni minority that has a long history of domination over the Shi’ite majority. And who really thinks this can ever succeed in anything but trading one domination for another?

We are now stuck in the middle of something that has nothing to do with us, but which we have unleashed. When we chose to invade a country with no awareness or consideration of its history, its makeup, its dynamics, its aspirations, or its internal conflicts, why would we have ever thought that we would be welcomed as “liberators”? Of course why would they not want us to go home?

We are stuck in our own folly. And no shifting rationales-of-the-day can hide the calamity of our inadequate planning, arrogance and foolhardiness.