Yglesias: Bush foreign policy has been a ‘huge disaster.’
Yglesias: Bush foreign policy has been a ‘huge disaster.’
On Friday, the Atlantic’s Matthew Yglesias sat down with ThinkProgress to discuss his new book, “Heads In The Sand: How the Republicans Screw Up Foreign Policy and Foreign Policy Screws Up the Democrats.” Among other topics, Yglesias shared his view on a liberal paradigm for the appropriate use of military force — suggesting that it’s essential, first of all, “to have a recognition of what it is possible to achieve with military force” — and discussing how this view differs from the Bush administration’s reckless and radical doctrine of preventive war:
No president before George W. Bush ever suggested that American security required us to just go decapitate regimes on the theory that they might some day in the future acquire weapons that would be dangerous. It’s been a huge disaster.
Watch it:
Graham: McCain not all that ‘different’ from Bush.
Graham: McCain not all that ‘different’ from Bush.
Responding to Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) foreign policy address yesterday, the country’s three top newspapers appear to have accepted at face value McCain’s newfound commitment to international cooperation. But last night on CNN, even Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) disputed that McCain is “different” from Bush. Watch it:
More at the Wonk Room.
WSJ defends discredited claims of Saddam-al Qaeda ‘collaboration.’
WSJ defends discredited claims of Saddam-al Qaeda ‘collaboration.’
Responding to the recently released Pentagon study on the links between Saddam Hussein’s regime and Al Qaeda, a Wall Street Journal editorial claims that the report “buttress[es] the case that the decision to oust Saddam was the right one“:
Five years on, few Iraq myths are as persistent as the notion that the Bush Administration invented a connection between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda. Yet a new Pentagon report suggests that Iraq’s links to world-wide terror networks, including al Qaeda, were far more extensive than previously understood.
In fact, as has been widely publicized, the new study “found no ’smoking gun’ (i.e. direct connection) between Saddam’s Iraq and Al-Qaeda.” Nevertheless, many conservatives have tried to cast the report as a vindication of their wild theories about a Saddam-Al Qaeda alliance. More at the Wonk Room.
Bremer: Iraq War Architects Are ‘Running Away From Their Building’
Bremer: Iraq War Architects Are ‘Running Away From Their Building’
In a CNN interview on Sunday, former Iraq occupation governor L. Paul Bremer responded to criticisms from Richard Perle and Douglas Feith, two of the Iraq war’s primary architects, of his decision to establish an extended American military occupation of Iraq, rather than handing over power immediately to an Iraqi government headed by former exiles like Pentagon favorite Ahmed Chalabi.
Perle insists that invading Iraq was “the right decision,” but that the trouble began when “rather than turn Iraq over to Iraqis to begin the daunting process of nation building…we sent an American to govern Iraq.” Former director of the Pentagon’s Office of Special Plans Douglas Feith has likewise sought to cast blame on Bremer for “mishandling…the political transition” in Iraq.
In the CNN interview, Bremer fired back:
It sounds like the architects are running away from their building here. But it’s the same point. Basically what Feith is saying is we should have simply handed over right away to a group of unrepresentative exiles, and I just disagree.
Bremer asserts that the plan for a slow political transition conducted under the auspices of a longer-term U.S. military occupation was approved by President Bush, and condemns as unrealistic Feith’s and Perle’s plan to “simply hand over [power] to a group of unrepresentative exiles.” Watch it:
This is only the latest round in the blame game, as the architects of the Iraq war try to absolve themselves of responsibility for one of the biggest foreign policy blunders in American history. Contrary to Bremer’s assertion, however, the Iraq war architects haven’t run away as much as they’ve just moved upstairs to nicer apartments.
Think Progress has been keeping track of the Iraq War Architects and where they are now. Take a look at our updated report here.
John McCain’s War Cabinet
QUESTION: Who said these things?
“The [Iraq] war itself will clarify who was right and who was wrong about weapons of mass destruction. […] History and reality are about to weigh in, and we are inclined simply to let them render their verdicts.” [The Weekly Standard 3/17/03]
“There’s been a certain amount of pop sociology in America … that the Shia can’t get along with the Sunni and the Shia in Iraq just want to establish some kind of Islamic fundamentalist regime. There’s almost no evidence of that at all. Iraq’s always been very secular.” [NPR, 4/1/03]
“Iraq already has confounded many Western ‘progressives’ who doubted that the Arab world could ever make progress. The bus may be rickety and it may have lost some passengers, but — guess what? — it’s on schedule toward its final destination: democracy.” [Los Angeles Times, 3/4/04]
“I think we ought to execute some air strikes against Syria, against the instruments of power of that state, against the airport, which is the place where the weapons shuttle through from Iran to Hezbollah and Hamas. I think both Syria and Iran think that we’re cowards.” [Fox News’ Big Story with John Gibson, 7/17/06]
“If we can’t leave a democracy behind [in Iraq], we should at least leave the corpses of our enemies. The holier-than-thou response to this proposal is predictable: ‘We can’t kill our way out of this situation!’ Well, boo-hoo. Friendly persuasion and billions of dollars haven’t done the job. Give therapeutic violence a chance.” [New York Post, 10/26/06]
ANSWER: John McCain’s foreign policy advisers. Visit the Wonk Room for more.
Korb: Don’t Let Petraeus Testify Alone
Korb: Don’t Let Petraeus Testify Alone
Last September, when Gen. David Petraeus was asked whether his strategy in Iraq was making America safer, he responded, “I don’t know, actually,” adding that he was solely focused on “how to accomplish the mission in Iraq.” Petraeus had a point. It’s not his job to render judgments on the larger strategic implications of operations for which he is responsible. That is why it is common for ground commanders to testify alongside regional commanders, who often are able to better address such issues. (For example, when former Iraq commander Gen. George Casey testified before Congress, he often did so alongside his boss Gen. John Abizaid.)
Petraeus, however, was permitted by Congress to testify alone. Senator Jim Webb (D-VA) said at the time that “it was a very narrow and focused two days of hearings” and that the views of other senior officers were needed “to get a sense of how the region is in play.”
In an op-ed in this morning’s Los Angeles Times, the Center for American Progress’s Lawrence Korb and Sean Duggan question whether Congress has learned its lesson. Looking forward to Petraeus’s testimony before Congress next month, they warn that “if Petraeus is again allowed to testify without his superior officers, as he did last September, neither Congress nor the American people will be receiving the complete picture.” They write:
Other military leaders who are looking at the larger national security picture need to be consulted. They know well how maintaining an average of 130,000 troops in Iraq over the last five years has not only decimated our ground forces, it also has compromised our security interests around the globe.
“The Army is out of balance,” Army Chief of Staff Gen. George W. Casey Jr. told the House Armed Services Committee last fall. That’s a polite way of saying it’s broken.[…]
In January, [chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Navy Adm. Michael G.] Mullen told the Marine Corps Times that there was reserve capacity in the Navy and Air Force but that ground troops were a different story. “Clearly, if we had to do something with our ground forces, a significant substitute would be a big challenge,” he said. Mullen’s predecessor, Army Marine Gen. Peter Pace, also has expressed his discomfort with our ability to respond to other crises. Before leaving his post last October, Pace, stated that the troop commitment to Iraq would “make a large difference in our ability to be prepared for unforeseen contingencies” in the region and elsewhere.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates recently said, “I’ve asked Gen. Petraeus to make his evaluation… completely based on what’s going on in Iraq. He doesn’t need to look over his shoulder, think about stress on the force or anything else.”
Allowing Petraeus to focus solely on the mission in Iraq intentionally ignores the ways in which the continued war in Iraq has made America less safe by continuing to destabilize the region. It also ignores the expertise and wisdom of other senior officers, many of whom hold views out of line with the Bush administration’s preferred “success of the surge” narrative — views that have no doubt been chilled by the ousting of Admiral Fallon.
Escalation Architect Fred Kagan: Ethnic Cleansing In Iraq Is A ‘Magnificent Myth’
Escalation Architect Fred Kagan: Ethnic Cleansing In Iraq Is A ‘Magnificent Myth’
On the PBS NewsHour last night, AEI scholar Fred Kagan (one of the main architects of the surge strategy, though he was not identified as such by host Jim Lehrer) made a startling assertion about the situation on the ground in Iraq:
Well, there’s a magnificent myth out there…that there are no mixed areas in Iraq anymore and that the cleansing is completed. … Now, [these neighborhoods] are more consolidated than they had been before, certainly.
In August 2007, the Iraqi Red Crescent Organization indicated that “the total number of internally displaced Iraqis [had] more than doubled, to 1.1 million from 499,000″ since the surge started in February. Center for American Progress Iraq analyst Brian Katulis estimated that Baghdad, which once used to be a 65 percent Sunni majority city, “is now 75 percent Shia.”
In December, the Washington Post published a map comparing the sectarian distribution of Baghdad’s neighborhoods in April 2006 and November 2007, showing the transformation of the city that has resulted from Iraq’s civil war.
In an article challenging the claims of “success” that flow incessantly from war supporters like Fred Kagan, journalist Patrick Cockburn writes that “for millions of Iraqis…the war has robbed them of their homes, their jobs and often their lives. It has brought them nothing but misery and ended their hopes of happiness. It has destroyed Iraq.”
But surely those Iraqis who have lost homes and loved ones to the sectarian violence will be happy to know that they haven’t been “cleansed,” but only “consolidated.”
O’Hanlon Fawns Over McCain: ‘He Has Been Vindicated In His Support Of The Surge’
O’Hanlon Fawns Over McCain: ‘He Has Been Vindicated In His Support Of The Surge’
In a USA Today op-ed today, Brookings Institution analyst Michael O’Hanlon — who is often inaccurately labeled a critic of the Iraq war — fawns over John McCain’s steely resolve on Iraq:
Democrats and other war critics should not be arguing for an unconditional and rushed departure, as the congressional leadership and Obama are generally doing. Nor should supporters of the war be arguing for a largely open-ended commitment regardless of Iraqi performance, as the Bush administration and to some extent Sen. John McCain seem to favor. McCain, the GOP nominee, has been vindicated in his support of the surge, and his resolute commitment to success in Iraq is admirable.
O’Hanlon — a surge proponent himself — doesn’t bother to explain how McCain’s support for the surge been “vindicated” if the surge hasn’t achieved its stated goal of political reconciliation. Nor does O’Hanlon explain what is “admirable” about a strategy that has exacerbated political divisions and prepared the ground for even greater sectarian violence.
In his piece, O’Hanlon goes on to cite the passage of the “de-Baathification law” and the “provincial powers act” as signs of progress. Yet these two examples are negated in his very next paragraph:
Yet myriad problems still exist. For example, the de-Baathification law, if badly implemented, could do more harm than good by purging Sunnis from the very security forces that we have worked so hard to include them within. And even the landmark provincial powers act has since been vetoed by Iraq’s presidency council, leaving it in limbo.
For O’Hanlon, it’s always about staying longer in Iraq. A year ago, in March 2007, O’Hanlon wrote that “Congress should give [President Bush’s] surge strategy a chance — while preparing for the real fight this fall.” Then in July 2007, despite the complete lack of political progress, O’Hanlon claimed that the surge was showing “enough promise…to warrant a continuation of the effort for a few more months.”
Now, seven months later, rather than recognize that the surge has not produced anything like the desired political outcome — but has instead ratified the radical sectarian takeover of Iraq’s political system — O’Hanlon touts the return to merely disastrous 2005 levels of violence as a reason to…stay in Iraq longer.
UPDATE: Matt Yglesias and Spencer Ackerman have more.
UPDATE II: Ilan Goldenberg examines Michael O’Hanlon’s media ubiquity.
Ahmadinejad Received In Baghdad By Honor Guard, Protested By Sunnis in Fallujah
Ahmadinejad Received In Baghdad By Honor Guard, Protested By Sunnis in Fallujah
Arriving Sunday at the Baghdad airport, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad “descended the stairs of his presidential jet smiling and waving.” After being “greeted with hugs and kisses by top Iraqi officials,” Ahmamdinejad proceeded by motorcade to the home of Iraqi president Jalal Talibani, where the two men exchanged kisses on cheeks before “walking together down a red carpet to review an honour guard as a military band played the two national anthems.”
The pomp and ceremony surrounding Ahmadinejad’s two-day trip stood in stark contrast to the highly secretive visits of President Bush, which are never announced in advance, and have never lasted more than a few hours.
Ahmadinejad’s visit also laid bare the divisions which continue to stymie political progress in Iraq. While he was embraced by Shiites and Kurdish leaders, Sunni Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi did not meet with Ahmadinejad, and no Sunni politicians were present at the welcome ceremonies. Hundreds of Sunnis demonstrated against the Iranian president in Fallujah. Here’s what Sunni leaders had to say:
- Sunni cleric Abdul Kareem al-Samarai announced during a Friday sermon “I have a message to the Arab leaders, where are you? Where are your ambassadors?” While several Arab states have missions in Iraq, none have sent permanent ambassadors.
- Sheikh Jabbar al-Fahdawi, one of the leaders of the Sunni tribal “Awakening” movement, condemned the visit, declaring Iran to be “the No. 1 enemy of Iraq.”
- Salman Abdullah Al-Hamad, another Sunni tribal leader, also expressed outrage. “How can we tolerate this? […] Today we live under the regime of the clerics. The Iranian revolution has been exported to Iraq.”
Sunni tribal groups have been credited with helping to reduce violence, but they have expressed deepening dissatisfaction with what they see as the Baghdad government’s unwillingness to work with them. American officials have tried to present the Awakenings phenomenon as a revolt against al Qaeda, but many Sunni militiamen “say they joined partly to get support from the Americans so they can prepare to resist Iranian efforts to dominate Iraq.”