Obama Accomplishes What Bush Failed to Do at Tora Bora

The mass murderer Osama bin Laden is dead. I have no idea where things will go from here. In 2002, George W. Bush took his eye off the ball in Afghanistan and started transferring resources to the Persian Gulf. I still have no idea why we went to Iraq and wasted 2 trillion dollars on an ill-conceived enterprise.

I recognize that most Republicans will never come to terms with the Iraq blunder. The reality is that the United States has more serious problems than a two-bit dictator who clearly wasn't worth 2 trillion to get rid of.

But putting Osama bin Laden and al Qaida out of business was obviously something we needed to do and Bush didn't finish the job. He bamboozled all the Republicans and about half of the Democrats into signing off on Iraq. The lies of Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld are now part of history. What's done is done.

Juan Cole of Informed Comment has some good commentary on where things now stand in the Middle East. Here's his concluding paragraph:

Now that Obama has eliminated the monster Usama Bin Laden and vindicated the capability of the United States to visit retribution on its dire enemies, he can do one other great good for this country abroad. He can get us out of Iraq altogether. The US military presence there is the fruit of a poisonous tree. It will always provoke Iraqi Muslim activists, whether Sunni or Shiite or secular nationalist. And it angers the whole Arab world.

The Arab Spring has demonstrated that the Arab masses yearn for liberty, not thuggish repression, for life, not death and destruction, for parliamentary democracy, not theocratic dictatorship. Bin Laden was already a dinosaur, a relic of the Cold War and the age of dictators in which a dissident such as he had no place in society and was shunted off to distant, frontier killing fields. The new generation of young Arabs in Egypt and Tunisia has a shot at a decent life. Obama has put the US on the right side of history in Tunisia, Egypt, Syria and Libya (where I see crowds for the first time in my life waving American flags). People might want a little help from a distance, but they don’t want to see Western troops deployed in fighting units on their soil.

If Obama can get us out of Iraq, and if he can use his good offices to keep the pressure on the Egyptian military to lighten up, and if he can support the likely UN declaration of a Palestinian state in September, the US will be in the most favorable position in the Arab world it has had since 1956. And he would go down in history as one of the great presidents. If he tries to stay in Iraq and he takes a stand against Palestine, he risks provoking further anti-American violence. He can be not just the president who killed Bin Laden, but the president who killed the pretexts for radical violence against the US. He can promote the waving of the American flag in major Arab cities. And that would be a defeat and humiliation for Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda more profound than any they could have dreamed.

I wish President Obama would pay more attention to the presidency of Franklin Roosevelt. It's good to be a unifier but it's also important to be a pragmatist and an upholder of values that some on the far right keep forgetting.

I recognize that rational Republicans are not the problem in today's politics, I acknowledge that some rational Republicans voted for Obama out of protest against the tilt to the right by the Republican Party. I have no doubt that Obama's success against Osama bin Laden was helped by those in the military, CIA and foreign policy establishment who are indeed rational Republicans. But keep in mind that during World War Two, Roosevelt had many rational Republicans working for him as well. And yet Roosevelt pushed for such things as the end of colonialism, the building of the middle class and the curbing of the enormous power of America's wealthiest individuals.

I repeat what I've said before: right wing Republicans have no solutions, only bellyaches about things they don't like. It's time to take on the challenges our nation is facing.

As Bush Loses Leverage in Middle East, Democracy Going Nowhere

Was the invasion in Iraq really about democracy? I don't know the answer. Democracy certainly was never the sole reason we went to Iraq. The cynical side of me concludes more and more that it was just public relations to distract Americans from the Bush Administration's many less than admirable reasons for the invasion. And then there's the fact that several of the administration's goals were in fact contradictory. Abu Ghraib and setting up Paul Bremer as a viceroy was about as contradictory as you can get if democracy was the goal.

One sign of Bush's failed foreign policy is simply the fact that democracy is not faring all that well in the broader Middle East. There have been several pessimistic stories about Egypt in the last couple of years when it comes to democracy. Here's a post by Kevin Drum of The Washinton Monthy on the subject:

DEMOCRACY DEMOTION IN EGYPT....The Egyptian ruling party has passed a raft of constitutional changes and has set a date for a referendum to approve them: March 26, five days from now. Why so fast? Because that gives the opposition no time to mobilize protests. Marc Lynch explains the proposed modifications:

The changes are blatantly, almost absurdly, authoritarian and antidemocratic. Judicial oversight of elections will be eliminated....Contested Presidential elections will be virtually impossible....Parties based on religion would be explicitly banned....the regime, under NDP control, will retain an iron grip on the licensing of political parties...."Counter-terrorism" provisions will render a whole range of highly controversial, intrusive security practices Constitutional, making the de facto security state into a de jure security state.

One thing to keep in mind is that as America's credibility has fallen around the world, and as Bush's negative numbers have shot up in nation after nation, there is little patience in the broader Middle East these days for Bush Administration figures who wag their fingers at lack of progress on democracy or human rights. This is a big deal. We're not talking about a political cycle that will change with a Democratic president or a different kind of Republican president coming to office. The damage that Bush has done will take time to repair.

There are also growing problems in Pakistan. It's not certain which way things will go in the next year or two or three. Musharraf is not exactly a great example of democracy and yet there is a real danger that Pakistani extremists may soon gain the upper hand. Ahmed Rashid of The Washington Post writes on the growing crisis in Pakistan:

In the rapidly unfolding crisis in Pakistan, no matter what happens to President Pervez Musharraf -- whether he survives politically or not -- he is a lame duck. He is unable to rein in Talibanization in Pakistan or guide the country toward a more democratic future.

Since March 9, when Musharraf suspended the chief justice of the Supreme Court, Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry, public protests have escalated every day -- as has a violent crackdown by the police and intelligence agencies on the media and the nation's legal fraternity.

(snip)

Musharraf is now too weak to pursue policies that could keep his back-stabbers in check, restore his credibility at home and abroad, and pursue his agenda of remaining in power for the next five years.

It is far better that he revert to the promise he made when he seized power in 1999: to return the country to democracy. ...

It is in the interest of the United States to support such an exit strategy. The military can no longer counter the phenomenal growth of Islamic extremism in Pakistan through offensives alone. What the country needs is greater political consensus and a popularly elected government, and to replace the extortions of the mullahs with the return of day-to-day parliamentary politics. ...

I can't emphasize often enough the blunder that Bush and Cheney made by taking their eyes off of Afghanistan and putting Pakistan on the same back burner. Iraq was contained; it was Afghanistan and Pakistan that needed the attention of the Bush Administration. Now it's uncertain what's going to happen in Pakistan and what kind of government and policies will follow.

By going to Iraq, the United States has lost enormous leverage in foreign affairs.

Bush and Cheney's Foreign Policy: Oops!

According to Sy Hersh's article in the New Yorker (here's a copy in Truthout), it is hard not to draw the conclusion that the Bush Administration is:

1) No longer working hard to create a democracy in Iraq.

2) Somewhat reluctant as things now stand to turn Iraq over to the Shiites, the majority in Iraq. This is largely because of the administration's paranoia about Iran, a Shiite country. It should be noted that the Bush Administration has made no serious effort to engage in real talks with the Iranians, though both sides have been guilty of unhelpful posturing.

3) Funding Sunni organizations in Iraq (and elsewhere for that matter) despite the fact that most American casualties in Iraq were caused by Sunnis, many of them leftovers from the Saddam Hussein regime.

4) Allowing the Saudis to fund Sunni organizations that fund other organizations with ties to al Qaida, the organization that is responsible for the 9/11 attack. Let us remember that the Saudis, although our allies, were never open about how so much funding went to al Qaida in the first place.

5) Hiding money and covert activities from Congress.

6) Insisting they have no intention of going to war with Iran but creating conditions that may make war with Iran more likely.

Oh, one other thing: Bush and Cheney have absolutely no idea what they're doing. Except that it seems to have dawned on them that they're creating a bigger mess in the Middle East and there is the potential of a regional conflict with Shiites and Sunnis, courtesy of the mess that Bush and Cheney have created. Bottom line: the damage they are doing to America's national security is worse than we thought. And in many ways they are working hard to kick the can down the road for the next president rather doing what they need to do to start cleaning up the mess in ways that are meaningful.

We need to get Bush and Cheney out of foreign policy business now rather than two years from now. Congress knows what it has to do and Republicans better start jumping aboard.

Brzezinski to Speak Before Senate Foreign Affairs Committee

Zbigniew Brzezinski was a strong but patient critic of Bush's Iraq policy for roughly the first two years of the war and then largely threw up his hands as mistakes piled on mistakes. What does one do when a president's gut instinct is uninformed and he's incapable of listening or admitting mistakes (very late public relations admissions don't count; that's too much like the cookie thief finally admitting to his parents, "Oh! There a cookie in my hand. My mistake!")?

Brzezinski is going before the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee to explain his view tomorrow. Steve Clemons of The Washington Note has posted a copy of Brzezinski's statement; here's some highlights:

It is time for the White House to come to terms with two central realities:

1. The war in Iraq is a historic, strategic, and moral calamity. Undertaken under false assumptions, it is undermining America's global legitimacy. Its collateral civilian casualties as well as some abuses are tarnishing America's moral credentials. Driven by Manichean impulses and imperial hubris, it is intensifying regional instability.

2. Only a political strategy that is historically relevant rather than reminiscent of colonial tutelage can provide the needed framework for a tolerable resolution of both the war in Iraq and the intensifying regional tensions.

(snip)

Deplorably, the Administration's foreign policy in the Middle East region has lately relied almost entirely on ... sloganeering. Vague and inflammatory talk about "a new strategic context" which is based on "clarity" and which prompts "the birth pangs of a new Middle East" is breeding intensifying anti-Americanism and is increasing the danger of a long-term collision between the United States and the Islamic world. ...

One should note here also that practically no country in the world shares the Manichean delusions that the Administration so passionately articulates. The result is growing political isolation of, and pervasive popular antagonism toward the U.S. global posture.

(snip)

The quest for a political solution for the growing chaos in Iraq should involve four steps:

1. The United States should reaffirm explicitly and unambiguously its determination to leave Iraq in a reasonably short period of time.

Ambiguity regarding the duration of the occupation in fact encourages unwillingness to compromise and intensifies the on-going civil strife. ...

(snip)

[from point 2] It is necessary to engage all Iraqi leaders -- including those who do not reside within "the Green Zone" -- in a serious discussion regarding the proposed and jointly defined date for U.S. military disengagement because the very dialogue itself will help identify the authentic Iraqi leaders with the self-confidence and capacity to stand on their own legs without U.S. military protection. Only Iraqi leaders who can exercise real power beyond "the Green Zone" can eventually reach a genuine Iraqi accommodation. ...

(snip)

It is also time for the Congress to assert itself.

Just to amplify his point concerning the Green Zone, Brzezinski might have mentioned prominent Iraqi officials and politicians who don't even bother to reside in Iraq and live in places like London. In the last sixty years, there have been many examples of propped up governments that simply do not survive the departure of the foreign government that had been occupying the country. Legitimacy cannot be imposed. Even when Germany and Japan were occupied, there were legitimate institutions still in place that formed much of the core that replaced nazism and fascism. We can leave forces in the vicinity and develop multilateral resources to help with the transition and do the necessary regional talks, but Iraq needs to find its own legitimacy.