The blogosphere has been alive with Charles Krauthammer’s blaming of Iraqis for the Iraq failure. He argues that America is not to blame for the mess, implying there’s no way we could have predicted this outcome and worked to prevent it.
The consequences were predictable, and I feel kind of proud for calling this years ago (though others, especially on the left, made similar arguments). I supported the Iraq war — the best intelligence then available indicated Saddam had WMD, which would have hurt our interests in the region — but was skeptical that a drive to democratize the country could work.
In a term paper my sophomore or junior year of college, I wrote about the false comparison of post-World War II Japan and modern Iraq. I said that Japan had better economic and political traditions to fall back on than Iraq does, and many on the right are apparently only realizing that now. Forced democratization has worked in the past, but only under a limited number of circumstances.
The conservative response to Krauthammer: Of course the Iraqi political culture is to blame. You didn’t know that before invading? America may not have directly caused each problem the armed forces are encountering, but our leaders did fail to predict or prepare for them. Our strategists deserve some blame for that.
Too bad I deleted the paper somewhere along the line, or I’d post it here.
Robert VerBruggen blogs at http://robertsrationale.blogspot.com.
Loading ...
No user commented in " Conservative pundit blames Iraqis for war problems "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackLeave A Reply