Let's explore, shall we?
"I can say that in this transition we think it's essential to make sure that the state's institutions stay intact and that we send very clear expectations about avoiding sectarian warfare," [Press secretary Jay Carney ] said.
After the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion, Coalition Provisional Authority administrator L. Paul "Jerry" Bremer banned members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party from holding influential government posts and disbanded Iraq's military—a pair of decisions widely blamed for fueling what became a bloody insurgency.
Asked whether that example had shaped the message to Syria's rebels, Carney replied: "That precedent is useful to look at."
On the sectarian warfare, the problem in Iraq wasn't religious hatred as much as it was Iraqi Baathists desperately trying to regain power while Syria funneled Sunni murderers into Iraq and Iran funneled Shia killers in. Funny enough, with enough well-armed and well-supported Shia killers and Sunni killers running around, they killed each others coreligionists.
We might not have that problem in Syria, huh?
Let's move on.
Let me say this yet again: de-Baathification in Iraq was a necessary task. Are you really going to tell me that the Shias and Kurds would have been fine with their jailers, torturers, and killers being left in positions of power?
I want to know who in the State Department gets to explain to the Syrian rebels that their grievances are real and deep--and their sacrifices to overthrow the Baathist Alawite minority government are truly worthy of praise--but they should just run along back to their little farms and villages, and leave the surviving Alawites at their desk jobs in the Ministry of Public Lighting. For the greater good, of course.
One can argue about how deep de-Baathification should have gone in Iraq, but to claim the program was a mistake is insane.
As for the idea that disbanding the Iraqi army was a mistake, guess again. I addressed this time and again during the war, every time new articles came out on it. So I'll say this again: the Iraqi army self-disbanded during the war. Indeed, it was our policy to urge it to just go home so we wouldn't be slowed down trying to capture, guard, feed, and house tens of thousands of POWs as we drove on Baghdad. The post-major combat operations order to "disband" the Iraqi army was a legal document only, eliminating the paper organization of the old Iraqi army--not the order for men in barracks to take off their uniforms, get the Hell out, and go home.
And I'll ask how the Shias and Kurds would have felt with the instrument of their oppression being led by former killers who ordered the deaths of their family members for the past generation?
And how would that twin al Qaeda and Sadrist uprising of spring 2004 have looked if fledgling Iraqi army units had been led by "former" Baathist officers? As it was, half the Iraqi army dissolved. With "former" Baathists in charge, how many of those green Iraqi units would have defected to the enemy and fought our troops instead of simply self-disbanding--again?
God almighty, if these are what our White House thinks are the lessons of the Iraq War, they aren't qualified to play Risk on the weekends, let alone give strategic advice to the Syrian rebels fighting and dying to defeat their oppressors.
I'd worry more about the outcome in Syria if I thought there was even a remote chance the Syrian rebels would actually take any of this White House advice. They'll have enough problems without shooting themselves in the foot right off the bat.
UPDATE: Thanks to Pseudo-Polymath for the link.
