The legislation should state plainly our determination to defend ourselves and our allies. But it should indicate no less plainly that the United States no longer claims the prerogative of using "preemptive, unilateral military force when and where it chooses."
First of all, I guess we are to exclude any allies or potential allies who don't have a UN seat already. Oppressed and hopeful that we will help you against a thug regime? Forget it under Bacevich's rules. Perhaps Bacevich will explain to all the Lefties hot to do something about Darfur that this genocide falls outside of his categories that justify war.
Further, saying we started the war is stretching the record. Iraq was shooting at us on a near daily basis during the 1990s. We had more allied forces with us in Iraq in 2003 than in Kosovo in 1999. And I wasn't aware that we were preemptively using military force all around the globe "when and where" we choose since 2001. Have I blanked out or something?
Bacevich is quite specific in his denunciations over Iraq:
In 2003, Saddam Hussein posed no immediate threat to the United States; arguing that he might one day do so, the administration depicted the invasion of Iraq as an act of anticipatory self-defense. To their everlasting shame, a majority of members in both the House and the Senate went along, passing a resolution that "authorized" the president to do what he was clearly intent on doing anyway. Implicitly, the Bush Doctrine received congressional endorsement.
Events since have affirmed the wisdom of seeing preventive war as immoral, illicit, and imprudent. The Bush administration expected a quick, economical, and decisive victory in Iraq. Advertising the war as an effort to topple a brutal dictator and liberate an oppressed people, it no doubt counted on battlefield success to endow the enterprise with a certain ex post facto legitimacy. Elated Iraqis showering American soldiers with flowers and candies would silence critics who condemned the war as morally unjustified and patently illegal.
None of these expectations has come to pass. In its trial run, the Bush Doctrine has been found wanting.
Today, Iraq teeters on the brink of disintegration. The war's costs, already staggering, continue to mount. Violence triggered by the US invasion has killed thousands of Iraqi civilians. We cannot fully absolve ourselves of responsibility for those deaths.
Our folly has alienated friends and emboldened enemies. Rather than nipping in the bud an ostensibly emerging threat, the Iraq war has diverted attention from existing dangers (such as Al Qaeda) while encouraging potential adversaries (like Iran) to see us as weak.
The only problem is that Bacevich is absolutely wrong on all these counts. Amazingly wrong.
Why Saddam not being an immediate threat was a reason not to take him down is confusing. Is Bacevich really saying that Saddam was not an inevitable threat? Is he saying he thinks Saddam's regime would have self-reformed? We see how the Baathists have repented since April 2003, eh? Why is it better to wait for a threat to get even worse and the price even higher before taking down a threat? Saddam would have broken free of the weakening sanctions and gotten nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons in time. If we was bluffing to hold off the Iranians, does anybody really think he wouldn't have gotten the assets to cover that bluff as soon as he could?
And yes, Congress did authorize the war. Scare quotes aren't necessary. As for whether President Bush would have fought based on existing authorizations resulting from 1990 and 1991 and retriggered by Saddam's violations of the ceasefire, we do know that it was the official policy of the United States to seek regime change in Iraq. Congress passed the bill and President Clinton signed the bill into law. Besides, with shooting going on every week over the no-fly zones, we were already at war. But it was an ineffective war that just gave Saddam an excuse to blame our policies for the death of Iraqi children (that the world, to their everlasting shame, believed).
Now let's take that charge that the Iraq War is "immoral, illicit, and imprudent." It was immoral to rescue people literally bulldozed into mass graves, gassed, raped, and oppressed by Saddam's regime? It was illicit to wage war when self-defense is an inherent right of nations and Saddam's Iraq was in an ongoing low-level war with us? When Saddam's violations of the ceasefire that ended the 1991 war and his subsequent violations of UN resolutions ended our obligation to comply with a one-sided ceasefire? When our Congress lawfully authorized war against Saddam? When our people supported that war? And imprudent? Bacevich was way too into alliteration by this point. His opinion is that it was rash. But that is all it is--an opinion.
The war was fast and successful. Unfortunately, our Baathist enemies are more determined than believed, Iran and Syria are supporting these and new enemies inside Iraq, and al Qaeda decided to invade Iraq. So the fight to stabilize Iraq is far more difficult than I certainly hoped would be the case. The war needed no post-facto legitimacy since it was legitimate from the start. His charge that a quick victory was needed to support an illegal and immoral war are simply outrageous in their falsity. And yes, Iraqis did greet us as liberators when we invaded. To argue that Shias, Kurds, and even many Sunnis not part of the Tikrit mafia weren't ecstatic to have Saddam's reign of terror ended is to ignore the historic record.
The Bush Doctine, in fact, ended a threat that both parties agreed existed during the 1990s, and is creating an ally in the war on terror if we will just see this through to victory.
We went to war legally and for a good and moral reason. Period. You can question the wisdom (and I think it was justified on the merits let alone the morality of freeing Iraq), but Bacevich's charges are unworthy of a serious person.
Iraq has been teetering on the verge of disintegration since it was cobbled together after World War I. Indeed, Iraq is more unified now after our destruction of Saddam's regime, with the Kurdish regions willingly in Iraq after three decades of fighting the central government to escape Iraq!
The war's costs don't even match our Cold War peacetime military expenditures as a percentage of our GDP. As for our troop losses, they are low historically speaking and represent individual tragedies and not a nation-breaking burden. And remember that the money we spend on our troops is meant to spare as many lives as possible. As I've mentioned before, complain about the cost of the war or complain about the casualties, but complaining about both is internally inconsistent.
As for Iraqi lives lost since the invasion, this ignores the lives lost before the invasion in even larger numbers. The enemy remains responsible for those deaths. The enemy is killing civilians--not our troops. Our invasion has given the people of Iraq a chance to fight back and defeat the Baathist killers and their jihadi allies (remember they were imported even before the war--that's who Saddam's Fedayeen were). I proudly accept responsibility for giving Iraqis a chance at a normal existence and a real future. I am not nostalgic about Saddam's kite-flying paradise that too many here seem to imagine existed.
Britain sticks with us. India, Japan, and Australia are forging closer ties to us. Canada sent troops to Afghanistan. East Europeans eagerly seek the protection of the US-led NATO. Even Germany is getting closer. This sounds like a lot of progress in gaining allies. So what ally have we lost? Spain? Belgium? The New York Times, perhaps?
And really, the idea that we have been diverted from fighting al Qaeda by our fight in Iraq is so downright stupid that it is hard to suffer yet another mindless repetition of that charge.
Finally, Iran doesn't think we are weak because of fighting in Iraq. The Iranians know we have massive power. The Iranians think we are weak because they believe we are morally weak and unwilling to use our power. And why do they believe that? Because of writers like Bacevich who continually snipe in dishonest commentaries about how our defeat is inevitable and well deserved.
Congress may very well repeal authorization to wage war. Though the last time this was tried it didn't work out so well.
Really, Bacevich has a vested interest in our defeat in Iraq. Otherwise, his commentary will make him look like an utter fool in retrospect. I mean, right now he isn't looking so hot.
Not even a professor of history and international relations at Boston University can repeal history.
Friggin' idiot.
