Iraq solution can't ignore choices behind war

Andy Butfoy
March 26, 2007

Last week's prime ministerial statement on Iraq naturally focused on the current crisis. One message was that doubters should move on from their critique of the invasion and embrace today's efforts. Many won't: 2003 casts a shadow over 2007 that John Howard, Tony Blair and George Bush cannot get away from.

There are six reasons for this. The first is that the invasion is often viewed as epitomising political manipulation and deception. For a lot of people this means today's efforts have very shonky foundations.

Second, the series of half-truths surrounding the invasion continued afterwards, and it's not clear when, if ever, this all finished. Even after the first missiles were launched, otherwise justifiable wartime propaganda was employed to reinforce dubious political posturing. Today it is still difficult to say where one ends and the other begins. The bad smell just won't go away.

Third, calls for divorcing 2003 from 2007 come from the same people who caused the smell. It is not as if we have a new team with a clean slate.

To compound the problem, the old firm has a poor record when it comes to making strategic choices and predictions, especially regarding Iraq. The enterprise has unfolded as a precarious experiment.

As part of the experimentation the advocates of the surge earlier brought you shock-and-awe, and then the Coalition Provisional Authority to oversee the occupation. Shock-and-awe tried to make war look like a fireworks display and the provisional authority seems to have been a kind of dysfunctional workshop.

The leader of this band of brothers, George Bush, has acquired a reputation for bad judgement. Turning the idea that Iraq was part of the battle against terrorism into a self-fulfilling prophecy was just one example of this.

The invasion was part of a broader package of moves designed by neo-conservatives. Starting the war was also supposed to be about bolstering American prestige and sending a sharp message to Iran and North Korea. In each case, the plan has backfired.

The credibility and standing of the US are in question, Iran doesn't look cowed and North Korea has tested a nuclear bomb. The stretching and pulling of the meaning of the war on terror to suit the broader neo-con agenda seemed clever at the time, but now it makes those responsible look scheming and only superficially smart.

Fourth, apologies have been thin on the ground. Any errors are said to have been marginal and tactical, not profound and strategic. The dreadful mess is said to be the result of a few little mistakes that have simply added up. This evasion makes it seem that the lesson has not been learnt. Where there should be humility, there is too often sneering and bluster.

(In the US, the give-war-a-chance crowd even wants more, not less, conflict; it encouraged the Israeli attack on Lebanon last year, and it still wants a crack at Syria and Iran.)

Fifth, claims by Howard, Bush and Blair to be searching for a solution for Iraqis, while no doubt true, also look like something else. It might be unfair, but the image is of the three trying to protect their place in the history books, even if this means digging deeper into the wrong hole.

Today, the three leaders have to deal with terribly difficult issues in Iraq. Whatever they do now, however, they cannot dispel a sense that it is other people who will pay the price for their decisions and another team that will probably have to do the cleaning-up. This is not the sort of going-away present most people want.

The sixth reason has more to do with psychology and emotion than political analysis. Many opponents of the invasion cannot forget the way they felt treated in 2002-3. Peaceful protesters were referred to as the mob, specialists who doubted the phoney claims about the war's legality had their expertise questioned. Dissenters were sometimes criticised as supporting genocide and lacking principle, guts, patriotism or common sense.

On one memorable occasion during a serious television news program, it was implied that a guest, who had said that coalition policy on Iraq was wrong-headed and could turn into a bloodbath, was in need of psychiatric medication.

Yes, all this appears back-ward looking. But it goes to the heart of today's dilemma. It is directly linked to the thinness of support for current policy.

Ultimately, only time will tell whether the invasion was a spectacular display of strategic stupidity or a stroke of geopolitical genius. But today every option being considered for Iraq, from across the political spectrum, carries a risk that Iraq, the wider Middle East, the West, and the international system generally, will end up worse off.

The process and policies that brought us to this state of affairs meet the main criterion for world's worst practice in diplomacy and national security decision-making.
(In the US, the give-war-a-chance crowd even wants more, not less, conflict; it encouraged the Israeli attack on Lebanon last year, and it still wants a crack at Syria and Iran.)

Fifth, claims by Howard, Bush and Blair to be searching for a solution for Iraqis, while no doubt true, also look like something else. It might be unfair, but the image is of the three trying to protect their place in the history books, even if this means digging deeper into the wrong hole.

Today, the three leaders have to deal with terribly difficult issues in Iraq. Whatever they do now, however, they cannot dispel a sense that it is other people who will pay the price for their decisions and another team that will probably have to do the cleaning-up. This is not the sort of going-away present most people want.

The sixth reason has more to do with psychology and emotion than political analysis. Many opponents of the invasion cannot forget the way they felt treated in 2002-3. Peaceful protesters were referred to as the mob, specialists who doubted the phoney claims about the war's legality had their expertise questioned. Dissenters were sometimes criticised as supporting genocide and lacking principle, guts, patriotism or common sense.

On one memorable occasion during a serious television news program, it was implied that a guest, who had said that coalition policy on Iraq was wrong-headed and could turn into a bloodbath, was in need of psychiatric medication.

Yes, all this appears back-ward looking. But it goes to the heart of today's dilemma. It is directly linked to the thinness of support for current policy.

Ultimately, only time will tell whether the invasion was a spectacular display of strategic stupidity or a stroke of geopolitical genius. But today every option being considered for Iraq, from across the political spectrum, carries a risk that Iraq, the wider Middle East, the West, and the international system generally, will end up worse off.

The process and policies that brought us to this state of affairs meet the main criterion for world's worst practice in diplomacy and national security decision-making.

Andy Butfoy is a lecturer in international relations at Monash University.