Lounsbury: Further Reflections on the Iraq Failure: Ignatius of WP

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June 30, 2004

Further Reflections on the Iraq Failure: Ignatius of WP

Rather busy at the moment (who knew setting up an office was such a bloody nightmare), but a quick note on this:

After the Handover
By David Ignatius
Tuesday, June 29, 2004; Page A23
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A13503-2004Jun28.html

Ignatius has long been my favorite American commentator on Iraq, and I may add a richer and more interesting one than Freidman's idiotic bowlderizations of the latest nitwit observation spoonfed him by the pampered elites.

In particular I want to draw attention to this:

"The invasion also helped spawn a wave of anti-Americanism in the Islamic Middle East and around the world. Bremer's departure from Baghdad yesterday may ease those divisions, but the damage to America's reputation is significant. In Europe and Asia, as much as in the Arab world, the United States is seen as the god that failed.

As with any policy reversal, the essential question is whether its architects have learned from their mistakes. "

Precisely, and I note that working for an American firm I am seeing the hesitations, the resistance. Doing business, as I have noted several times, is becoming harder - where only two or three years ago, to take a North African example - you heard things like "We're sick of being captive to the French [business] interests, we want to work with Americans" now you hear rather snide jokes about Iraq, skepticism that American products are worth the trouble.... One can do business, but clearly the mental barriers are up, the reflexive skepticism has increased.

There is a real price, then, to the political angle. Now, sometimes prices have to be paid, but it is painful to see this price being paid for an incompetent folly, and administration one that continues to muddle along blindly, without any real sense of how to turn things around, and yet incapable either of learning from the mess. Only seeking to push off real accounting until after the elections.

I also note the following for its entertainment value as well as its sardonic truth:
"Ahmed Chalabi smiled contentedly at the thought. L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. administrator who ran Iraq like a viceroy for more than a year, was reduced to a hasty exit with a stealthy helicopter ride to the airport, seen off without fanfare by no one higher-ranking than a deputy prime minister. "Bremer put his hand in his pocket and went to the airport ignominiously," Chalabi chortled Tuesday, the day after Bremer's departure. "And Dan Senor with him," he added, referring to Bremer's spokesman, who had denigrated Chalabi on television."
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A16002-2004Jun29.html)

I confess some guilty pleasure in Chalabi laughing at Senor.

But here is a more useful nuggest:
"Iraq has a long history of Arab nationalism and support for Palestinians against Israel, dating from before Hussein's Baath Party took over in 1968. As a result, its foreign policy, if tradition and popular sentiment are followed, could end up being adversarial with that of the Bush administration."

Could? It will, if of course popular sentiment is followed. But then the real model is the Egyptian one - the faux democracy covering a vampire state. Not even one that brings economic progress like Tunisia, but is a convenient lap dog.

June 30, 2004

Further Reflections on the Iraq Failure: Ignatius of WP

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