October 3, 2004
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
New York Times
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Let's get
right down to business: We're in trouble in Iraq. I don't
know what is salvageable there anymore. I hope it
is something decent and I am certain we have to try
our best to bring about elections and
rebuild the Iraqi Army to give every chance for decency to
emerge there. But here is the cold, hard truth: This war has
been hugely mismanaged by this administration, in the face
of clear advice to the contrary at every stage, and as a
result the range of decent outcomes in Iraq has been
narrowed and the tools we have to bring even those about are
more limited than ever.
What happened? The Bush team got its doctrines mixed up:
it applied the Powell Doctrine to the campaign
against John Kerry - "overwhelming force" without mercy,
based on a strategy of shock and awe at the Republican
convention, followed by a propaganda blitz that got its
message across in every possible way, including through
distortion. If only the Bush team had gone after the
remnants of Saddam's army in the Sunni Triangle with the
brutal efficiency it has gone after Senator Kerry in the
Iowa-Ohio-Michigan triangle. If only the Bush team had
spoken to Iraqis and Arabs with as clear a message as it did
to the Republican base. No, alas, while the Bush people
applied the Powell Doctrine in the Midwest, they applied the
Rumsfeld Doctrine in the Middle East. And the Rumsfeld
Doctrine is: "Just enough troops to lose." Donald Rumsfeld
tried to prove that a small, mobile army was all that was
needed to topple Saddam, without realizing that such a
limited force could never stabilize Iraq. He never thought
it would have to. He thought his Iraqi pals would do it. He
was wrong.
For all of President Bush's vaunted talk about being
consistent and resolute, the fact is he never
established U.S. authority in Iraq.
Never. This has been the source of
all our troubles. We have never controlled all the borders,
we have never even consistently controlled the road
from Baghdad airport into town, because we never had enough
troops to do it.
Being away has not changed my belief one iota in the
importance of producing a decent outcome in Iraq, to
help move the Arab-Muslim world off
its steady slide toward increased authoritarianism,
unemployment, overpopulation, suicidal terrorism and
religious obscurantism. But my time off has clarified for
me, even more, that this Bush team can't get us there, and
may have so messed things up that no one can. Why? Because
each time the Bush team had to choose between doing the
right thing in the war on terrorism or siding with its
political base and ideology, it chose its base and ideology.
More troops or radically lower taxes? Lower taxes. Fire an
evangelical Christian U.S. general who smears Islam in a
speech while wearing the uniform of the U.S. Army or not
fire him so as not to anger the Christian right? Don't fire
him. Apologize to the U.N. for not finding the W.M.D., and
then make the case for why our allies should still join us
in Iraq to establish a decent government there? Don't
apologize - for anything - because Karl Rove says the "base"
won't like it. Impose a "Patriot Tax" of 50 cents a gallon
on gasoline to help pay for the war, shrink the deficit and
reduce the amount of oil we consume so we send less money to
Saudi Arabia? Never. Just tell Americans to go on guzzling.
Fire the secretary of defense for the abuses at Abu Ghraib,
to show the world how seriously we take this outrage - or do
nothing? Do nothing. Firing Mr. Rumsfeld might upset
conservatives. Listen to the C.I.A.? Only when it can
confirm your ideology. When it disagrees - impugn it or
ignore it.
What I resent so much is that some of us actually put our
personal politics aside in thinking about this war and about
why it is so important to produce a different Iraq. This
administration never did. Mr. Kerry's own views on Iraq have
been intensely political and for a long time not well
thought through. But Mr. Kerry is a politician running for
office. Mr. Bush is president, charged with protecting the
national interest, and yet from the beginning he has run
Iraq policy as an extension of his political campaign.
Friends, I return to where I started: We're in trouble in
Iraq. We have to immediately get the Democratic and
Republican politics out of this policy and start
honestly reassessing what is the maximum we can still
achieve there and what every American is going to have to do
to make it happen. If we do not, we'll end up not only with
a fractured Iraq, but with a fractured America, at war with
itself and isolated from the world.
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