The occupation is the mistake that keeps on taking

Today, the United States, fearing a geo-political setback that will undercut the broader "war on terror," is putting the diehard goal of military "victory" ahead of the diplomatic initiatives that alone can enable the reconstruction of Iraqi society. The needed spirit of cooperation among Iraqi factions, and from other nations, will never materialize as long as the United States pursues the fantasy that its armed might will at last prevail. Once again, diplomacy is being rejected in favor of war. This is insane.

Both my title and the quote above are from a column appearing in today's Boston Globe.  Written by James Carroll, it is entitled The new immorality of Iraq war.    My quotation is from the 2nd paragraph.  You can get a clear sense from the first and last sentences of the opening paragraph:

INSANITY is defined as repeating one mistaken action again and again, each time expecting a better result that never comes.  . . .

Diplomacy was once again rejected.

 I want to focus on the insanity of rejecting diplomacy.

My title is the entirety of Carroll's penultimate paragraph.  His primary focus is made clear by what follows that, and I offer it, although it is not what is my main interest:

The healing of Iraq would be far more readily achieved by an American acknowledgment of failure, and by the engagement of other nations that such an acknowledgment would immediately invite. But insanely holding on in Iraq until Washington can claim something like "victory" means that this globally oriented geo-political ambition - America's standing in the world - is being bought at the price of Iraqi blood.

Let me explain.  I agree with Carroll that the resolution of the current conflict in Iraq will only come about by a draw-down of US forces, which in itself will make clear that we have no intention of permanent domination of the nation and its oil reserves.   Only in such a circumstance will we have any chance to persuade other nations to assist Iraq in transition to a truly multiethnic society that would have any chance of maintenance of civil order and of survival as a national entity.  All surrounding nations would have to participate, not as the Turks currently do by cross-border raids and bombing and by signing anti-Kurd agreements with the Iranians, nor by military assistance to militias, whether that assistance come from Saudi Arabia for the Sunni or Iran for the Shi'a.   And all countries would have to exercise far greater border security, which would be in the longterm interest of regional stability.

But instead we make noises about Iran, falling into the trap Carroll describes as

"supermilitarism," choosing war over diplomacy, and expecting order to follow, instead of chaos.

  He describes this as so ingrained in our ways of thinking and acting that those in power do not even see it as a mistake.   And then he illustrates this in one powerful paragraph:

When Hillary Clinton offers as her solution to the problem of Iran the threat of "obliteration," she is in a cell of the same moral prison that prefers war to diplomacy. As any neophyte foreign service officer would know, a threat like hers only reinforces the very impulses that make Iran a problem in the first place.

Now, in fairness to Sen. Clinton, her remarks about obliteration were in the context of a nuclear attack upon Israel, and actually are derived from the framework within this country and the Soviet Union acted during the long cold war, the doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction - the idea that a nation which initiated a nuclear conflict was guaranteed that its opponent would retain sufficient retaliatory power to wreak havoc, even total destruction, upon the initiator.  And yet while that was the doctrine, I do not recall leaders of either side ever offering words quite so blunt as those of Sen. Clinton.   What was understood did not have to be enunciated.  Even the famous words where Khrushchev warned "we will destroy you" were not so explicit a threat.

Diplomacy always includes the unstated possibility of a last resort of force.  As Obama has said, no options are ever off the table.  But compliance to our goals is usually far better achieved when we begin with the carrots rather than the very big stick.  Or, to use the stick metaphor as it has been used historically, Theodore Roosevelt wanted as a big a stick possible but still wanted us to speak softly.  

Carroll reminds us that our occupation has fueled the resistance against us, as almost all parties to the current conflict see our presence as a provocation.   That is bad enough.

And if in order to maintain our occupation we find ourselves expanding the conflict to Iran by using naval aircraft and/or cruise missiles to strike targets in that nation as a punishment, we will tell the world that we do not respect Muslim nations, that we consider ourselves as having the right to impose our will on our terms wherever we see fit.  Only the world will learn a very different lesson.  We may be able to kill and destroy, but not to govern.  And by our use of such force we will legitimize use of force against targets that matter to us, not just in theater, but anywhere in the world.  And because this action would be taken by an administration without the support of the Congress or the American people, might not that mean that other nations would interpret them as actions of a rogue government, not representative of the will of the people of the nation, and would we not be then lowering ourselves to the standard we have applied when we have intervened in the affairs of other nations to depose rulers who were no longer of value to us (totally ignoring how we benefited from their previous brutality, whether in Iraq with Saddam or Panama with Noriega)?

Please note, I am not making a moral equivalence between George Bush and Saddam Hussein.  Not yet.  I am pointing out how people in other nations might perceive our actions.  

We remain as occupiers.  We pay a price in lives lost and shattered, in equipment destroyed.  We seek to affix blame, and almost as a blinded giant lash out where we can, precisely because we can, not recognizing that we will not solve our problems except by admitting our error and committing to withdrawal.  Obama described Rev. Wright as 'doubling down" on his misstatements.   Strikes against Iran would be an equivalent doubling down on the mistake of our occupation, and whatever temporary advantage we might gain from such a course of action would clearly be outweighed by the resulting consequences:  countries around the world would learn that the only guarantee against a similar strike on them would be to have the capability of doing great damage in return.  In other words, we might well accelerate the spread of nuclear weapons to the point where a nuclear exchange became more likely than not.

Perhaps now the reader can grasp why I chose the line from Carroll I did as my title.  The more we commit on behalf of our current mistaken policy in Iraq, the greater the damage we will do - to Iraq, to our credibility and honor as a nation, to any hope of world stability.  So let me end as I began:

The occupation is the mistake that keeps on taking.

Peace?