July 26, 2006

Neocon Blundering

Neocon doctrine as applied to the Middle East has, so far, been proven to be an abject failure.

How so, you might ask?

Well, according to classic neocon thinking, as put forth by the likes of Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, the Vice-President, the Secretary of State and their allied scribblers and blabbermouths on the far right, the overthrow of Saddam Hussein was to be the first step in the political transformation of the Middle East. Saddam’s departure was to signal the first step of an inevitable march to democracy and the adoption of Western-style governments throughout the Middle East. These governments would be friendly to the US, and especially to Israel. According to the neocon vision, we’d see an end to all the terrorism, absolute monarchies, dictatorships, presidents-for-life, not to mention the all the out and out theocracies that currently dominate the area.

At least that was the theory.

And that’s what we were told when the US invaded Iraq three years ago.

Needless to say, things haven’t worked out that way.

Take free elections. For years, neocons stressed the need for free elections in the Middle East. Well, there were free elections in the Middle East. Several of them, actually. And look at the results. Hamas in Palestine, Shia extremists in Iran; and Hizbullah given a part in the government of Lebanon. Syria is still a dictatorship and Saudi Arabia still an absolute monarchy. The Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamic extremist group has won a small number of seats in Egypt's parliament.

Worse, the only working democracy outside Israel in the Middle East, Lebanon, is slowly being torn apart by that other democracy, Israel. In Iraq, free elections have brought about a Shia-dominated government, more and more, it seems, allied with Iran. And there is certainly no peace in Iraq. Not for the US and not for the Iraqis.

Disturbingly, neocon failures in Iraq and elsewhere haven’t discouraged them, or even caused a change in their thinking. Look at Iraq. Despite the presence of 130,000 US troops and nearly 300,000 Iraqi security forces, law and order continue to break down. Mr Bush’s solution: Send in even more US soldiers. 10,000 supposedly. But how, exactly is an 8% increase in US personnel going to change anything in Iraq? Nobody knows. Over 2,500 US soldiers have been killed in Iraq, and there is no end in sight.

No end to the occupation; no end to the killing.

George F. Will noted in his column in the Washington Post awhile ago, that many neocons are becoming, as he puts it “untethered from reality.”

Which is putting in mildly. They’ve been untethered from reality for some time, living, as I suspect they do, on the planet Altair IV

For example, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told George Stephanopoulos on the July 16 edition of This Week, that Islamic extremists are “facing a different kind of Middle East, the emergence of a different kind of Middle East in which moderate forces will dominate.” Really? Where exactly, Mz Rice, point out these “moderate forces”. Where are they? She goes on: "This is a very turbulent time…" Well, she’s right about that. "It is better to have a Middle East that is changing in the direction in which moderate and democratic forces can take hold than to pretend that everything is just fine in the Middle East and that we're somehow going to get a stable Middle East out of appeasing and dealing with extremist forces.” Who exactly is she talking about? What exactly is she talking about? Again, what moderate forces? And who is talking appeasement?

Then there’s William Kristol, of the Weekly Standard, a neocon rag par excellence. Kristol is calling for large increases in troop strength in Iraq, as well as the bombing of Iran. This, despite all the available evidence that shows that (1) US troops are unable to stop the civil war in Iraq, and (2) that the Israeli bombing of Lebanon is simply turning the Lebanese against Israel. Things wouldn’t be much different if the US bombed Iran. Bombing Iran would simply increase the power of the religious leaders in that country.

The neocons ought to face reality; if they can’t do that, at least they ought to resign their posts in Mr Bush’s cabinet, before they do still more damage.

Posted  4:01 PM     

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