Tuesday Reads: Drumbeat to Iraq ad infinitum
Posted: June 17, 2014 Filed under: morning reads 34 CommentsGood Morning!
It’s hard to believe that the press has turned to the architects of the disaster in Iraq and their enablers. Over the last two weeks, we’ve seen and heard from folks that should be up for war crimes not TV spots. Why aren’t these folks being held accountable and why is the press returning to the same folks that were responsible for the worst foreign policy mistake in US History. Well, not only are they all over TV but they’re being hired to teach.
If you’re anything like me, when you hear the words “wise insights about the Iraq war,” two names that immediately come to mind are Paul Wolfowitz and Scooter Libby.
Fortunately the Hertog Institute has engaged them both to teach a course, “The War in Iraq: A Study in Decision-Making.”
I will confess that when someone told me about this today, I assumed it was anOnion-style joke. As in, “The Work-Family Balance: Getting It Right,” co-taught by John Edwards and Eliot Spitzer. But it turns out to be real. Or “real.”
In the cause of public knowledge, I am happy to offer royalty-free use of several items for the reading list. Like:
• “The Fifty-First State?” from the year before the war. The Wolfowitz-Libby “study in decision-making” might consider why on Earth so many obvious implications of the war were blithely dismissed ahead of time, including by these two men. Or …
• “Blind into Baghdad,” about the grotesque combination of arrogance, ignorance, and incompetence that characterized decision-making about the war. Or …
• “Bush’s Lost Year,” about the sequence of advantages squandered, opportunities missed, and crucial wrong bets made in the months just after the 9/11 attacks. Students might find this one particularly interesting, since it begins with a long interview with their own Professor Wolfowitz. For the Cliff’s Notes version, see after the jump.
Or, you can read some really good things like this:
Want some great op ed? Look no further than the WSJ and this op-ed: Only America Can Prevent a Disaster in Iraq
Without U.S. help, the civil war may spiral into a regional conflict as other countries, including Iran, intervene.
Who better would know this than L. PAUL BREMER? Remember him?
Maybe William Kristal and Frederick Kagan? Certainly, they picked up a little wisdom on the way to disaster.
That alternative is to act boldly and decisively to help stop the advance of the forces of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS)—without empowering Iran. This would mean pursuing a strategy in Iraq (and in Syria) that works to empower moderate Sunni and Shi’a without taking sectarian sides. This would mean aiming at the expulsion of foreign fighters, both al Qaeda terrorists and Iranian and Lebanese Hezbollah regular and special forces, from Iraq.
This would require a willingness to send American forces back to Iraq. It would mean not merely conducting U.S. air strikes, but also accompanying those strikes with special operators, and perhaps regular U.S. military units, on the ground. This is the only chance we have to persuade Iraq’s Sunni Arabs that they have an alternative to joining up with al Qaeda or being at the mercy of government-backed and Iranian-backed death squads, and that we have not thrown in with the Iranians. It is also the only way to regain influence with the Iraqi government and to stabilize the Iraqi Security Forces on terms that would allow us to demand the demobilization of Shi’a militias and to move to limit Iranian influence and to create bargaining chips with Iran to insist on the withdrawal of their forces if and when the situation stabilizes.
What is this the “in for a penny, in for a pound” approach to geopolitical policy decisions? I suppose it’s easy when your children, home, country, and business aren’t likely to be lost in another round of shock and awe. JASON HOROWITZ calls it an “interventionist revival”. Does history really have to repeat itself?
A decade after their fierce advocacy for the war in Iraq largely discredited neoconservatives like Paul D. Wolfowitz and Richard N. Perle, who argued most loudly for democracy exportation through military power, Mr. Kagan is hardly apologetic about the current mess. Instead, he believes that the widespread frustration over Mr. Obama’s disengagement despite the resurgence of organized terrorist groups in the region has created the climate to again make the case for interventionism.
And who better to lead a cast of assorted hawks back into intellectual — and they hope eventually political — influence than the congenial and well-respected scion of one of America’s first families of interventionism?
His father, Donald Kagan, a historian of ancient Greece, is a patriarch of neoconservatism. His brother, Fred, is a military scholar who helped conceive the American troop increase in Iraq in 2007. His wife and unofficial editor, Victoria Nuland, is an assistant secretary of state and one of the country’s toughest and most experienced diplomats, whose fervor for building democracy in Ukraine recently leaked out in an embarrassing audio clip. And Mr. Kagan, who often works in a book-lined studio of his cedar home here in the Washington suburbs, exudes a Cocoa-Puffs-pouring, stay-at-home-dad charm.
“A very nice family,” said William Kristol, a family friend and the founder of the conservative Weekly Standard, whose father, Irving, is another of neoconservatism’s father figures and one of Robert’s first bosses.
Mr. Kristol said he, too, sensed “more willingness to rethink” neoconservatism, which he called “vindicated to some degree” by the fruits of Mr. Obama’s detached approach to Syria and Eastern Europe. Mr. Kagan, he said, gives historical heft to arguments “that are very consistent with the arguments I made, and he made, 20 years ago, 10 years ago.”
Mr. Kagan, 55, prefers the term “liberal interventionist” to the neoconservative label, but believes the latter no longer has the stigma it did in the early days of the Obama presidency. “The sort of desire to say ‘Neocon! Neocon! Neocon!’ has moved out a little bit to the fringe,” he said.
Both Mr. Kagan and his brother are taking considerable pains to describe their advocacy as broadly bipartisan. “The urgent priority is to unite internationalists on both sides of the spectrum,” said Fred Kagan, while his brother, Robert, mentioned his briefing of a bipartisan congressional delegation at Davos and his good relations with top White House officials, including the national security adviser, Susan E. Rice. (Their father apparently did not get the memo, calling Mr. Obama’s speech “pathetic” and saying of the president, “We should not underestimate the possibility of extraordinary ignorance.”)
In an extremely odd twist, some of these folks say they are right in line with Hillary Clinton of all people.
But Exhibit A for what Robert Kagan describes as his “mainstream” view of American force is his relationship with former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who remains the vessel into which many interventionists are pouring their hopes. Mr. Kagan pointed out that he had recently attended a dinner of foreign-policy experts at which Mrs. Clinton was the guest of honor, and that he had served on her bipartisan group of foreign-policy heavy hitters at the State Department, where his wife worked as her spokeswoman.
“I feel comfortable with her on foreign policy,” Mr. Kagan said, adding that the next step after Mr. Obama’s more realist approach “could theoretically be whatever Hillary brings to the table” if elected president. “If she pursues a policy which we think she will pursue,” he added, “it’s something that might have been called neocon, but clearly her supporters are not going to call it that; they are going to call it something else.”
I can’t believe any one in any place but the right wing press would be printing this crap and taking these folks seriously again. However, you know how it is in the punditry cave. Once an echo bounces of one wall, it just keeps on going.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
peej
Carissa
ecocatwoman
mablue2
peggysue22
quixote
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
Why don’t we just bring back Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney? How about Karen Hughes and Condoleeza Rice and the rest of the gang?
I’m bringing back that “Endless War” bumper sticker I had.
A woman I met recently is married to a man who’s now off on his seventh tour of duty over there. Let’s bring back the draft, without exemption for rich kids.
And a law that saws whoever in Congress voted for war sends his firstborn
That’s what John McCain suggested last week.
http://seattletimes.com/text/2023860528.html
Those poll results are an absolute no-brainer. I doubt anyone who is sane outside the Beltway bubble thinks we should go back into Iraq.
If Hillary is going to run for president, she should slap those neo-cons away from her yesterday! They might be the only thing which could lose it for her.
Hillary was at the Harvard Bookstore yesterday.
Hundreds Line Cambridge Street for Hillary Clinton Book Signing
http://www.boston.com/news/politics/2014/06/17/hundreds-line-cambridge-street-for-hillary-clinton-book-signing/a6hyNgKfe0ZtJbQ1PV3OAI/story.html
Breaking News:
http://www.washingtonpost.com
US Captures Benghazi Suspect in secret raid……FBI investigating Abu Sufian Bin Qumu, who was released by George W. Bush, 2007
Lovely! Thanks W, now go paint another cat.
Looky there, Pres. Obama didn’t have to send in 10,000 troops to get the ring leader of Benghazi attacks.
Yup, Pres. Obama and Hillary Clinton, didn’t care, they are soooo weak. NOT.
http://m.thenation.com/blog/180258-where-accountability-iraq
How Many Times Do the Neocons Get to Be Wrong Before We Stop Asking Them What to Do in Iraq?
That the MSM runs to those totally wrong cretins and has not one person who was right about Iraq in 2003 on their shows just drives me nuts!
I about died when I saw who dancing Dave had on last Sunday. No wonder the show is in trouble.
They all should be replaced with cat videos. Better shows and higher ratings would be assured.
Most definitely.
This is really cute. Biden does a bangup job.
tpm: Biden Congratulates The U.S. Men’s National Team On Win Over Ghana (VIDEO)
I hadn’t heard about this until now and it happened Saturday. Wonder why it wasn’t cable news?
tpm: BLM Officer, Highway Patrolman Shot In Nevada County, California
http://m.washingtonpost.com/opinions/how-america-became-uncompetitive-and-unequal/2014/06/13/a690ad94-ec00-11e3-b98c-72cef4a00499_story.html?hpid=z3
http://www.nationalmemo.com/5-iraq-experts-always-wrong-iraq/
Wow, what a huge boondoggle.
gizmodo: The designer of the F-16 explains why the F-35 is such a crappy plane
Rick Perry is apparently considering retiring to.. California. 🙂
NYT: Rick Perry’s ‘Groundhog Day’
There’s nothing else worth reading in the article, unless you like interviews with dumbasses.
http://aattp.org/here-are-the-five-most-moronic-conservative-reactions-to-capture-of-benghazi-ringleader-so-far-screenshots/
The Ringleader was some one that Dubya released from Gitmo btw.
http://www.politicususa.com/2014/06/17/president-obama-nabs-terrorist-forces-capture-benghazi-ringleader.html
ABC News political director Rick Klein is a whack-a-loon! No wonder Diane Sawyer’s interview of Hillary had more talking points than Q&A in it.
The video? Unpossible. 🙂
NYT: Captured Suspect Said Benghazi Attack Was Revenge For Anti-Islam Video
wonder what Issa will say
Deny, deny, then lie!
Bwaaaahahahahahaha1
Kurt Eichenwald @kurteichenwald · 20m
Time to ape the GOP of 2001-08: GOPrs r criticizing capture of Benghazi terrorist. Why do they hate America? They want the terrorists 2 win!
Charles Johnson @Green_Footballs · 7h
The right hasn’t been this pissed off since Osama bin Laden was killed.
LOLGOP @LOLGOP · 5h
It must hurt deep inside to believe Obama is a bumbling clown who can sabotage you at any moment with his surgical capture of terrorists.
Michael Grunwald @MikeGrunwald · 6h
When is Obama going to fix the website/catch the Benghazi killers? (Pause.) Why is Obama spiking the football?
Simon Maloy @SimonMaloy · 8h
Obama the feckless wimp who can manipulate the entire national security apparatus to operate in minute precision with his political agenda.
Great list of all the monstrous things my sociopath governor has done to us.
http://xculturemagazine.com/2014/06/17/an-open-letter-to-governor-bobby-jindal-from-a-pissed-off-louisiana-woman/
That is a powerful letter.
The problem with arming the Syrian rebels is that they weren’t all “moderates”and they were loosely aligned with ISIS at one time . (It’s bizarre when you consider the group who fostered Bin Laden and who took credit for killing thousands on American soil -moderate. I mean do you really “trust” this group?) I wish that the people in charge would just come to terms with the idea that we don’t belong in the region- AT ALL. I feel horrible for the Iraqi people because essentially THIS is what meddling in the region has brought us to. We did this. We destabilized their region and now they get to live with it. However, I don’t see giving Al Queda the region to run in lieu of ISIS as a really intelligent option, no matter how “moderate” they are selling themselves as these days(which is essentially what they and the Saudis want- control to Sunnis)