When not breathing the same air as those walking the halls of power, it is easy to forget exactly what privileges come with power. Amongst the most important perks is unrestrained access to information, analysis...
One of the errors in interpretation that we have been primed to make, over the past eight years, is that the Bush administration somehow fumbled the ball when it came to the war in Iraq. The reality is that our officials have access to vast arrays of think tanks; not to mention that many of our key decision makers are highly educated men who are fully capable of strategic thought. From this perspective, it becomes incrementally more difficult to believe that our errors were the result of intelligence failures or lack of adequate planning. The fundamental 'mistakes' made during the US occupation of Iraq, once catalogued, look far more like an intentional plan to destabilize the country on a long-term basis.
Just as a quick refresher:
Our attack strategy was analogous to that used in the Pacific theater against the Japanese during WWII. Certain islands were taken, while others were skipped in order to ultimately reach the center of power. This approach lead to the infamous insufficient amount of 'boots' on the ground in Iraq. In itself this was a foreseeable problem, noting that previous peace-keeping, peace enforcement or other 'stabilization' missions often required massive amounts of military presence on the ground in order to make up for the power vacuum left by the collapse of the previous regime. Arguably, it was this first 'miscalculation' that paved the way for the disaster that ensued. In the next few years we watched as artifacts belonging to the world's patrimony were plundered in the chaos following the invasion; undefended weapon depots were claimed by paramilitary entities; the Iraqi Army was dismissed leaving hundreds of thousands unemployed and disenchanted; de-Baathification followed, effectively disenfranchising Iraq's professionals-all those who would have been able to maintain or restore order were pushed aside. Clearly my little narrative is less than an incomplete picture of what happened, but it is enough to display the cornerstones of today's circus.
Since invading Iraq was not favorable in the early nineties because of the predicted course of events, what exactly changed that made the same American decision-makers believe that the same project would be worthwhile a decade later? The Russians, Chinese, Iranians, Israelis, Saudis? What is the fate of the world's second largest known oil reserve?
We will hold our elections, a new shiny bright and appologetic face will come to hold the land's highest office and sweet nothings will be whispered between ideological lovers . And then we will embark on a global PR campaign, attempting to rectify our image, explaining that the War-Hawks are gone- it was just a phase, a freak accident. Now we're different, we've learned, a different party is in power and our poster boy is picture perfect- oh, almost forgot, we brought this vintage bottle of Marshall plan-type aid!
We have a special relationship with Brown and Sarkozy and as a bonus: Berlusconi is back. The alignment of the European stars seems to be favorable to NATO intervention in Iraq. A few months need to pass, the all-new-bigger-better-wider President elect will announce a change of national tone, we will once more cooperate with the international community.
Maybe, if we're lucky, we'll allow UN electoral observers into our country in time for the 2012 elections.
Just in time for the end of the world ;)
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