Ralphing Up A Neocon Defense

I’ve been following the setting up of the neocon lines of defense as they try to body-swerve taking responsibility for the Iraqi misadventure even they realize is now a bust. The first is that failure in Iraq is the Iraqis’ fault. The second is that it was the appeasing ways of those damn lib’ruls and their media allies. The third is that they convinced an incompetent rightwing administration, rather than a competent one, to carry out their plans.

Few of the neocons and hardline rightwing regime-change fans who are left want to admit that the whole debacle and its rose-petal incompetencies were their idea in the first place, ruthlessly foisted upon the rest of us by selective and judicious use of proxies like Chalabi and intelligence which (if not always outright cherry-picked) wasn’t discriminatory in its sources. They have lucrative punditing careers to protect.

Today, Ralph Peters took the first line of defense to new hacktacular lows.

Iraq is failing. No honest observer can conclude otherwise. Even six months ago, there was hope. Now the chances for a democratic, unified Iraq are dwindling fast. The country's prime minister has thrown in his lot with al-Sadr, our mortal enemy. He has his eye on the future, and he's betting that we won't last. The police are less accountable than they were under Saddam. Our extensive investment in Iraqi law enforcement only produced death squads. Government ministers loot the country to strengthen their own factions. Even Iraq's elections — a worthy experiment — further divided Iraq along confessional and ethnic lines. Iraq still exists on the maps, but in reality it's gone. Only a military coup — which might come in the next few years — could hold the artificial country together.

This chaos wasn't inevitable. While in Iraq late last winter, I remained soberly hopeful. Since then, the strength of will of our opponents — their readiness to pay any price and go to any length to win — has eclipsed our own. The valor of our enemies never surpassed that of our troops, but it far exceeded the fair-weather courage of the Bush administration.

Yet, for all our errors, we did give the Iraqis a unique chance to build a rule-of-law democracy. They preferred to indulge in old hatreds, confessional violence, ethnic bigotry and a culture of corruption. It appears that the cynics were right: Arab societies can't support democracy as we know it. And people get the government they deserve.

For us, Iraq's impending failure is an embarrassment. For the Iraqis — and other Arabs — it's a disaster the dimensions of which they do not yet comprehend. They're gleeful at the prospect of America's humiliation. But it's their tragedy, not ours.

Iraq was the Arab world's last chance to board the train to modernity, to give the region a future, not just a bitter past. The violence staining Baghdad's streets with gore isn't only a symptom of the Iraqi government's incompetence, but of the comprehensive inability of the Arab world to progress in any sphere of organized human endeavor. We are witnessing the collapse of a civilization. All those who rooted for Iraq to fail are going to be chastened by what follows.

Iraq still deserves one last chance — as long as we don't confuse deadly stubbornness and perseverance. If, at this late hour, Iraqis in decisive numbers prove willing to fight for their own freedom and a constitutional government, we should be willing to remain for a generation. If they continue to revel in fratricidal slaughter, we must leave.

Of course, three years of occupation incompetence had nothing to do with it, eh Ralph?

It’s all those Arabs fault for not seeing what an opportunity was given them by having their infrastructure ground into dust and the bulk of what little reconstruction was done given to foreign companies.

Iraqis, too, are surely to blame for a situation where the CPA could blithely announce in 2004 that militias were no longer a problem, or where those same militias were so wantonly encouraged by that same CPA to join the army and police wholesale.

And to blame for the shameless way in which the occupation encouraged Shia discrimination against Sunni - through over-zealous de-Baathification all the way to a constitution which enabled sectarianism.

Nor should we forget that democracy-loving Peters himself has been crying for an American coup to install a strongman dictator - something that the neocons have wanted all along. Few on the right recall that the CPA had NO plans for a democratic Iraq up until Sistani forced their hands.

John Cole is right - there is no lie too low for the uber-right in its desperation to hold on to power.