Derbyshire on Iraq: I told you so
posted at 2:52 pm on November 21, 2006 by Allahpundit
Send to a Friend |
Share on Facebook | printer-friendly
Back we go, not towards realism but towards “paleorealism.” Which, I guess, is the left’s campground now.
Goody.
The whole neocon project has been a colossal failure. Even George W. Bush must now know this. The MME [Muslim Middle East] will not adopt consensual government any time soon. There is a case for [continuing on] in Iraq — Adam Brodsky has put it very neatly — but nobody of any consequence thinks we shall remake that country in our own image, or anything like it. A lot of us never believed it anyway, though most of us are much too nice to go around now saying “I told you so.”…
[T]he neocon project has failed decisively in Iraq, there is no detectable support in the U.S.A. for trying again elsewhere, and we need a comprehensive new policy for the MME…
If what we are hearing about the Iraq Study Group is right, and if the appointment of Robert Gates as our new SecDef points the same way, as it seems to, we are headed back to realism. The pendulum rarely stops halfway in its swing, and my guess is that the coming realism will be of a particularly hard-nosed kind — a sort of paleorealism.
That will suit the American people, who have been getting a good close look at the MME, its peoples, and their religion this past five years, and have formed definite opinions about them. Those opinions can be seen in any newspaper “letters” column, or heard on radio and TV phone-in programs. Sympathy and fellow-feeling for the shoeless fellaheen of the MME is… not widespread. One of the strongest themes — and a growing one, too — in my own reader e-mail is the desire to have as little as possible to do with the MME, even to the extent of banning all MME immigrants and visitors. (People ask) What need to have any relations with them other than arms-length commercial ones? Most especially: Why let them into our countries?
A new PIPA poll out today finds that an overwhelming majority of Shiites and Sunnis want the U.S. out within a year. Nothing too precipitous, mind you — almost 60% of Shiites in Baghdad say a withdrawal within the six months would increase sectarian violence, which may well be what they have in mind given their demographic advantage — but Bush presumably has the democratic cover he needs now to start withdrawing next winter. The money graph:
Okay, bye!
Meanwhile, Kofi says his failure to stop the U.S. from invading was the single biggest failing of his tenure as secretary-general. Really?
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Blowback
Note from Hot Air management: This section is for comments from Hot Air's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that Hot Air management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment just because we let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with our terms of use may lose their posting privilege.
Trackbacks/Pings
Trackback URL
Comments
Kofi has a selective memory.
Kini on November 21, 2006 at 3:00 PM
Kofi ignores Darfur again
Defector01 on November 21, 2006 at 3:01 PM
I find the comments about banning MME immigrants quite intriguing. I’ve realized quite recently that if and when we pull out of Iraq (only a matter of time, it seems now), we can expect hundreds of thousands of Iraqi immigrants to start knocking on our door. You just know the jihadis will use this to their advantage. And you also know our government will let them all in without the proper checks.
jaleach on November 21, 2006 at 3:05 PM
I think it’s time to bring everyone home, shut down the borders, then kick out all the illegals.
MikeyB on November 21, 2006 at 3:05 PM
His greatest success was the oil for food, money, power scheme. HIs kids are set for life.
We stole his biggest success, letting Saddam continue to brutilize, murder, torture, rape, his people.
The U.N. has a very strange sense of success.
right2bright on November 21, 2006 at 3:11 PM
You can lead a horse to water , but you can’t make it drink seems to be the analogy of the day. Or you can do like that guy in Blazing Saddles and knock the snot out of the hoarse and get on with your business.
LakeRuins on November 21, 2006 at 3:11 PM
I noticed that the article used the word “autochthonous”. I whipped that baby out once in a paper I wrote in college and the professor didn’t know what it meant. Boy, was I steamed. Buy a thesaurus already!
jaleach on November 21, 2006 at 3:15 PM
What planet is Kofi on? Good lord.
CP on November 21, 2006 at 3:20 PM
That is … unless you’re Chuch phreaking Norris
One Angry Christian on November 21, 2006 at 3:21 PM
His greatest failure was that for all the aid and comfort he gave the murderous dictatorships in the Middle East, Israel is still there.
Muslims killing Muslims? No big dealie.
Attila (Pillage Idiot) on November 21, 2006 at 3:25 PM
At least when the Muslims were shooting at us, we had clear targets.
E L Frederick (Sniper One) on November 21, 2006 at 3:29 PM
This would seem to be the rise of the “To Hell with them Hawks” forecast by Rich Lowry. James Webb probably typifies this new breed of politician better than anyone else.
Dudley Smith on November 21, 2006 at 3:29 PM
Exactly, we shouldn’t be staying there another week, much less six months. Hey, we gave that whole Mid-East democracy thing a try, it was a nifty theory. But at the end of the day savage Muslims should be left alone. Let’s just pull out now and enjoy the civil war bloodbath.
Enrique on November 21, 2006 at 3:31 PM
Or we can pull out, wipe the slate clean and send a bunch of Jehovah’s Witnesses back in to repopulate the area.
LakeRuins on November 21, 2006 at 3:46 PM
C’mon now say it with me… “Cold War.”
Theworldisnotenough on November 21, 2006 at 3:48 PM
Gawd, I hate academics. It’s the sort of self-sophistication that hasn’t allowed the ground troops to do what the ground troops are meant to do - win the war.
Just speak effing English, please.
Editor on November 21, 2006 at 3:56 PM
We are trying to make a democracy out of a country that has never truly known it before, we haven’t managed it in a mere three years, and therefore we have failed and should pull out? Pathetic! If we leave now, we will probably be back to fix a bigger problem in the next ten or so years anyway.
jic on November 21, 2006 at 3:56 PM
Mmmm. Shale oil.
Say it with me… shale oil.
In other news, I hope that we will still support the Kurds even if this whole thing goes south.
RiverCocytus on November 21, 2006 at 3:59 PM
I’d like to add my own “really?” to that…
Anyone have a link to an round-up on oil-for-food?
RightWinged on November 21, 2006 at 4:04 PM
yeah Coffee has done an outstanding job on stopping genocide, the spread of Islamic extremism, world hunger, and the proliferation of nuclear weapons. he has turned his home continent of Africa into the envy of the modern world what with all of the econimic policies he introduced to help struggling countries in Africa. No coiffured one your biggest failure was the failure to be a man.
LakeRuins on November 21, 2006 at 4:10 PM
If anything we need to ditch the Powell “You break it you buy it” doctrine. The idea that we have to rebuild what we take out, just gives even more cover to our enemies. Now they’l say, “yeah sure you can beat us, but you’ll never rule us. Do you really want to pay?”
We need to go back to the total war model where every part of the enemies economy is a legitmate target. That’s how they jihadis are fighting us.
Iblis on November 21, 2006 at 4:15 PM
It reminds me of the Romans and the problems they had in Armenia. They were always sending in legions to take care of leadership problems. How long has this thing been going on with Iraq? Almost twenty years? Something tells me it ain’t over yet.
jaleach on November 21, 2006 at 4:15 PM
From the second paragraph of Derb’s column:
And there you have the crux of it.
You cannot achieve any goal if you are not willing to do what is necessary to attain it. I’m no longer so sure that attaining that goal is possible, but if it is, I am very sure we are not doing what needs to be done to get there.
Hopefully, any swing back to paleorealism will be accompanied by a willingness to do what’s necessary militarily when it comes time to do it.
thirteen28 on November 21, 2006 at 4:16 PM
What a heartbreaking commentary. “OK, Bye…” is my exact feeling, but can you just imagine the horror after our departure.
Please, Lord; don’t let this happen.
Jaibones on November 21, 2006 at 4:17 PM
Yeah, the realism approach was a real winner. It was GOOD to have the Saudis displace popular resentment onto Jews and Christians, to export the most radical ideology. It was good to see failed state after failed state produce radical muslim extremists. Good thing were going back to that.
It’s so sad that a country that could absorb thousands of casualties in a single battle with a resolve to go foward despite the tragic loss it represented now reduced to panic with a similar loss spread over years. It’s so sad to see a country that could maintain simultaneous fights all over the Pacific, Africa, Italy and France now reduced to apoplexy at the idea of committing all of 200K troops in two places (Afganistan and Iraq) with the population nearly doubled and the economic might quintupled. If today’s attitude have prevailed during WWII, we would have capitulated to the Japanese after the battle of Midway, and the Germans after the Africa campaign.
Fine, let’s leave the middle east to fascist thugs, radical muslims and nuclear weapons. I’m sure we’ll be just fine here.
Clark1 on November 21, 2006 at 4:21 PM
Not as long as the anti-war baby boomers run the MSM. The Vietnam paradigm holds as long as these schmucks exert influence. The New Media is a good start in undermining the baby boomer influence (I’m not blaming all boomers, just the New Left vanguard that took over the newsrooms and academia), but it will take much more. Sadly, probably another terrorist attack or two. Apparently people need to see time and time again that our way of life won’t survive unless we’re willing to carpet bomb Sadr City (to cite one example) into non-existence.
Hell, even my FDR democrat grandparents get it. I had to go back and visit them a couple of months ago after my mother died. They railed and railed against the evil Bush, but when it came to the war they understood that you need to fight to win. If that means killing thousands of women and children, you do it. If that means shoving bamboo shoots under some terrorist’s fingernails, you do it. No one ever won anything by fighting from a position of weakness. No one.
jaleach on November 21, 2006 at 4:26 PM
We pretty much need to ditch any and all of the Colin Powell doctrine, which is designed for political expediency and providing a temporary solution to longer-term problems. He was one of the chief architects of the end of the Gulf War when he urged letting Saddam’s Republican Guard off the hook.
Agree with everything else you said as well.
thirteen28 on November 21, 2006 at 4:30 PM
And again I say: “Really“?
see-dubya on November 21, 2006 at 4:50 PM
I realize the Bush/neocon agenda in Iraq was idealistic with regard to the potential for establishing a Muslim democracy. But it was an idealism arrived at by way of a broader realism, i.e that Al Quaeda had declared war on the US starting in the early 90s and we needed to do something about it or face more 9/11 style attacks on US soil.
A return to realpolitik will have predictable consequences. We’re choosing to accept an era of intifada rather than a shooting war. After the first city buses or pizza parlors are incinerated, Bush’s words about fighting them over there so we don’t have to do it here are going to sound prophetic.
Prediction: A major terrorist plot will succeed in either London, Paris or NY in 2007. If it’s here (God forbid) the MSM will fail to see any connection to the 2006 election and our retreat from Iraq, but will instead frame it as Bush’s greatest failure.
John on November 21, 2006 at 4:53 PM
How has Kofi failed? Let me count the ways….
Puritan1648 on November 21, 2006 at 5:02 PM
When we leave the Shiite ingrates and the “poor Shiite Iraqis” are slaughtered like they were in the 1990’s, let’s wave this poll to the world.
Muslims are not worth American blood. That is the big lesson learned in this conflict. The South Vietnamese with their peaceful religions and philosophies of Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism, and Catholicism were, but not Iraqis. That is the big difference between the Iraq War and the Vietnam War.
Let’s say goodbye and good luck to the Shiites!
januarius on November 21, 2006 at 5:46 PM
Januarius -
And when those same Shiites bring an Iranian nuke into NY? Then what?
Clark1 on November 21, 2006 at 6:07 PM
Kofi says his failure to stop the U.S. from invading was the single biggest failing of his tenure as secretary-general.
Well, it did cost him a lot of money. Think how much more he could have made if. But seriously, if you go to war, then crush them. We lost momentum when we started the whole lets not fight to win thing. I am with Iblis on this one. Defeat then, then reform them.
Theworldisnotenough,
Absolutely right., that is where they are taking us. The agreement with India is the corner stone.
RiverCocytus,
How about drilling .. I don’t know, say anywhere off the East coast. Just one well?
Rustyw on November 21, 2006 at 6:16 PM
The history books are full of insanely violent Confucians, Taoists, Buddhists and Catholics (admittedly, not all of this violence was religiously motivated). And anyway, we did not go into Vietnam because we liked their religions and philosophies: we went in to stop the spread of communism in south-east Asia. And we failed there for the same reason we seem poised to fail in Iraq, a huge loss of public will.
jic on November 21, 2006 at 7:50 PM
I really had hoped that we could make this work. However, as it seems the entire freaking world is glad it failed, so be it. Pull our troops out…but if we get hit again..and we have even a sparrow farts worth of evidence it came from a country, or countries, we go back to the tried and true method of bombing the living sh*t out of them until they stop sending their killers our way. Kill each other, if that’s your wish, but bring it here and we’ll lay the wood down so hard your 72 virgins are going to need a spatula the size of a snow shovel to scoop you into the afterlife.
austinnelly on November 21, 2006 at 9:20 PM
Sure, it stopped his lucrative money-machine in its tracks.
His entire tenure was a failure. How conceited to think he could have stopped it.
This man is delusional and I hope he fades into oblivion soon. He won’t be remembered for anything meaningful.
Entelechy on November 21, 2006 at 11:37 PM
I might actually agree -if by “failure” he is referencing his total lack of ability to enforce UN resolutions regarding Irag since the liberation of Kuwait. Had he, and some of the more influential members of the UN (hello France and Russia) put their weight behind enforcing those resolutions, the current war in Iraq would never have been necessary.
I don’t blame GWB for the deaths of American soldiers on Iraqi soil. I blame Kofi and the UN for not doing the hard work when a better solution was possible.
taznar on November 22, 2006 at 9:59 AM
I hope and pray that someone will finally get thier act together and fight a war to win, not to appease a few politicians or company that wants to make money off of a war. We could have easily won in Nam and could have done the same thing here in Iraq if we weren’t so dam fickle about whose feathers we were going to ruffle. The waste and coroption in Iraq ia just like it was in Nam but even more so now. Get someone with some real NADS and go in and kick some butt and WIN. Is there still a chance? I feel there is but I doub’t thier isn’t anyone who has the NADs to make it really happen and not worry about Kofi or the other idiots at the UN. Let’s get back to being men again,instead of spinelss twerps who don’t want to win this war. It WILL be so much worse a few years from now if we pull out and let Iran do it thing in the ME. Our men and women serving need to see a UNITED States not a divided state. Hate to rant but this has got to be the worst bunch of BS I have ever seen, cut n run.
bones47 on November 22, 2006 at 11:45 AM
Although of the best of intentions, the whole democracy in Iraq project was doomed from the start because our leadership bought into the PC view of islam as a “religion of peace” when in fact it is a religion of war. You cannot superimpose democracy on the totalitarian belief system of Islam.
Many looked at the experiences of postwar Germany and Japan as evidence that it could be done. Yet General MacArthur required the emperor of Japan to publically renounce that he was a God and that the Japanese were destimed to rule the world.
No such steps were taken in Iraq. Islam is a supremacist, triumphal idealogy, yet is is enshrined in the Iraqi constitution.
Saddam and his Bathist party are deposed and that is a good thing. If we keep the objectives to regime change, then we can veiw the mission as a success. Nation building is something else entirely.
GFB on November 22, 2006 at 2:16 PM