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| Volume XI, Summer 2004, Number 2 |
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| Editor's Note |
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What kind of people are we? Americans have long wished to believe that our aspirations are higher and our behavior more morally correct than other peoples'. Many of our friends abroad have joined us in wishing this were so. Our leaders were therefore given considerable benefit of the doubt when they decided to conduct the "war on terrorism" outside the framework of international law, arguing that inasmuch as our cause is just and Americans are inherently good, our military need not subject itself to the constraints of the Geneva Conventions or the jurisdiction of the U.S. courts. Our leaders now seek to explain away the torture of prisoners as an aberration. The rest of the world sees the pictures of Iraqis being abused by their keepers at Al Ghraib and draws another conclusion: that, despite our sanctimonious pretension, Americans can be no less depraved than anyone else.
The true lesson of the nauseating revelations of Abu Ghraib is, however, that power, unless constrained by law, leads to atrocities. That is not a new thought for Americans. It is the situation the American people hoped our overthrow of Saddam's power in Iraq would correct. Instead of correcting Iraq's condition, we have been corrupted by it.
Had the war in Iraq had the sanction of international law and institutions, and had it been conducted by a coalition representative of the international community, the world would be more inclined to forgive or at least understand the transgressions of Iraq's occupiers. But the world did not invade and occupy Iraq. We did, over the world's objections. Having acted on our own, we are now left to confront the consequences of our aberrant behavior on our own.
By the time of the uprising at Fallujah and Najaf and President Bush's brazen abandonment of key elements of U.N. resolutions and previous Israeli-Palestinian negotiations in his embrace of Ariel Sharon's lawless unilateralism (see our symposium on the Geneva accords, p. 1), not only the Arab and Muslim world but Europe and Latin America had come unambiguously to condemn American policy in the Middle East. The pattern of scofflaw behavior apparent in our treatment of prisoners of war in Afghanistan, Iraq and -- very likely -- Guantanamo, has now led to condemnation of the United States itself. We have alienated the United Nations, our allies in Europe and our Arab partners, all of whom we are now begging for help in extricating ourselves from the deadly predicament the administration has constructed for us in Iraq.
Not only the international community but also the domestic establishment has become fully disillusioned, moving from subdued skepticism before the war/occupation to open dissent now. A group of retired diplomats in both Britain and the United States recently sent unprecedented open letters to the prime minister and the president protesting their Middle East policy (see the last pages of this journal for both letters). The uniformed military barely disguise their contempt for their civilian leaders, who have led American troops into harm's way without any thought of how to extricate them with honor.
On approximately the fiftieth anniversary of the humiliation of French power at Dienbienphu and the twenty-ninth anniversary of the fall of Saigon, it is perhaps appropriate to recall why international disputes should normally be settled diplomatically rather than militarily. The uniformed military understand this; they were not enthusiastic about the war to "liberate" Iraq. But their civilian bosses in the Pentagon found the temptation of apparent omnipotence too great. They saw no rival power to check their imperial ambition. Iraq seemed ripe for the picking, and the attacks of 9/11 had removed the normally potent governor on the American conscience. It was permissible to think with the viscera instead of the brain. So the neoconservative ideologues were able to take advantage of their long-awaited opportunity (see articles by Hudson and Lang).
We went to war in Iraq because we could, the costs be damned. One of those costs of wars of choice is that the government has to lie to or hide the facts from its people -- about the reasons for the war, the threat posed by the enemy, the money, the sacrifice of soldiers' minds and bodies, the brutality of occupation duty and all the rest. Otherwise, the citizenry would balk. They must be buoyed up by grand rhetoric if they are not to be pulled down by the unpleasant realities.
After Vietnam, the mantra of many humiliated U.S. military personnel went something like this: "We could have won if the politicians had just let us do our job." In Fallujah, as in many places in Indochina, we have had an object lesson in the terrible choices our soldiers face when they confront an armed and hostile populace. It can then be counterproductive to "win." Our military, if not our politicians, remember the lessons of the past and seek to avoid repeating them. Knowing that there would be some sort of June 30 hand-off to Iraqis made a difference in the way the siege in Fallujah was handled by the U.S. military. Meanwhile, that drop-dead date forced President Bush to pin all his hopes on the once-despised United Nations to rescue the failing Anglo-American enterprise in Iraq by finding a body of Iraqis -- any Iraqis -- to accept "sovereignty" on July 1.
What will be the long-term effects of the Iraq debacle? International institutions and alliances have been weakened, and most of the world now considers the United States a nation with little remaining moral authority to guide the use of our immense military power. Our arrogance has enraged the world and provoked its resentment at a time when international cooperation is sorely needed to fight the criminal conspiracy of al-Qaeda. What has been gained is the removal of Saddam Hussein. What may now be in store is civil war in Iraq and a widened and intensified war against the United States by "terrorists with global reach." Jordan, Israel, Turkey, Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia have to deal with the chaos that may be looming. So will the United States, whose standing as a leader has been gravely incapacitated by the attempt to fold the imperial ambitions of the neoconservatives into the framework of the "war on terrorism."
Anne Joyce
May 1, 2004
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