Truth—or Consequences

By Marilyn M. Brannan, Assoc. Editor
Unravelling The New World Order

“The real reason for our involvement is the capture of the most strategic country in the region in order to exert pressure on regimes that were in some way enablers of al Qaeda” (The Stratfor Weekly, “Bush’s Crisis: Articulating a Strategy in Iraq and the Wider War,” April 15, 2004).

That is the boiled-down essence of our mission in Iraq.

But the message delivered to the American people has been the “failed mission” message of finger-pointing and head-wagging over the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The WMDs were, after all (if you believe the liberal media and the Democrat party), the sole reason we invaded Iraq. Period.

The WMD hype raged for months. Finally, it burned out as the American people managed to discern, despite the ceaseless political rhetoric, that both parties in Congress, our intelligence gathering agencies, foreign intelligence gathering agencies, exiled Iraqis, and the UN Security Council (among others) had all come to the same conclusion: Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

Once the WMD issue lost its power to stir up rancorous debate, the Democrats simplified and broadened their message to simply, “George W. Bush misled the American people in order to get us into this war.” Presidential hopefuls among the Democrats shouted, screamed and snarled the message, while Ted Kennedy and Robert Byrd bellowed and fulminated in Senate chambers over the war that George Bush “cooked up in Texas” in order to control the Middle East oil supply and thereby enrich himself, Dick Cheney, Halliburton, and the countless oil moguls in the Republican party.

Election-year politics (which are bad enough in peaceful times) are at boiling point, with a Democrat party desperate to regain power and willing to do virtually anything to that end, facilitated in their “get Bush” agenda by powerful establishment media organizations who would like nothing better than to see Bush vacate the White House.

All the while, we are fighting and losing lives in an unconventional war against an enemy whose objectives are not territorial, but global, and whose ideological mindset can only be described as barbaric fanaticism unleashed on the modern world, little changed from its violent beginnings in the Dark Ages.

A Deafening Din—and Silence
The American public knows there is a crisis in Iraq; but amid all the uproar, it is hard to discern whether the crisis is being managed or whether it is really out of control, as a good many (both here and abroad) would like us to believe. We are being bombarded with a flood of propaganda at home and abroad, the scope of which has probably not been equaled in the history of the world.

Reasonable minds agree that if we do not fight this enemy in Iraq and Afghanistan, there is a far greater likelihood that we will be attacked again on our own soil, and that the time period before such additional attacks might occur will be greatly diminished. We are buying time and “space,” and at the same time, hoping to greatly reduce the enemy’s ability to launch major attacks on innocent victims, both here and abroad.

What the American people desperately need to hear at this point is a convincing argument for our Iraq policy, and a crisp—but not necessarily in-depth or greatly detailed—statement of our overall objectives in fighting the war on terrorism. For whatever reasons, the Bush administration has done a poor job of bringing to the American people a mission statement that would promote understanding and shore up our resolve to stay the course.

The answer may lie, in part, with the fact that the U.S. did not expect the insurgency that occurred after Baghdad fell. We now know that it was not the result of unrest among the Iraqis as a whole, but rather, a carefully calculated plan by which Saddam believed his Sunni/Baathist followers, aided by insurgent forces from other countries in the region, could ultimately defeat the U.S. military in Iraq. Bush’s problem with explaining the resulting chaos to the American public is that his strategy for public presentation of the war was designed to exploit success, not to withstand (and explain) reversals and hardships.

By failing to provide a simple and cohesive statement of our mission in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Bush administration has left itself open to those who are all too willing to ascribe motives of their own choosing—everything from controlling the world oil supply, to a “religious” or “racist” war on Islam, to a Bush family obsession with destroying Saddam Hussein, to facilitating a Jewish conspiracy for world domination.

It has been said that in an election campaign, the candidate who first defines his opponent to the electorate will win. We believe it is the same principle here; Bush was slow to adequately define U.S. strategy in Iraq and Afghanistan—hoping, no doubt, that weapons of mass destruction would be found early-on in Iraq and the whole issue of “justification” would be moot. That did not happen, of course, and Bush’s enemies here and abroad have gleefully seized that unexpected opportunity to characterize the war on their own terms.

Plan B: Bringing “Democracy” to Iraq
When the weapons of mass destruction failed to materialize, it was necessary for the Bush administration to go to “Plan B,” knowing the American people will not support an ongoing conflict without a sense of where it ultimately will take us. Without a conceptual framework of our overall effort, it is difficult for us to know how we are doing. Thus, the emphasis shifted to “democracy for Iraq.”

It sounds, on its face, like a wonderful idea. But democracy—in a form that Americans would recognize—is not coming to Iraq any time soon.

Iraq is a hotbed of “negotiation”—offers, bluffs, double-crosses, and outright lies.
In a war of this kind, the United States really has no choice but to combine military action with political maneuvering. The cold, hard reality is that “building democracy” in Iraq is not fully compatible with the deals that are going to have to be cut.

We may have to downplay expectations in Iraq, but that does not have to spell doom for the overall mission. One National Review editor put it well: “If we leave Iraq in some sort of orderly condition, with some sort of legitimate, non-dictatorial government and a roughly working economy, we will be doing very well” (“An End to Illusion,” National Review, May 3, 2004).

In the end, it is the Iraqis’ country, not ours. We will have to defer to the authorities that we hope will take control. In the process, we will have to endorse compromises we consider less than ideal. We will do what we can to give the Iraqis a chance for a more hopeful future. Whether they take it or not will be their choice.

Laying Bare the Objectives
Obviously, the Bush administration is struggling with the political difficulties presented by a war that has taken some nasty and unexpected turns (as wars always do). Stratfor intelligence analysts observed recently, “[I]n a democratic society like the United States, it is impossible to lay bare the cold-blooded reasoning behind a war . . . [it] needs to be presented in a palatable fashion. . . . but we tend to think that in the face of September 11, only a cold-blooded plan, whose outlines are publicly presented and accepted, can work.” (“Articulating a Strategy in Iraq and the Wider War,” The Stratfor Weekly, 15 April 2004).

We agree. It’s time for Bush to “get real” with the American people about this war. It is the unwillingness of his administration to present a coldly realistic plan that is making us nervous. We are not as squeamish nor as cowardly as our enemies hope we are. We can accept a certain amount of bad news if we have reason to believe things will get better if we stay the course. FDR, to his credit, did not shrink from speaking with shocking frankness when necessary. He delivered the details the American people needed to hear, even during the darkest, most discouraging months of World War II.

We believe this is such a time. The American people need a concise statement that will enable them, even amidst bad news and alarmist forecasts, to support the vast chore still ahead of us.

National Review editors stated it very clearly for us this past week:

“The primary purpose of this war was always (our emphasis) to protect U.S. national security by removing a destabilizing and radical influence in the strategically crucial Persian Gulf and eliminating a potential threat to the United States. . . . [F]orging a non-fascist, non-radical, non-hostile government in Iraq could affect the entire region’s geopolitics for the better. Success in post-war Iraq therefore is necessary primarily to serve U.S. interests, secondarily to assist Iraqis.” (“An End to Illusion,” National Review, May 3, 2004).

Why not say it?

The only explanation for the invasion of Iraq that works is that it was a necessary stepping-stone toward changing the behavior of other countries in that region. Those countries harbored, trained, and funded terrorists that attacked our interests overseas time and again, and boldly flew our own airplanes into the Trade Towers and murdered 3,000 innocent people on 9-11. The absolute need to force behavior change is rarely emphasized. What we have been given instead is a superficially plausible explanation—“democratization” of Iraq—with a price tag that seems to the American people to be excessive, given the uncertainty that such a goal is even achievable.

Best Defense: Good Offense
The Stratfor Weekly analysts have stated, “We are convinced that the Bush administration has a defensible strategy. It is not a simple one and not one that can be made completely public, but it is a defensible strategy. If President Bush decides not to articulate it, it will be interesting to see whether “President” Kerry [will do so], because we are convinced that if Bush keeps doing in the direction he is going, he will lose the election.” (“Bush’s Crisis: Articulating a Strategy in Iraq and the Wider War,” The Stratfor Weekly, 15 April 2004)

We have been challenged by the terrorists to fight a war without fronts, uniforms, rules, or conventional soldiers. These cowardly killers hoped to avoid a direct confrontation with the deadly military power of the United States, while killing as many of our civilians as possible, and creating so much chaos that disheartened peoples knuckle under and allow the terrorists to establish tyranny around the world. Islamic fascists are using terror and stealth today so that tomorrow, they will have the power to wage a greater war—openly and with deadlier weapons.

Our response to those realities has been to open up fronts where we are able to confront the terrorists with deadly force, while continuing our efforts to round up their agents here and abroad.

Until Syria, Iran, and Lebanon decide to expel the terrorists from their countries and end their dealings with them, our efforts must not cease. We have no other choice.

All the while, we must make it clear that nations who offer sanctuary, funding, and ideological support for terrorists will ultimately face a military confrontation with the U.S.—and that they, likewise, have no other choice.