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Re-Thinking Iraq Americans are at a place roughly analogous to the end of World War II. They wanted to demobilize the huge military machine that defeated our enemies and there was much opposition to the Marshall Plan to save Europe from Soviet domination. It was "mission accomplished" and to hell with the rest of the world. Only the rest of the world was not about to comply. President Bush has between now and January 20, 2009 to secure a miracle in Iraq. If, by then, Iraq has not established a fully functional, independent government, his legacy is likely to be perceived as an ill-conceived effort to remove Saddam Hussein’s regime and replace it with one that will provide a base from which U.S. military forces can threaten the Iranian leadership of the Islamic revolution.
As George Friedman suggests in a March 21 intelligence analysis published by Stratfor, "Not to put too fine a point on it, but the real players in Iraq are now going to sit down and see if they can reach some decisions about the country’s future." The Iranians have concluded the situation is too unpredictable and that Bush needs a deal. They’re right. Support for our current occupation of Iraq is diminishing as Americans, unmindful of how long and how costly it was to replace the regimes of WWII Japan and Germany, and influenced by the U.S. debacle in Vietnam, begin to rethink their view of the actions taken in Iraq. Part of the problem was that the U.S. expected to find an intact Iraqi government, but discovered there wasn’t one. A year was lost in improvisational efforts and, yes, mistakes. Despite growing evidence Saddam was just waiting to revive his plans for weapons of mass destruction, impatient Americans have already forgotten that he invaded Iran and later invaded Kuwait. Had nothing been done in the latter case, Saddam would surely have invaded Saudi Arabia next and controlled the vast bulk of Middle East oil. The U.S. was not about to allow that. In the aftermath of 9-11, it is conjectured that the neoconservatives in the White House saw an opportunity to take a strategic leap to transform the Middle East by asserting the military power of the United States. Only the future will tell us whether this bold effort will "connect" the Middle East to the modern world by the introduction of democratic reforms. I think the President and his advisors believed the region’s Arab population could or would put aside the debilitating internal animosities of Islam to embrace Western-style "freedom." There are four words that every pundit loves to say. "I told you so." On August 17, 2005 I penned "The Iraq Illusion", a commentary that offered a sober look at the situation at that time. "In the midst of our desire to see a happy outcome in Iraq, we must never lose sight of the ability of Arabs to reject every opportunity to join the modern community of nations, i.e., the industrialized West and those in Asia who are working toward a more peaceful, integrated worldwide marketplace." Even with the great wealth generated by oil, the nations of the Middle East have little to offer to their people and the world. They are, collectively, the most backward in the world, save possibly for those of northern Africa where Islam is also the dominant faith. Despite oil, largely under the control of a few "royal" families or a handful of demented Iranian mullahs, you have a region whose population is defined by its great poverty, ignorance, and long history of oppression. I wrote that "The present post-Saddam Iraq is a Humpty Dumpty sitting on the narrow edge of a proposed new constitution in a place where the rule of law has never really existed, let alone notions that include the equal status of women or even the concept of private property." In a world where the United States maintains diplomatic and back channel relations with nations that are every bit as inhospitable to freedom and democracy, the invasion and occupation of Iraq has the look of an act of hubris based—at least publicly—on the notion of an American Empire whose global responsibility is to spread freedom and democracy. In theory, that may seem like a good idea. In practice, you get Iraq. In practice, you have the thugocracy of Syria that has no interest in a modern, democratic Iraq. Others like Turkey have a long history of hostility to the Kurds, so they see no reason to encourage their success. The British have already announced a timetable for the withdrawal of their troops. It’s been three years since the U.S. invaded and swiftly deposed Saddam Hussein. As this is being written, while much of the nation of Iraq is relatively peaceful, the chaos roiling in Baghdad, Samara, and other urban centers continues. It’s the kind of insurgency with which our military is not designed to deal. Swift battles and swift victories are our métier. Today the emphasis is on developing an Iraqi armed force and that takes time. Despite the daily reports in the mainstream media, if one visits the blogs by Iraqis reporting on events there, one comes away with the impression that things are going better than what we are being told. Compared to life under Saddam, I suppose anything is better, but what hasn’t changed is the endemic corruption of that society. What hasn’t changed are the antagonisms between Islamic sects that date back centuries. That’s not an especially good platform for modernization. For Iran, though, the uncertainly about Iraq’s future is even worse than it is for Americans. As Friedman says of the public agreement between the U.S. and Iran for talks about Iraq, "…the fact is that Tehran will work on nukes as and when it wants, and Washington will destroy the nukes as and when it wants. The nukes are non-issues in the real negotiations." The Middle East is a very ancient part of the world. It has resisted change for a very long time. It is likely to continue resisting change. Arabs, in particular, live in a continual state of denial, preferring a mythic past to the future. The Islamic Revolution is a constant threat to drag all of us back to the seventh century. Increasingly, we’re told, Americans deem the Iraq invasion and occupation a mistake. The bigger mistake, however, would have been to do nothing after the United States was attacked on 9-11. That’s how we responded to all the attacks that preceded 9-11 since the late 1970s. Islamists concluded we were weak and vulnerable. After the Holocaust, the Jews vowed "Never again." Americans must do the same after 9-11. The question we all must answer is whether, like our parent’s and grandparent’s generation, we have the patience to wage a long war against an ideological enemy as evil as the former Soviet Union? This is a cautionary tale for all states that cannot or will not balance their budgets. The newly elected Governor of New Jersey, the multimillionaire former Wall Street executive and former Senator, John Corzine, a Democrat, made all the same promises that his predecessors did. He would not raise taxes. He would get control over the State’s budget. Blah, blah, blah. Naturally, a majority of this very blue state’s population voted for him. In fairness, they also had voted for Christie Whitman, a Republican, who promised a huge tax cut and then set about borrowing New Jersey into the poor house. The one Governor who did raise taxes was James Florio, a Democrat, and the voters could not wait to get him replaced. Unfortunately, they did that with Ms. Whitman.
In my home State of New Jersey the proposed 2007 budget is the highest ever. It is $30.9 billion, $2.6 billion higher than the last one. Nearly half of the increase is allocated to the public employee pension system that past governors have ignored. New revenue will be raised with an increase in the sales tax, the first in 16 years. The immediate response from the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee was that "The last thing we will consider is any revenue-raisers." Years ago when the sales tax was introduced and gambling in Atlantic City was approved, New Jerseyeans were told that these revenues would solve all problems. No one mentioned the inclination of the legislature to spend money as fast as it came in and then borrow more. Among the other budget proposals are increases in the "sin" taxes on tobacco, alcohol, as well as luxury cars. There’s a proposal to increase taxes on municipal drinking water to upgrade the state’s water distribution system. Hardest hit will be the state’s colleges and universities, and the thousand state workers that will be laid off. Everyone, the middle class and blue-collar folk are going to take a hit. A friend of mine, Dr. Murray Sabrin, Ph.D. is professor of finance in the School of Business at Ramapo College of New Jersey where he is also the executive director of the Center for Business and Public Policy. He is always speaking truth to power. They hate that. Recently Dr. Sabrin offered Gov. Corzine some perfectly sensible alternatives to the Big Government Welfare State conjured up in the dark recesses of Drumthwacket, the official mansion. For example, Dr. Sabrin recommends that the Governor and the legislature amend the State Constitution to abolish the "thorough and efficient" education clause that is sucking tax money into a black hole. Like the rest of the nation, the State’s school administrators are in a panic over the fact that most of the kids imprisoned in the present system can’t pass the mandatory U.S. Department of Education, one-size-fits-all, tests that determine how much money New Jersey gets from the feds. The huge pay packages of school superintendents are drawing attention as well. In the past, the "solutions" to paying for schools that prepare students for nothing in particular has been to raise property taxes. That might account for why people have been fleeing New Jersey to move just about anywhere else. According to a U.S. Census estimate, 56,989 more residents have left New Jersey than moved in from other states. Dr. Sabrin thinks the NJ Constitution should be amended to prevent the NJ Supreme Court from ordering the legislature or the executive branch to spend money for any purpose. He also wants to change the State Constitution to give land use decisions back to the people or their elected representatives in the places where they actually live. One massive land grab by the State called the "Highlands Act" has reduced the value of homes, farms, and other property in a huge swath of northern New Jersey to zero. Dr. Sabrin wants the State to institute zero-based budgeting. All state agencies would have to justify every dollar they intend to spend. There are a dozen or more other recommendations by Dr. Sabrin that will be ignored by Governor Corzine and the State’s legislators. New Jerseyeans can look forward to seeing their sales, income, and property taxes rise in lieu of any fiscal restraint. State bond offerings will, sooner or later, be downgraded to junk status. New Jersey is broke. Some people are beginning to take notice. If reading Warning Signs has sent a chill up your spine, that’s surely worth supporting the Center with a donate. If you prefer, you can send a check payable to The Caruba Organization, 28 West Third Street, Suite 1321, South Orange, NJ 07079. Thanks!
©
2006 Alan Caruba. |
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The irony of this is that the United States did in Iraq what the Iranians most wanted done, the removal of Saddam Hussein. They had fought Iraq for eight years during the 1980s, losing about 300,000 with a million more wounded and captured. That would have been the population equivalent of a million American war dead and 4 million wounded and captured. 
So, in the end, the voters have actively and tacitly endorsed borrowing and spending no matter who was Governor. The members of the legislature took notice. They apparently never saw a spending bill they didn’t embrace and were aided in this madness by a State Supreme Court that ignored the State’s Constitution to mandate that $8 billion be spent to make the schools in our urban centers just as expensive as those in our suburbs.