Failed Foreign-Policy Feeding Frenzy

The final wounds in the flesh of the 'debate' about whether Bush's foreign policy is an abject failure appear to be fatal.


Progressives have long argued that the invasion of Iraq was a risky and unnecessary diversion from real threats facing us globally, but even 'leaked' documents showing how the Iraq War has hurt us in the fight against ideological extremism did not seem to quiet Bush loyalists. Cries of treason and labels of "cut and run" filled the airwaves in response to even the most sensible calls for accountability, but now even the president's own have turned on him like sharks in blood-filled waters.

The original advocates of the doctrine of 'pre-emptive war' - the neoconservative cabal of Richard Perle, Kenneth Adelman, David Frum, Michael Rubin and others - have now in unison publicly decried the incompetence of the Bush Administration and the failures of its foreign policy:

[Vanity Fair Contributing Editor David Rose] spen[t] the better part of two weeks in conversations with some of the most respected voices among the neoconservative elite. What [he] discover[ed] is that none of them is optimistic. All of them have regrets, not only about what has happened but also, in many cases, about the roles they played. Their dismay extends beyond the tactical issues of whether America did right or wrong, to the underlying question of whether exporting democracy is something America knows how to do.

Perle himself now questions the wisdom of the Iraq invasion due to Bush's incompetence (however does not acknowledge that prior warnings of dire consequences from then-ignored Middle East experts came to pass with alarming accuracy):

Perle goes so far as to say that, if he had his time over, he would not have advocated an invasion of Iraq: "I think if I had been delphic, and had seen where we are today, and people had said, 'Should we go into Iraq?,' I think now I probably would have said, 'No, let's consider other strategies for dealing with the thing that concerns us most, which is Saddam supplying weapons of mass destruction to terrorists.'

Sigh.


Perle's close friend and Iraq War catalyst, Ahmad Chalabi has also turned on the Administration that championed him as a hero of the Iraq War cause:

Chalabi thinks the U.S. should have exited quickly and turned things over to Iraqis, such as himself and Moktada al-Sadr. "It was a puppet show!" he says referring to the occupation. "The worst of all worlds. We were in charge, and we had no power."

He adds: "America betrays its friends. It sets them up and betrays them. I'd rather be America's enemy."

The interesting side note to these betrayals is that all of their original recipes for success in Iraq - oddly similar to many of the assumptions made by the Bush Administration - have in common one major fatal flaw: They all fail to take into account the possibility for unintended consequences that major undertakings (for example...let's see, ah: war) inevitably bring. They ignored the warnings from experts and the (likely) possibility that things could go wrong, and worse, they failed to plan for contingencies. At least we know which flaw attracted them to each other in the first place; ironic that this same flaw would doom their relationship. Not unlike how blood in the water attracts sharks, only to result in ripping into each others' flesh as the chum is consumed and the frenzy escalates.

Finally - as if eating your mate wasn't bad enough - the rest of the school have joined the fray, and the frenzy has reached critical mass:

An editorial scheduled to appear on Monday in Army Times, Air Force Times, Navy Times and Marine Corps Times, calls for the resignation of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

The papers are sold to American servicemen and women.

[snip]

Time for Rumsfeld to go

"So long as our government requires the backing of an aroused and informed public opinion...it is necessary to tell the hard bruising truth."

That statement was written by Pulitzer Prize-winning war correspondent Marguerite Higgins more than a half-century ago during the Korean War.

But until recently, the "hard bruising" truth about the Iraq war has been difficult to come by from leaders in Washington. One rosy reassurance after another has been handed down by President Bush, Vice President Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld: "mission accomplished," the insurgency is "in its last throes," and "back off," we know what we're doing, are a few choice examples.

Military leaders generally toed the line, although a few retired generals eventually spoke out from the safety of the sidelines, inciting criticism equally from anti-war types, who thought they should have spoken out while still in uniform, and pro-war foes, who thought the generals should have kept their critiques behind closed doors.

Now, however, a new chorus of criticism is beginning to resonate. Active-duty military leaders are starting to voice misgivings about the war's planning, execution and dimming prospects for success.

Was all of this avoidable? Sure. Evolving past a prehistoric, self-defeating attack-response helps.

Step 1 is this 'chorus of criticism' resonating all the way to the polls on Tuesday.


UPDATE: Add to the list of repudiations an op-ed from The American Conservative - founded by Pat Buchanan - titled, "The GOP Must Go." I kid you not. Pat Buchanan is from the isolationist wing of the conservative movement, and for those reasons has long criticized Bush for invading Iraq, so none of this is a real surprise. The larger point is that this clearly shows the widening fissures within the Republican Party, as isolationists battle neoconservatives battle the religious right battles the fiscal conservatives, and (what's left of) the moderates battles them all. The Party has clearly gotten to big for its britches:

...America’s image in the world, its capacity to persuade others that its interests are common interests, is lower than it has been in memory. All over the world people look at Bush and yearn for this country—which once symbolized hope and justice—to be humbled....

There may be little Americans can do to atone for this presidency, which will stain our country’s reputation for a long time. But the process of recovering our good name must begin somewhere, and the logical place is in the voting booth this Nov. 7. [emphasis mine]

Anyone other conservatives who would like to join in the frenzy? All are invited!

(Thanks to John in DC for originally posting this.)