Perspective: The Iraq Quandary

We find Iraq in the news again with this question being asked of presidential candidates:

 

If you knew then what you know now about WMD, would you still have invaded Iraq?” The answer today would be an unequivocal NO”

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The problem our leaders had IN 2003 was that they were operating in the atmosphere of our having already being attacked on US soil by radical Islamists with the loss of 3000 American lives. Everyone believed that Saddam had WMD because of these facts:  In 1981 Israel bombed Iraq’s Osirak nuclear research facility, in 1988 Saddam used Chemical and biological weapons against his own country men, and then he went out of his way to pretend that he still had stocks of these devices by tricking the UN inspectors. Is it any wonder that the world’s intelligence community believed without doubt in 2003 that Saddam Hussein had WMD and that he might use them against Americans or their Allies or transfer them to radical Islamic terrorists?

 

Actually, after we captured Saddam, he admitted to our FBI agent, George Piro, that he had WMD and got rid of them, but he nevertheless pretended he have them to fool the UN inspectors and Iran. He also admitted to Piro that he did not believe President Bush would invade and also that he planned to rebuild his WMD stock, including nuclear weapons, as soon as the furor blew over.

 

A more appropriate and pertinent question related to the current Iraq problem is this:

 

“If you  invaded Iraq and spent 4400 military lives and a trillion dollars to convert it to a viable democracy, and by 2009, six years after the invasion, Iraq was well on the way to achieving that goal, would you have left Iraq prematurely in 2011 knowing that the Iraq Army was not ready to defend against an outside invader?

 

That the Iraq Army dropped their weapons and ran when ISIS invaded should not have come as any surprise. The Gulf War in 1991 lasted only 100 hours, and the 2003 invasion of Iraq, in the face of a massive sand storm, lasted only 3 months as the Iraq Army dropped their weapons and ran in both wars.

 

Sadly, most Americans then and today wouldn’t support George W Bush’s challenge to build a democracy in Iraq because that goal was “nation building”, and that was certainly not possible with Arabs. However, a little history would have reminded them that the United States did exactly that successfully twice.

 

Consider this! During WWII, we invaded Germany and Japan, captured the dictators Hitler and Hirohito and ripped the governments apart, just like we did to Iraq in 2003. However, the US leaders of WWII knew that after the invasion they had to leave behind democracies that were strong and stable that would survive after the occupying troops left. So, we set about creating democratic governments in Germany and Japan.

 

Building a democracy in Germany was relatively easy because it was a viable democracy before the Nazi destroyed that form of government. General Dwight Eisenhower commanded the occupational forces in Germany, and the US instituted the Marshall Plan, named for Secretary of State George Marshall to bolster the plan. These giant leaders helped rebuild Germany and restore its economic viability. The US and its Allies occupied Germany from 1945 to 1955. Today, Germany is a democracy and one of our greatest allies.

 

By contrast, Japan was headed by an Emperor who was considered a divine godlike figure. Japan had no political parties, had no free elections and women had no rights. The government flowed downward from the Emperor which was a hereditary dictatorship and the people existed to serve it. Few if any believed that Japan could become a viable democracy, but the United States and its Allies achieved that goal!

 

General Douglas MacArthur was appointed Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers to oversee the occupation of Japan. He decided not to establish a US military government, but rather to create a constitution based government. Initially he tried to have the Japanese people write the constitution, but when that did not produce a satisfactory result; he had his staff write it. However, the greatest question was what to do about Emperor Hirohito.  MacArthur persuaded the US Administration and the Allies that Emperor Hirohito should not be executed as a war criminal because that would needlessly anger the Japanese by destroying their sacred symbol.   MacArthur then convinced Hirohito to renounce his divine or godlike position, and on January 1, 1946 Emperor Hirhito publicly announced that he was not a divine or godlike figure and that the Japanese people were not superior to other races and fated to rule the world as the Japanese citizenry all believed. The US occupied Japan from 1945 to 1955, and today Japan is a viable democracy and one of our staunchest allies.

 

Perhaps history isn’t taught anymore. But that shouldn’t even matter! Think about this! In 2011 when we pulled our troops out of Iraq, over 100 million US citizens had the world’s largest encyclopedia glued to the palms of their hands (the I-Phone). One touch of the I-phone or even a spoken word and in seconds anyone could have learned what MacArthur did in Japan, how he did it, how long it took and most importantly, that it worked.

 

In summary, in 2015 Japan and Germany are strong democracies; their people are vibrant, safe and our greatest allies. By contrast President Obama, using the powers of Commander in Chief, in one year in 2011, unilaterally and without approval of Congress, of anyone else, not only pulled our troops from Iraq before Iraq could become a full fledged democracy capable of defending itself, but he “lead from behind” to kill Gaddafi of Libya, got Mubarak out of Egypt and “drew a line in the sand” in an attempt to oust Assad of Syria.  Now he negotiates with the Shiite Iranians, the stark enemies of our Sunni Allies about an atomic bomb which the agreement permits the Iranians to build in ten years, a mere speck of time when you think that this land goes back to Mesopotamia.

 

Meanwhile there is no strategy or plan to restore order in those leaderless countries.  Thus Iraq, Syria and Libya are in shambles, and their citizens are at the mercy of the heinous ravishes of ISIS. Egypt would be in the same state were it not for President Sisi who restored stability to that country. Meanwhile, the US has no realistic plan to help the Iraqis let alone the Libyans and Syrians. Moreover, there is no democratic government in Iraq for the rest of the Middle East countries to model. But the biggest problem is yet to come.

 

What happens to the Middle East and, yes the world, when Iraq acquires the atom bomb in a mere ten years? You know the answer!!

 

Maybe this historic blunder by the United States has occurred because we have no leaders like Eisenhower, Marshall, or MacArthur anymore. Certainly we have no Secretaries of Defense or Generals willing to resign in protest. Sadly, also we have no Congressional leaders to use their Constitutional Authority to rein in or remove the President. Then in 2012 when ‘We the People” had the power to remove him with the vote, we followed Sandra Fluck, a mid-thirties single woman who was in desperate need of gratis contraceptives, and they voted to stop  the Republican War against women.  We deserve the government that we get! Unfortunately the Middle East world that depends upon us does not deserve what we have wrought. We should be ashamed!!