The 2016 election is a year and a quarter away. The issues are immigration, income inequality, shrinking opportunity, email accounts, and thoughtless comments. The Iraq War surfaced several weeks ago in an interview with then-front runner Jeb Bush in which he said that knowing what he knows now, he still thinks the war was a good idea.
Surprisingly, at least in some respects, many fellow GOP hopefuls criticized him for this statement, as though there were consensus in conservative circles that the war was a blunder. Jeb Bush quickly reversed himself and went on the offensive by blaming the Democratic leader for the rise of ISIL while she was Secretary of State. The battle of Iraq is on.
One argument increasingly heard is that the Obama administration withdrew from Iraq too early. The war was won, or nearly so, and the hard work and sacrifices of our troops were squandered by an inexperienced politician and his coterie of ideologues. Had US troops remained, the argument continues, they would have brought stability. Heads nod.
Democratic hopefuls, should they delve into detail, will note that the Iraqi government ordered the US out while the Bush administration was still in office. It isn’t clear that any effort to renegotiate the withdrawal would have yielded results. Iraqis, it may be recalled, were angry over reckless killings by American soldiers and civilian contractors and over attempts to place a pro-Washington figure atop the their political system. An effort to renegotiate might have endangered arms sales, advisory programs, and oil leases that were awarded to the US. Furthermore, the continued presence of American troops would have led to relentless attacks from al Qaeda as it reconstituted itself into ISIL.
Democratic hopefuls may welcome this turning back of the clock and pointing out blunders and turning points. They will look back not to the American withdrawal in 2011, but further back to the invasion of 2003. Had there been no invasion, there would have been no al Qaeda or ISIL. Yes, Saddam Hussein would likely be in Baghdad but considerable numbers of casualties and large sums of money would have been spared. Other heads nod.
This argument, regardless of factual basis, poses embarrassments for the Democrats as many of them supported the invasion in congressional votes and public pronouncements. GOP rivals will gleefully point out that Hillary Clinton and John Kerry were among them. Year after year they continued to fund the war, in regular budgets and supplements, with little more than demurrals.
Largely lost in this bright, tracer-filled verbal crossfire is a prominent candidate’s affiliation with the think tank that had, since the nineties, advocated regime-change in Iraq and elsewhere in the region. Jeb Bush was signatory to the Project for the New American Century, a group that included Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, and several other prominent supporters of the war, in and out of office.
Jeb Bush’s affiliation with PNAC may have been only an effort to gain the appearance of foreign-policy gravitas. If not, he can shed light on the planning of Gulf War Two. How many people In PNAC believed in the country’s WMD program and how many had alternate goals? Was any thought given to Arab volunteers coming in to wage war against the Americans, as their elder brothers and fathers came to Afghanistan to fight the Russians? Would overthrowing the Sunni minority not lead to sectarian fighting and to greater Iranian influence with the Shia majority?
Surely, many of these matters must have been addressed in conferences and papers. That’s what think tankers do – talk and write. Other heads nod.
Yes, the battle of Iraq is on. And wars of words produce as much fog as real ones.
©2015 Brian M Downing