Saturday, December 03, 2005
On the matter of timetables
On the flight from Melbourne to Tokyo I finished William Shawcross' book on the Iraq war, Allies. In a discussion of the eagerness of the French and the Germans after the war to demand an aggressive timetable for the United States to turn over power in Iraq, Shawcross addresses the absurdity of demanding historically instantaneous transitions in Iraq:
And yet it was, suggesting perhaps that history will reveal the United States to have done a better job in Iraq than received wisdom currently ascribes.
Also, it doesn't take much imagination to realize that Shawcross's comparisons of Iraq to other nation-building exercises applies as well to arguments that we would improve the situation by withdrawing our military from that country, even if that is not the context in which he wrote those words.
Why should such speed be forced upon Iraq? The UN had occupied Bosnia for seven years before giving the locals power; it has been occupying Kosovo for four years; and Servio Vieira de Mello had ruled East Timor for two years before the territory won its independence.
All these places -- particularly tiny East Timor, half an island with a homogenous population of less than 1 million -- were far, far simpler than Iraq. Even the horrors of ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and Kosovo were nothing compared to the horrors of genocide, mass murder, and mayhem visited on Iraq by decades of tyranny from Saddam's rule and by those who sought to create chaos in his absence.
Moreover, even if all were peace and harmony, there were six times as many Iraqis as Bosnians, more than twenty-three times as many Iraqis as East Timorese. How could transfer of power possibly be achieved more quickly in Iraq than in such places?
And yet it was, suggesting perhaps that history will reveal the United States to have done a better job in Iraq than received wisdom currently ascribes.
Also, it doesn't take much imagination to realize that Shawcross's comparisons of Iraq to other nation-building exercises applies as well to arguments that we would improve the situation by withdrawing our military from that country, even if that is not the context in which he wrote those words.
1 Comments:
By 
Cassandra, at
Mon Dec 05, 05:24:00 AM:
Not to say "I told you so", but I've made this argument on several occasions :)
