Friday February 24th 2006, 8:21 pm
Behold William F. Buckley, excuse maker. "One can’t doubt that the American objective in Iraq has failed," Buckley
begins, stating what some of us knew six months before the invasion
(neocons are slow learners). "Our mission has failed because Iraqi
animosities have proved uncontainable by an invading army of 130,000
Americans," continues the former CIA agent. "The great human reserves
that call for civil life haven’t proved strong enough. No doubt they
are latently there, but they have not been able to contend against the
ice men who move about in the shadows with bombs and grenades and
pistols."
In other words, for Buckley and no doubt many of
his neocon fellows, the Iraqis are incapable of "civil life," never
mind the underpinnings of such a life were systematically shock and
awed to smithereens. As is often documented here, the "ice men" work
for the Pentagon, the CIA, and the British SAS. Others are criminals
taking advantage of a terrible situation. Bill is unable to admit all
of this because he believes, or expects us to believe, the Pentagon
failed its "mission."
Of course, the Pentagon did not fail its
mission. Its mission was to destroy Iraq and that is precisely what it
did. Now it will attempt to destroy Iran, although that will be a tough
nut to crack.
It is interesting to witness neocons in
turmoil. For instance, Reuel Marc Gerecht, another former CIA
operative, although it is said there is nothing former with the
CIA—you’re in for life, unless you pushed pencils or swept floors.
Gerecht
"now speaks of the bombing of the especially sacred Shiite mosque in
Samara and what that has precipitated in the way of revenge," writes
Bill. "He concludes that 'The bombing has completely demolished’ what
was being attempted—to bring Sunnis into the defense and interior
ministries."
It can also be said the bombing accomplished
what Gerecht’s Straussian neocon contemporaries had in mind all
along—destroying Iraqi society and culture and in the process breaking
the country into several small, easily manageable pieces to be lorded
over by hand-picked crime bosses. "If President Bush follows his own
logic and compels his administration to follow him against Iraq and
Iran, then he will sow the seeds for a new, safer, more liberal order
in the Middle East," Gerecht said before reality snuck up and knocked
him off his feet. Of course it is entirely possible he said this
because it printed nicely in newspapers and magazines.
Next,
Buckley takes a can of paint and paints himself into a corner in short
order. "Mr. Bush has a very difficult internal problem here because to
make the kind of concession that is strategically appropriate requires
a mitigation of policies he has several times affirmed in high-flown
pronouncements. His challenge is to persuade himself that he can submit
to a historical reality without forswearing basic commitments in
foreign policy."
It does not matter what Bush said three
years ago or what he will say next week. In Bushzarro world, a
cardboard president, who is in fact not a president because presidents
are elected, not appointed by judges, can say whatever he likes about
democracy in Iraq because words and speeches are meaningless. Iraq is
not a democracy. It was never the purpose of the Straussian neocons to
install a democracy in Iraq. Straussian neocons are anathema to
democracy both at home and abroad. It was never the intention of the
Straussian neocons in control of the White House and the Pentagon to
liberate the Iraqi people but rather cut them off at the knees.
In this sense, the Iraqi Mission was a smashing success, pun most assuredly intended.
I’m
not sure if Bill Buckley knows this. Or it may be his task to sell the
prospect that the Straussian neocon project, while fizzy with
heart-felt intention and liberatory idealism, has failed because our
rulers were blind to mean-spirited "ice men who move about in the
shadows with bombs and grenades and pistols."
Of course, this is racist and xenophobic nonsense.
Before
the invasion of Iraq, some of us read up on the Straussian neocons and
took them at their word. "Creative destruction is our middle name. We
do it automatically," declared Michael Ledeen
in the very same magazine where Buckley publishes his regrets. Another
National Review contributor and fellow neocon warrior is Adam Mersereau, who wrote:
The
kind of warfare that not only destroys the enemy’s military forces, but
also brings the enemy society to an extremely personal point of
decision, so that they are willing to accept a reversal of the cultural
trends that spawned the war in the first place. A total war strategy
does not have to include the intentional targeting of civilians, but
the sparing of civilian lives cannot be its first priority. … The
purpose of total war is to permanently force your will onto another
people group. Limited war pits combatants against combatants, while
total war pits nation against nation, and even culture against culture.
Ledeen
was miffed because this quotation is attributed to him. But it does not
matter if a brusque Marine said it or a less taciturn Ledeen—it
encapsulates the Straussian neocon doctrine, as the reality on the
ground in Iraq horrifically demonstrates. "In Strauss’ view, you have
to fight all the time [to survive]," Shadia Drury,
author of 1999’s Leo Strauss and the American Right, told journalist
Jim Lobe. "In that respect, it’s very Spartan. Peace leads to
decadence. Perpetual war, not perpetual peace, is what Straussians
believe in."
Buckley would have us believe the Iraqis brought this upon themselves because they are uncivilized tribes. In fact, 250,000 dead Iraqis, civilized or otherwise, is the ultimate cost of the Straussian vision.
Bill’s crocodile tears will not wash away that hideous reality.