Here is a catch up piece.This is an overview of the situation leading up to the Iraqi war.
And the year of the Iran - Iraq war -1980’s
Iraq --an aggressive brand of Pan Arab nationalism similar to Nasser’s
Iran --a revolutionary dictatorship of clerics.
A death struggle between fear and faith.
Neoconservatives -- late ‘60s – small group of liberal intellectuals got turned off by Vietnam, black power, and student revolution era --one explanation of a neocon is a liberal who has been mugged by reality.
The first generation neocon was Sen. Henry (Scoop) Jackson, Norman Podhoretz, Irving Kristol, Daniel Patrick Moynihan. The primary concern of this group was communism. The magazine- Commentary and an article by the “Committee on Present Danger” related to earlier idea of left-wing version of world historical struggle.
“Human Rights” at center of Carter foreign policy was a threat to “friends”, (dictatorships) in Nicaragua, South Africa, Iran. They were seen as bulwarks against communism.
Jean Kirkpatrick in Commentary “Dictatorships and Double Standards” argued that human resource do-gooders undermined America’s “friends”. Reagan agreed and he named Jean Kirkpatrick as the Ambassador to the U.N.
Reagan, a neocon champion-- they treated intellectual combat as an extension of the political and even the weaponized kind
Reagan prevented putting “morality and foreign policy” plank in party platform. Reagan had different concept, not only defeating communism but promoting democracy around globe.
Robert Kagan -- feared America’s drift, became a staunch Reagan revolutionary. Worked under Elliot Abrams concerning South America
Reagan supported authoritarian regimes in name of national interest, even in regimes that committed genocide such as against the Kurds.
Ideals – transformational power of American values.
After end of Cold War neocons drifted
Kirkpatrick -- I am a liberal: in foreign policy.
In foreign policy the conservative tradition is minimalist realism, this reflects ideals as well as national interest. Kirkpatrick supported invasion of Haiti on behalf of elected government.
Sen. McCain felt involvement in messy wars like Bosnia led to “quagmires”.
“Vital national interest” precluded our involvement in Yugoslavia and Ruanda -- it was not our business. Kirkpatrick urged use of U.S. unrivaled power to pursue its values and interests. Those values might be universal but only one power, the U.S. could secure them. Somewhat like Britain in (Kipling’s) “white man’s burden”.
Kirkpatrick dismissed liberals “international law” with only airy “humanitarianism “on their side. “
“The present Democrat leadership simply does not have the stomach for world leadership”.
Kirkpatrick dismissed Bush I’s “realism” wished to restore higher aims of Reagan
Defense Planning Guidance (DPG) became foreign policy of Bush II. Written under Wolfowitz guidance the new threats were everywhere and the remedy was American power everywhere. But not in the cause of democratic values, the DPG advocated “democratic forms of government and open economic systems” only as a gesture. The objective was to remain dominant power in the Middle East and preserve U.S. and Western access to oil.
Kirkpatrick and Pentagon hard-liners parted ways.
Critical of all of Jean Kirkpatrick’s article indulging right wing dictators international order was no good without freedom.
Hard-liners had no use for international alliances and institutions as they got in the way of America’s freedom to act.
Kirkpatrick allied with William Kristol and his Weekly Standard, summoned America to “benevolent global hegemony”. The first goal - taker over the Republican Party, then the nation, then the world. Kirkpatrick and Kissinger then formed “project for the new American century”
It included Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Abrams, Pearle, William Bennett, James Woolsey. Most found places in Bush II’s administration. PNA see day letter to Clinton advocating Saddam overthrow, Details of how not included, signers disagreed
Clinton signed “ Iraq Liberation Act” now official foreign policy. Wolfowitz and mid-level officials in Carter Pentagon wrote “Limit Contingency Study”, reviewed threats to interests outside Europe, ended up focusing on Persian Gulf oil: possible invasion of Kuwait or Saudi Arabia by Iraq to seize oil. Following Iran – Iraq war tilt was toward Iraq.
Reference – Sal Bellows’s “Ravelstein”- Bloom, Wolfowitz
Wolfowitz went to Cornell where his dad taught math. Influenced by Allan Bloom there :then to Chicago where Leo Strauss, Bloom’s mentor taught.
Wolfowitz was behind the ouster of Marcos in the Philippines and appalled at leaving Saddam in control in Iraq after Gulf War. 1991
Decision not to finish off Republican Guard and allow helicopters led to massacres of tens of thousands of Shiites and Kurds who had risen up against the regime.
Cheney et al, didn’t want to undermine Schwarzkopf’s field authority or risk breakup of Iraq, or if new regime were installed the Saudis would object.
Wolfowitz wanted Iraqis to do it themselves.
Wolfowitz out during Clinton years but never stop talking and writing about. Wolfowitz and Khalilizad (current Ambassador in Iraq) wrote in the Weekly Standard a piece called “Overthrow Him”
Richard Pearle introduced Bernard Lewis, Princeton professor who became an adviser on the Middle East, to Sen. Jackson and Daniel P. Moynihan who is an ambassador to U.N..
Pearle was an impresario, he personified the neocon insurgent, absolutely sure of himself, and his ideas, recruiter of intellectual talent, preparing to seize ultimate power. Albert Wohlstetter introduced Pearle to Chalabi. Pearl’s idea was to put Chalabi at head of an army of Iraqi insurgents and back them with American military power and cash. Cheney, Secretary of Defense under Bush never came through after encouraging the Shiites and they were butchered. Wurmser proposed a complex grandiose scheme to realign and stabilize the Middle East by strengthening Israel, negating the Palestinian question. “Tyranny’s Ally: America’s Failure to Defeat Saddam Hussein” by American enterprise Institute.
“It reads as if a graduate student were feverishly trying to apply the half digested comments he had learned in a classroom with Leo Strauss to subject matter he’d learned in a class with Bernard Lewis”
Wurmser wanted to reform Iraq to traditional values especially the Shiite religious tradition (about which he knew almost nothing). After Kuwait and the Kurdish uprising, Bosnia etc., this new kind of war became known as humanitarian intervention i.e. liberal hawks. The preferred intervener was the U.N. in 1994 Bosnia and Ruanda showed the U.N. not up to it.
The conservative Republicans felt “they didn’t have a dog in the fight” and held back. They tied Clinton’s hands to use the American military to fight “distant obscure wars, or provide security in the inevitable messy aftermath”. “Nation building” was anathema to Republicans.
The result was a wounded (Lewinsky) Democratic president whose two halfhearted gestures of international leadership were attacked and constrained by a Republican opposition in Congress
What the war in Iraq was hoped to accomplish. Though “the whole appeal of the idea lay in its audacity, it would be one violent push, shove history out of a deep hole. By a chain reaction, a reverse domino effect, war in Iraq would weaken the Middle East, to dictatorships and undermine its murderous ideologies and begin to spread the balm of liberal democracy”.
With a will and imagination, America could strike one great blow at terrorism, tyranny, under development, and the region’s hardest saddest problem.
This brought about some strange pairings. Instead of left and right it was interventionist and anti-intervention, revolutionaries and realists. Old-fashioned realists from the Republican establishment were on the same side as the anti-imperialist leftists and far right isolationists, liberal vets of humanitarian wars became uneasy allies of administrative hawks.
It’s hard to tell the administration’s intentions, they’re secretive, possibly hypocritical, possibly sincere. Liberalism shouldn’t be undertaken with missionaries zeal. The attempt to impose on the theocratic and autocratic Middle East from outside by force, on the simple faith that people everywhere long to be free -- end of story.
Kanan Makiya-- architect and Iraqi exiled intellectual, worked on (Plan for Postwar Iraq) opposed by Said. Became enamored of Chalabi and thought he would be good leader (Future of Iraq Project)
Ahmad Chilabi --- Jordanian banker, convicted in absentia of fraud, embezzlement, theft and forgery. He became a choice of the CIA and Pentagon for future role. Fell out of favor then back in ????. Makiya felt Chalabi (INC, Iraqi National Congress)the most likely of Iraqi leaders to go democratic, despite his many failings. It is from this source, Chalabi and Pearle, and the exiles they produced to bolster Bushes already plan for war that much misinformation was fed the Bush administration.
Since the CIA was totally in the dark yet trying to suck up to the president and no one else had a clue, the scenario was played out successfully, even to the extent of convincing Colin Powell, who was very much opposed to war with Iraq, that Saddam had WMD and chemical and biological assets. CIA head Tenent came up with the assertion that it was “a slam dunk” the information was correct.
Subsequent events.proved all of the information to be false or twisted to suit Bush’ plan. The Commission to Investigate 9/11, led by Keane and Hamilton had as its executive administrator Phillip Zelikow, a scholar from Indiana U. who had worked for the Bush campaign and written a paper that was subsequently pick up by the Bush gang and utilized as rationalization for the war. The commission came up with much damning evidence. The group itself however did not write its report, Zelikow did. It turned out to be a thorough whitewash, in large part this was due, it turns out, because of Zelikow’s association with Karl Rove. So the story continues to unfold of how this administration has orchestrated the most horrendous blunder in our history and continues to put up a defiant front claiming that all the blood and treasure loss “was worth it”. Bush and his crew have unintentionally played into the hand of both bin Laden and the Iranians and the M.E. is less stable now than it has ever been since Lawrence of Arabia was raging through the land.
And the year of the Iran - Iraq war -1980’s
Iraq --an aggressive brand of Pan Arab nationalism similar to Nasser’s
Iran --a revolutionary dictatorship of clerics.
A death struggle between fear and faith.
Neoconservatives -- late ‘60s – small group of liberal intellectuals got turned off by Vietnam, black power, and student revolution era --one explanation of a neocon is a liberal who has been mugged by reality.
The first generation neocon was Sen. Henry (Scoop) Jackson, Norman Podhoretz, Irving Kristol, Daniel Patrick Moynihan. The primary concern of this group was communism. The magazine- Commentary and an article by the “Committee on Present Danger” related to earlier idea of left-wing version of world historical struggle.
“Human Rights” at center of Carter foreign policy was a threat to “friends”, (dictatorships) in Nicaragua, South Africa, Iran. They were seen as bulwarks against communism.
Jean Kirkpatrick in Commentary “Dictatorships and Double Standards” argued that human resource do-gooders undermined America’s “friends”. Reagan agreed and he named Jean Kirkpatrick as the Ambassador to the U.N.
Reagan, a neocon champion-- they treated intellectual combat as an extension of the political and even the weaponized kind
Reagan prevented putting “morality and foreign policy” plank in party platform. Reagan had different concept, not only defeating communism but promoting democracy around globe.
Robert Kagan -- feared America’s drift, became a staunch Reagan revolutionary. Worked under Elliot Abrams concerning South America
Reagan supported authoritarian regimes in name of national interest, even in regimes that committed genocide such as against the Kurds.
Ideals – transformational power of American values.
After end of Cold War neocons drifted
Kirkpatrick -- I am a liberal: in foreign policy.
In foreign policy the conservative tradition is minimalist realism, this reflects ideals as well as national interest. Kirkpatrick supported invasion of Haiti on behalf of elected government.
Sen. McCain felt involvement in messy wars like Bosnia led to “quagmires”.
“Vital national interest” precluded our involvement in Yugoslavia and Ruanda -- it was not our business. Kirkpatrick urged use of U.S. unrivaled power to pursue its values and interests. Those values might be universal but only one power, the U.S. could secure them. Somewhat like Britain in (Kipling’s) “white man’s burden”.
Kirkpatrick dismissed liberals “international law” with only airy “humanitarianism “on their side. “
“The present Democrat leadership simply does not have the stomach for world leadership”.
Kirkpatrick dismissed Bush I’s “realism” wished to restore higher aims of Reagan
Defense Planning Guidance (DPG) became foreign policy of Bush II. Written under Wolfowitz guidance the new threats were everywhere and the remedy was American power everywhere. But not in the cause of democratic values, the DPG advocated “democratic forms of government and open economic systems” only as a gesture. The objective was to remain dominant power in the Middle East and preserve U.S. and Western access to oil.
Kirkpatrick and Pentagon hard-liners parted ways.
Critical of all of Jean Kirkpatrick’s article indulging right wing dictators international order was no good without freedom.
Hard-liners had no use for international alliances and institutions as they got in the way of America’s freedom to act.
Kirkpatrick allied with William Kristol and his Weekly Standard, summoned America to “benevolent global hegemony”. The first goal - taker over the Republican Party, then the nation, then the world. Kirkpatrick and Kissinger then formed “project for the new American century”
It included Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Abrams, Pearle, William Bennett, James Woolsey. Most found places in Bush II’s administration. PNA see day letter to Clinton advocating Saddam overthrow, Details of how not included, signers disagreed
Clinton signed “ Iraq Liberation Act” now official foreign policy. Wolfowitz and mid-level officials in Carter Pentagon wrote “Limit Contingency Study”, reviewed threats to interests outside Europe, ended up focusing on Persian Gulf oil: possible invasion of Kuwait or Saudi Arabia by Iraq to seize oil. Following Iran – Iraq war tilt was toward Iraq.
Reference – Sal Bellows’s “Ravelstein”- Bloom, Wolfowitz
Wolfowitz went to Cornell where his dad taught math. Influenced by Allan Bloom there :then to Chicago where Leo Strauss, Bloom’s mentor taught.
Wolfowitz was behind the ouster of Marcos in the Philippines and appalled at leaving Saddam in control in Iraq after Gulf War. 1991
Decision not to finish off Republican Guard and allow helicopters led to massacres of tens of thousands of Shiites and Kurds who had risen up against the regime.
Cheney et al, didn’t want to undermine Schwarzkopf’s field authority or risk breakup of Iraq, or if new regime were installed the Saudis would object.
Wolfowitz wanted Iraqis to do it themselves.
Wolfowitz out during Clinton years but never stop talking and writing about. Wolfowitz and Khalilizad (current Ambassador in Iraq) wrote in the Weekly Standard a piece called “Overthrow Him”
Richard Pearle introduced Bernard Lewis, Princeton professor who became an adviser on the Middle East, to Sen. Jackson and Daniel P. Moynihan who is an ambassador to U.N..
Pearle was an impresario, he personified the neocon insurgent, absolutely sure of himself, and his ideas, recruiter of intellectual talent, preparing to seize ultimate power. Albert Wohlstetter introduced Pearle to Chalabi. Pearl’s idea was to put Chalabi at head of an army of Iraqi insurgents and back them with American military power and cash. Cheney, Secretary of Defense under Bush never came through after encouraging the Shiites and they were butchered. Wurmser proposed a complex grandiose scheme to realign and stabilize the Middle East by strengthening Israel, negating the Palestinian question. “Tyranny’s Ally: America’s Failure to Defeat Saddam Hussein” by American enterprise Institute.
“It reads as if a graduate student were feverishly trying to apply the half digested comments he had learned in a classroom with Leo Strauss to subject matter he’d learned in a class with Bernard Lewis”
Wurmser wanted to reform Iraq to traditional values especially the Shiite religious tradition (about which he knew almost nothing). After Kuwait and the Kurdish uprising, Bosnia etc., this new kind of war became known as humanitarian intervention i.e. liberal hawks. The preferred intervener was the U.N. in 1994 Bosnia and Ruanda showed the U.N. not up to it.
The conservative Republicans felt “they didn’t have a dog in the fight” and held back. They tied Clinton’s hands to use the American military to fight “distant obscure wars, or provide security in the inevitable messy aftermath”. “Nation building” was anathema to Republicans.
The result was a wounded (Lewinsky) Democratic president whose two halfhearted gestures of international leadership were attacked and constrained by a Republican opposition in Congress
What the war in Iraq was hoped to accomplish. Though “the whole appeal of the idea lay in its audacity, it would be one violent push, shove history out of a deep hole. By a chain reaction, a reverse domino effect, war in Iraq would weaken the Middle East, to dictatorships and undermine its murderous ideologies and begin to spread the balm of liberal democracy”.
With a will and imagination, America could strike one great blow at terrorism, tyranny, under development, and the region’s hardest saddest problem.
This brought about some strange pairings. Instead of left and right it was interventionist and anti-intervention, revolutionaries and realists. Old-fashioned realists from the Republican establishment were on the same side as the anti-imperialist leftists and far right isolationists, liberal vets of humanitarian wars became uneasy allies of administrative hawks.
It’s hard to tell the administration’s intentions, they’re secretive, possibly hypocritical, possibly sincere. Liberalism shouldn’t be undertaken with missionaries zeal. The attempt to impose on the theocratic and autocratic Middle East from outside by force, on the simple faith that people everywhere long to be free -- end of story.
Kanan Makiya-- architect and Iraqi exiled intellectual, worked on (Plan for Postwar Iraq) opposed by Said. Became enamored of Chalabi and thought he would be good leader (Future of Iraq Project)
Ahmad Chilabi --- Jordanian banker, convicted in absentia of fraud, embezzlement, theft and forgery. He became a choice of the CIA and Pentagon for future role. Fell out of favor then back in ????. Makiya felt Chalabi (INC, Iraqi National Congress)the most likely of Iraqi leaders to go democratic, despite his many failings. It is from this source, Chalabi and Pearle, and the exiles they produced to bolster Bushes already plan for war that much misinformation was fed the Bush administration.
Since the CIA was totally in the dark yet trying to suck up to the president and no one else had a clue, the scenario was played out successfully, even to the extent of convincing Colin Powell, who was very much opposed to war with Iraq, that Saddam had WMD and chemical and biological assets. CIA head Tenent came up with the assertion that it was “a slam dunk” the information was correct.
Subsequent events.proved all of the information to be false or twisted to suit Bush’ plan. The Commission to Investigate 9/11, led by Keane and Hamilton had as its executive administrator Phillip Zelikow, a scholar from Indiana U. who had worked for the Bush campaign and written a paper that was subsequently pick up by the Bush gang and utilized as rationalization for the war. The commission came up with much damning evidence. The group itself however did not write its report, Zelikow did. It turned out to be a thorough whitewash, in large part this was due, it turns out, because of Zelikow’s association with Karl Rove. So the story continues to unfold of how this administration has orchestrated the most horrendous blunder in our history and continues to put up a defiant front claiming that all the blood and treasure loss “was worth it”. Bush and his crew have unintentionally played into the hand of both bin Laden and the Iranians and the M.E. is less stable now than it has ever been since Lawrence of Arabia was raging through the land.
posted by Don.B. | 8:47 AM
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