Why did we invade Iraq? You and I and others have discussed all kinds of possibilities including fear of Hussein’s WMDs (thus far non-existent), punishing him for helping alQaeda (unproven), US desire for oil (also unproven) and a policy of ignorant idealism perpetrated by a cabal of neo-conservatives.
To my mind, the last is the explanation that most closely accounts for the facts.
But Ian Buruma’s OP-ED piece in today’s New York Times forces me to add another answer to the question of why - lack of intelligence. I use "intelligence" to mean "ability to think."
"One year later," Buruma writes, "most of the stated reasons for invading Iraq have been discredited. But advocates of the war still have one compelling argument: our troops are not there to impose American values or even Western values, but "universal" ones. The underlying assumption is that the United States itself represents these universal values, and that freedom to pursue happiness, to elect our own leaders and to trade in open markets, should be shared by all, regardless of creed, history, race or culture.
…..history shows that the forceful imposition of even decent ideas in the claim of universalism tends to backfire — creating not converts but enemies who will do anything to defend their blood and soil."
Buruma offers lessons from history to back his thesis before returning to the current mess:
"Arab and Muslim extremism may never become as lethal or powerful as the 20th-century German strain, but it has already taken a terrible toll. Once again a nation with a universalist mission to liberate the world is creating dangerous enemies (and once again Jews are being blamed). This is not necessarily because the Islamic world hates democracy, but because the use of armed force - combined with the hypocrisy of going after one dictator while coddling others, the arrogant zealotry of some American ideologues and the failures of a ham-handed occupation - are giving America's democratic mission a bad name."
Buruma’s piece makes me wonder how US policymakers ever thought they could bomb Iraq into democracy, the Mideast into modernity. Ignorance of history? Sure, but that’s not a complete explanation. You would also have to be unable to think to reach the cabal’s conclusions.
So add lack of intelligence to the list of explanations of our nation’s murderous mistake.
Posted by Arthur Alpert at March 17, 2004 04:13 PM