Dan Drezner writes abut how CPA ex-advisor Larry Diamond is banging his head against the wall:
danieldrezner.com :: Daniel W. Drezner :: A sobering account of Iraq -- from a CPA advisor: Larry Diamond -- one of the biggest supporters of the notion that democracy can travel across cultures -- was an advisor to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq starting in January. No longer. The San Francisco Chronicle has a long story about Diamond's experiences in the field. He's still optimistic about democracy promotion -- but not about Iraq:
The story of Iraq, this onetime optimist believes, is a tale of missed opportunities. "We just bungled this so badly," said Diamond, a 52-year-old senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. "We just weren't honest with ourselves or with the American people about what was going to be needed to secure the country." Diamond was a senior adviser to the Coalition Provisional Authority and spent several initially hopeful months in Iraq -- lecturing on democracy, even in mosques, encouraging people to participate and helping shape laws that embodied his vision. He returned to Palo Alto in early April for a short break, then ran into an emotional brick wall, he said, when he contemplated the mess he had left behind. Last Thursday, when it came time for Diamond to return, he did not get on the plane.
Instead, he was in his office at the Hoover Tower, disillusioned over the desperate turn of events he had witnessed and what he feels was a country allowed to spin out of control, in large part, he says, because of the Bush administration's unwillingness to commit a big enough force to protect Iraqis from militias and insurgents. "You can't develop democracy without security," he said. "In Iraq, it's really a security nightmare that did not have to be. If you don't get that right, nothing else is possible. Everything else is connected to that."... His recommendations for rescuing the situation run counter to some of the policies that the Bush administration insists it will not alter. Diamond said that, in his view, the United States must more than double its current military force of about 135,000 and confront the violent Iraqi militias consistently, while offering political benefits to those who lay down their arms and accept democratic institutions.
The best he can say about the prospects in Iraq now is that, as he puts it, "civil war is not inevitable."
Read the whole thing.
Recall that this was written before Abu Ghraib. A failure to leave life in Iraq better--less nasty, less brutish, and longer--as a result of the U.S. invasion will turn what is already a strategic defeat for the United States into a strategic catastrophe.
Posted by DeLong at May 13, 2004 10:35 AM | TrackBack | | Other weblogs commenting on this postDiamond's assessment is right as to extent of the mess but the notion of more of the same is not politically viable. The troops needed are not going to be sent.
The only real option is reconstitute the Iraq Army in a big way and turn the country back to thier leadership on a day to day basis with the provison they will be monitored by an ongoing presence of US forces standing off to the side and out of harms way. We can easily mussle the Iraqi army into compiance if the occasion warrants, it's being cops that we are failing at.
As to putting the bad people back in power, turn it over to civilian courts. Let the procecutions begin for criminality during the Saddam regime. People who can take the scrutiny will stay and the others will run.
Yo:
did you hear the one about the United States Goverment?
It goes like this:
We just set sanctions on Syria for not controlling its borders and letting people into Iraq without any border control.
The joke goes like this. Sort of like blaming the Mexican Goverment for illegal aliens, and say I think we should also sanction Mexico, Huh?
So, we do not have enough troops to control the Iraq & Syria border, and infiltrators are infiltrating. Believe it or not, Pentagon- that is a US military problem and the fault of US planners (did I say planners; I meant "wingers" because they are just winging it day-by-day.
So since we do not have enough personnel to cover the border, we turn it around and blame Syria (whose back-yard are we playing in?) surely we are in another alien world...and do not understand that if you take over and invade another country and cannot find men to cover its borders in same manner that say, Sadaam did, then why is it Syria's fault, Oh, I guess they are not cooperating with the US Pentagon, man, who have thunk that would happen....
so you see, that is the joke...
sort of like the IRS fining a tax payer for being late on his taxes, but actually the taxes were in on time, but the IRS did not have enough personell in mail room to stamp the return as "received"
If this is not glorious incomptence, than what is?
Posted by: Dave S. on May 13, 2004 11:52 AMDiamond nows the basis of any state is security.
For what other reasons should people agree on being a member of one?
Security must not only in the sense of defending against an outer enemy or thugs. Iraqis had the security of free healthcare, free education (mandatory for elementry, free including university), cheap food, cheap gas, no discrimination for women etc.
Of course there were harsh conditions (and I would not have liked to live under those conditons). Refrain from critizising the regime, join the Baath party for a high level job, pay taxes etc.
But from their view all security elements are gone. There is nothing left. The US military and adminstration is not bringing any security, but has take most parts of it away and is even inducing mor insecurity.
To restart the state the iraqis will have to agree on a new pakt for security. I believe the pakt will include as initial step the eleminitation of that element that induces more insecurity - the US military. This may take some years, but history shows that there is hardly a case for another outcome.
What makes me shiver is the fact that this was all planed. From Josh Marshalls piece just a year ago:
"But to the Bush administration hawks who are guiding American foreign policy, this isn't the nightmare scenario. It's everything going as anticipated." Reread ist!
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2003/0304.marshall.html
Wonder if it's too late to sue Bush under the bait-and-switch laws? Can't remember his mentioning anything about long-term involvement, costs in the hundreds of billions, and the possibility of f*cking up the whole region.
No, that was us librul naysayers and gloom-and-doomers.
Most of the time, there's at least some pleasure to having the last laugh. Not this time.
Much as the Shrub disgusts me, I'd let him have another four years if we could rewind to the beginning of 2002, never invade Iraq, and pursue the War on Terror in a sensible manner. As much damage as Dubya could do domestically in a second term, I'd take that chance if we could miraculously undo the damage we've done to ourselves in the world.
Posted by: RT on May 13, 2004 01:40 PMBrad,
I love your site, but I'm not sure why posted the link now. It is a couple weeks out of date. You imply that this will somehow make the AG situation even more disasterous, but a quick look at posters like Baghdad Burning (and the silent Salam Pax) made it clear that short of mass genocide, forcible conversion to the 700 Club, and turning the entire country into Club Med, our image globally couldn't be worse.
That said, does the American public really care what the guys on the ground say is happening in Iraq?
If you look at the comments attached to Dan's posting you'll see that even before May, the debate was so polarized that those who think we've bungled Iraq and those who think we will accomplish the mission aren't changing their minds.
We've reached the point in this policy debate where the fence sitters have stopped sitting. They started drifting down about March. Now it's fair to say that they've picked their side of the debate - and I don't see anything that will change those minds.
Any shifting by the pundits (yes, that means you Andy Sullivan & Tom Friedman) is just show - to fit what they think their audiences want to hear, just as it's always been. I doubt their votes in the American election this Novemeber will change due to what we learned about Iraq in May.
If you're hoping the letter will spawn positive debate, then I think you're being a little too hopeful today. It's all over but the shouting - no one in America can claim not to have an opinion on Iraq or the Bush Administration anymore.
yours,
c.
Interesting take by the Hoover Institution dude, but his entire focus is on adding to the security force. Like the rest of the Hoover dudes, he seems unable to grasp the idea that the militant reaction of Iraqis could have been avoided by ... to oversimplify ... treating them with respect.
* When doling out humanitarian goods, don't give the goods to Iraqi contractors who then charge Iraqis for them.
* Secure the hospitals before you secure the Oil Ministry or stage a propoganda event in a city square.
* As part of the occupation force, include large numbers of medical teams and accompanying security forces dedicated to aiding the local citizens.
* Keep the local police forces (who know the languages, customs, and laws) on the payroll, and have prepared in advance an infrastructure that will both support them and monitor them.
* Focus your initial rebuilding efforts on items of tremendous importance to the largest number of local citizens, in order to win them over. (Instead of focusing efforts on creating your own gated enclave -- even if it means evicting 10,000 people from their homes; providing services to that enclave; and getting the oil pipelines running.)
* Enlist the support of neighboring countries who share the local culture and religions in staffing the jobs that will interface most frequently with the locals.
None of this occurs to the Hoover Institute, of course. Not surprising.
It's not clear whether Diamond is an optimist or a pessimist. He sees the situation for the disaster it's turned into and the potentially far worse situation it could become. (Are we really so stupid as to be fighting near the Shrine of Ali?) But he also seems to hold out hope that things can be still be salvaged, that the administration can throw a Hail Mary at this late stage.
After the Falluja withdrawal and Abu Ghraib it's hard to imagine anything that can save the situation, and the Rumsfeld et al. seem completely inert in the face of this spiralling disaster. For months now there have been calls for increased security personnel, and people have put forward some good ideas to get that done, yet the administration continues to say that "no requests for additional troops have been relayed to the president." (see
http://cogito.blogs.com/meditations/2004/05/a_nother_modest.html ) At least Nero took the time to fiddle as his empire crumbled around him.
Diamond's on the right track. If you apply enough force against combatants and kill enough of them, you can turn the most militant of countries into the most pacifist. I submit Japan and Germany as prime examples.
Posted by: Lawrence on May 13, 2004 04:31 PMThat's a great post, Lawrence. So let's get on with it and blow Iraq to hell and gone so the next war we have we'll have yet another country that won't become part of the 'coalition of the willing'.
I heard Larry Diamond on NPR the other night. He's probably a decent enough guy but he is still caught up in fooling himself and us.
Posted by: DSchultz on May 13, 2004 05:13 PMLawrence, I submit that you have rocks in your head. Unlike in Japan and Germany, we are now in a situation in which:
(A) If we flatten the country we currently occupy, we will turn most of the members of a billion-member worldwide society (which is already very strongly biased against us) utterly rabid -- giving some members of that society access to Pakistani A-bombs and the ability to smuggle them into our cities.
(B) Our enemies, unlike those faced in Germany and Japan, owe their ideological allegiance NOT to a defeatable central government, but to a religion separate from any particular government.
Even the fools in charge of this administration are aware that totally brutalizing Iraq in order to control it will probably turn our much bigger worldwide war into a nuclear confrontation -- and one in which we will not have a rational government as our opponent. (That, of course, is why they have, so far, refrained from steamrollering Fallujah.) Don't you think it's time you grew up and realized it, too?
Posted by: Bruce Moomaw on May 13, 2004 06:18 PMDiamond is a co-author of a foreign policy manifesto called "Progressive Internationalism" which promises to be John Kerry's version of PNAC. PI is simply Bush sanitized. An improvement? Probably. But not much.
Posted by: General Glut on May 13, 2004 08:55 PMHello
has it occured to anyone that Bush is totally insane, hiding in his bible quotes, and is actually attempting to fulfill bible prophecies and hurry up Armegeddon?
He did say the lord talked to him and told him to invade Iraq...
pretty freaking scarey when you think about it and all the facts of the past 2 years have been chronicled. How sad history can be
Oh, and 1 more comment: if the "white house" can control which additional torture photo's can be released; since the new batch of photo's are even more hardcore than the recent lot-
they have decided that some of these pitcures will never be released because of its dark content
Is that not the same as if the Nazi Germany won WW II and after all the hub-bub came out of the holocaust and Hitler and company for damage control decides that Auschwitz photos et cetera will never be released as sort of a "trust us, this is bad and you do not want to see them...trust us, like you have been, we are doing a great job of controlling the world"....Ok I built the autobahn remember...I gave you a tax cut, remember?
It is erie and scarey!!!!!
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