I don't know if there are too few troops in Iraq, and if there are, I don't know why that is the case. As usual, Andrew Sullivan attributes it to the president's hubris, and, heck, for all I know, he's right.
I did want to propose an alternative thought, though. Americans seem to view the Iraq effort through the lens of Vietnam, and, for those steeped in history, possibly as an analog to World War II. The Muslim world has a far longer historical perspective, aided at least in part by the refusal of authoritarian governments to allow the modernizing world to enter.
This war is a big deal, then, and it will be viewed as an historic event for decades, simply because that is how the Muslim world views such events. They might not always get the facts right, but the roots run deep, and evolution in that sort of cultural milieu takes some time. (A related point is to scoff at those worried that it's already been 18 months, by golly, and Iraq hasn't nearly transformed itself into New Hampshire yet.)
Anyhow, it is probably quite important, in this context, to allow the Iraqis the dignity of liberating themselves, even at the horrible cost in human lives that has already been paid, and will continue to be exacted by Zarqawi and his henchmen in coming weeks and months. Based upon the continued presence of recruitment lines at Iraqi police stations, the people are rising to the task, which is quite a promising sign.
It would be nice if their culture was as plastic as that which prevails in the West, but it isn't. Pretending that it is - by handing them a victory, rather than forcing them to fight for it on their own - risks further embedding the past few decades of Ba'athist-driven humiliation into their collective identity, which is unlikely to have the desired outcome of reconciliation with modernity, equal rights, and capital markets.
One of the comments early in my blogging life observed that my outlook was realistic, and probably the more depressing for it. I recognize that, but it seems to me that these cold-blooded calculations that, if ignored, will upset all of the hopeful theory otherwise supporting the Middle East makeover.
A last point. It has become de rigueur for the intellectualist-libertarian set (your humble correspondent certainly included) to include some sort of criticism of the state of chaos in Iraq, lest they be confused for the troglodyte Republicans living in flyover country that actually think the president is swell. While I think that using the Iraqi people as bait to attract the terrorists is yet another example of, well, cold-bloodedness, the point remains that these folks would not otherwise be spending their time reading to the blind, or tending to their Bonsai. So they flow in over the Syrian border, and we dispatch them with some sort of regularity, but not enough to keep them from coming into Baghdad, and they don't come in to Arizona. Again, cold, but apparently effective.
- Moishe Potemkin
Posted by MoisheP at October 19, 2004 08:05 PM