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09/29/2004: "Cassandra on the Schuylkill"
One of the most tragic literary characters of all time has to be Cassandra
from the Iliad. The daughter of Troy's king, Priam, Cassandra had
been blessed with the gift of prophecy. Unfortunately, she also had been
cursed -the nature of this curse being that while she had the ability to
see the future, no one would believe her visions.
When Cassandra tried to warn her fellow Trojans that war with the Greeks
would spell their own destruction, everyone nodded and said "Yes, thanks
for the advice, now run along." And run along she did. She ran up and down
the corridors of her father's palace screaming "Won't someone listen
to me?"
It's a sentiment that must have been familiar to Richard Clarke who spent
the months leading up to the September 11th attacks trying to convince the
White House that this Osama bin Laden character was someone that Uncle Sam
should be keeping an eye on.
It's also a sentiment that Trudy Rubin must also be familiar with. Rubin
has just publish a collection of her Worldview columns from the
Philly Inquirer which chronicle the War with Iraq from shortly before it
began until the handover of power to Iraq's interim government under the
title of Willful Blindness - The Bush Administration and Iraq.
In early September of 2002, Ms. Rubin began to ask the question "What will
happen on the day after Saddam Hussein is removed from power?" Judging by
the Bush administration's lackluster attempt at nation building in
Afghanistan, Trudy Rubin knew the answer to that question wasn't going to
be pretty.
Of course the White House thought differently. They originally envisioned
that the occupation of Iraq would be not unlike the occupation of Japan,
despite the facts the American's occupation of Japan had the backing of
almost the entire world and that Japan wasn't filled with Shiites, Sunnis,
and Kurds.
The Bush administration would later steer away from the Iraq/Japan
comparison. In a meeting with Ms. Rubin, Paul Wolfowitz explained that
post-war Iraq would resemble post- WWII France. You have to admit, it's
hard to find an analogy that makes less sense than the Iraq/Japan one, but
to his credit, Wolfowitz found one.
Not that Ms. Rubin was a huge fan of Saddam Hussein. She goes to some
lengths laying out the case for his removal and how that case should've
been presented to the UN. It's her opinion that had the US presented Saddam
as a regional threat then we would've stood a good chance of
building a true international coalition dedicated to his ouster.
So, why didn't the White House go before the UN Security Council and say
"Look, Hussein is a danger to his neighbors and his own people. If left
unchecked, he'll continue to be a danger, so let's all go back and finish
what we started with the Gulf War."? Well, that wouldn't have helped Bush
promote his new policy of Preemptive War, now would it have? Ms.
Rubin does a fine job of making the case that it was the promotion of this
policy and not régime change or lust for oil that really lay at the heart
of the war.
Fine, so the White House labored under the delusion, partly of their own
making and partly from a package of lies sold to them by Chalabi that -
almost instantaneously after the war - Iraq would magically transform
into a Democracy, privatize their oil industry, quit OPEC, and become a
US ally, and it was this failure to understand the complexities of Iraq
and adequately develop a comprehensive post-war strategy that has led to
the deaths of over 1,000 of America's bravest citizens on Iraq soil.
OK, tell me something I didn't know.
Trudy Rubin does. She tells us how to get out of this mess in the form of
a dozen Do's and Don'ts for a drawdown of US troops. These include:
No matter what - Do hold the elections scheduled for January and
December of 2005.
Do accept the results of that election even if those results
contradict US preferences and be prepared to follow the lead of the elected
government as to how many, if any, US troops may remain in Iraq.
Don't send more US troops, unless, of course, we intend to further
anger the civilian population.
And, perhaps most importantly, Do stop thinking about regime change
for Iraq's neighbors, Iran and Syria.
