Reality in Iraq requires help
This has been, from its very inception, a faith-based
war. It was an invasion founded on the haughty and
irrational belief that the United States could
accomplish anything it chose, anywhere it chose,
needing no help from anyone.
The United Nations? Irrelevant wimps.
Our French and German allies? We don't need "Old
Europe."
We, the United States, held the power to shape the
world to our wishes. We could in a matter of
months create democracy in a land that for eons
had been ruled only through brutal violence. We
could defy history by invading a foreign country and
yet be welcomed as liberators. Merely by a show of
U.S. will, we could impose peace on Palestinians
and Israelis.
And on the seventh day we could rest, before moving on to Syria, Iran and North
Korea.
While many of those most fervent in that faith occupied powerful posts in the Bush
administration, they remained relatively few in number. Last September, polls still
showed a strong majority of Americans opposed to plans to invade and occupy Iraq.
So one year ago this week, a well-scripted media blitz was launched to scare
Americans into changing their minds. With the country just days from the first
anniversary of Sept. 11, the campaign was timed perfectly, and advocates of war
played to our fears with shameless precision.
"We do know, with absolute certainty, that [Saddam Hussein] is using his
procurement system to acquire the equipment he needs in order to enrich uranium
to build a nuclear weapon," Vice President Dick Cheney claimed to NBC viewers on
Sept. 8. "We're to the point where time is not on our side."
On Fox News that day, the theme was echoed by Secretary of State Colin Powell.
"I just know that time is not on our side," he said. A few channels over on CBS,
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld added to the chorus, warning again that "time
is not on our side."
National Security Adviser Condi Rice, appearing on CNN that day, asked how long
America dared to wait. After all, she said, "we don't want the smoking gun to be a
mushroom cloud," a warning of imminent danger that President Bush himself would
repeat almost word for word in a televised speech to the nation a few weeks later.
As we've learned, the claims of "absolute certainty" of a renewed Iraqi nuclear
program were false. So were the suggested links between Saddam and al-Qaida.
Most damaging of all, repeated claims that our postwar occupation of Iraq would go
smoothly have proved false on a spectacular scale.
That was not, however, a surprise. People may claim they can walk on water; they
may even have faith they can do so. But when they end up sinking, it's not a
surprise. In this case, experts in the field -- the true believers dismissed them as
"realists" -- predicted this would happen, and the realists were right.
So, now what do we do?
This week, Bush finally agreed to seek U.N. assistance in Iraq. Among other
benefits, that should silence those who argue that the media have cast a falsely
harsh image of how things are going. Only the prospect of true calamity could have
driven the president to swallow his pride in this way and publicly ask for help.
Much depends now on two questions: How real is the president's new humility, and
how willing are other countries to help?
Bush is right to insist on American leadership of any international force in Iraq.
We're the best in the world at that role; it makes sense that we handle it.
But on matters such as reconstruction and civil governance, we have room for a
great deal of flexibility. We cannot reasonably ask countries that we have recently
treated with disdain to bail us out with thousands of troops and billions of dollars,
while denying them any real control over how those resources would be used.
Just a year ago, 64 percent of Europeans still supported a strong U.S. presence in
world affairs. Today, according to a poll conducted by the German Marshall Fund,
that number has fallen to 45 percent. By our arrogance, we have squandered much
of our hard-earned support around the world.
In the next few weeks, we'll find out how high a price we'll have to pay for that
mistake.
Jay Bookman is the deputy editorial page editor. His column appears Thursdays
and Mondays.
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