Self Delusion

     Thomas Sowell has done it again! Today's op-ed piece by the once respected elder economist and Libertarian seeks to rewrite history ala a Kansas schoolboard. 

       For brevity's sake, Sowell implies that the current administration is primarily to blame for the current disaster that is Iraq, because President Obama honored the 2008 status of forces agreement signed by President Bush, which required all US withdrawal by 2011.

     The real issue, however, is that Sowell  holds up Japanese  and German post WWII reconstruction as examples of what could and should have happened in Iraq. This is so staggeringly uninformed and naive as to make one wonder if Dr. Sowell lives in an alternate reality. 

     In brief, both Japan and Germany were essentially unified in religion to whatever degree it was of national importance (relatively little in Germany more so in Japan). Religious sectarianism simply didn't exist in Japan, and Germany had largely exterminated their béte noir, their Jewish citizens.  In  Japan, devastated as a people, their God-Emperor, essentially ordered by MacArthur, told them to listen and obey, and they did. Used, as the Japanese were, to being led by central authority, they complied. Additionally, this highly industrialized  nation had  one of the most universally well educated populations in the world. Having been ground into powder, literally as well as figuratively, orderly and compliant rebuilding was a no-brainer.  

     In Germany, weary from two World Wars in 35 years, and missing a significant portion of their adult male population, the situation was similar -  a well educated populace  who understood  the gravity of the situation and the relative barbarity of the Soviets to the East.  The US was seen by many Germans as a savior, or at worst, by far the lesser of two evils.

        Of course, in neither nation was there over a thousand years of intense religious sectarianism, based on a religion which in most  cases, preached Jihad  as a social control mechanism.  What is truly troubling is that Far Right politicans,  over a span of 12 years did an about face with respect to Iraq.  

         In 1991, (then SecDef) Dick Cheney said to David Brinkley: I think for us to get American military personnel involved in a civil war inside Iraq would literally be a quagmire.  Once we got to Baghdad, what would we do? Who would we put in power? What kind of government would we have? Would it be a Sunni government, a Shi’a government, a Kurdish government? Would it be secular, along the lines of the Ba’ath Party?  Would it be fundamentalist Islamic? I do not think the United States wants to have U.S. military forces accept casualties and accept the responsibility of trying to govern Iraq. I think it makes no sense at all. If you can take down the central government of Iraq, you can easily see pieces of Iraq fly off. Part of it the Syrians would like to have in the West. Part of Eastern Iraq the Iranians would like to claim – fought over for eight years.  Today this reads almost like the daily news from the region!

        Cheney was correct then, as Secretary of Defense for Bush 41. Of course by 2003, Cheney, apparently now much smarter, advised the son, Bush 43, in exactly the opposite direction! Cheney's true reasoning will almost certainly remain shrouded in the mists of historical interpretation, since we will never hear any explanation from the man, himself.   

     Unfortunately, just exactly as Cheney predicted in 1991, Shi'ites, Sunnis, Sufis,  Kurds, et al, are still violently sectarian, tribal and territorial.  The US is portrayed as an invader, infidel nation. Dr. Sowell should have listened more closely in World History class.