"One can't doubt that the American objective in Iraq has failed," William F. Buckley concludes. Let no one say that conservatives marched lockstep behind President Bush's war of choice in Iraq. Buckley, George Will, and Tucker Carlson all demonstrated second thoughts about the war after initially going along. Pat Buchanan, Donald Devine, Joe Sobran, Ron Paul, Paul Craig Roberts, and Robert Novak all opposed the war from the outset. Big-government projects, nation-building, altruism as foreign policy, and visionary crusades, these conservatives recognize, are liberalism, not conservatism. Of greater importance, relying on such principles is a recipe for disaster--whatever their political genealogy. So when does National Review run a sequel to David Frum's "Unpatriotic Conservatives" smear, this time including the magazine's founder? Or is that ugly description reserved for conservatives who had the foresight to oppose this foolish war before it started?

Stick a fork in neoconservatism, it's done.

Buckley’s piece is both confused and incorrect.

Confused: He approvingly quotes an Iraqi clothing merchant – “Everything that is going on between Sunni and Shiites, the troublemaker in the middle is America” – and a U.S. soldier – “[I can understand why Saddam Hussein was needed to keep the Sunnis and the Shiites from each others’ throats]” – but doesn’t notice that the two claims are at odds with each other.

Incorrect: The more important claim for Buckley's argument is "it's America's fault." That's right. The kidnapping, beheading, suicide bombing, extremism and violence in Iraq are all effects of a common cause... the U.S. deposal of Saddam's regime and reconstruction of Iraq.

This is an instance of the more general claim that Islamic savagery is the result of Western actions. Why are the Iranians evil? Because the U.S. won't let the Arab world annihilate Israel. Why are Muslims rioting in the street? Because a Danish newspaper dared to publish cartoons. Rubbish.

Extremists are acting extremely because they are extremists! They are animals that should be dealt with accordingly.

Now I think democracy in the Middle East is a terrible idea. If animals are allowed to choose their own leaders, they will choose fellow animals. And I recognize the push for democracy for what it is, a post facto rationale to replace the failed original. Nevertheless, we are there now, and the worst thing that could happen would be to lose.

Why would losing be the worse thing Ralph? Isn't it time to admit that our occupation and our attempt to democratize a primitive society has in fact failed and that we should move on as soon as possible? What do you think will come out of Iraq?

More dead or maimed marines, that's what.

We moved on after Korea (sort of). We moved on after Viet Nam. And unless we have the resolve to handle Iraqi troublemakers with an iron fist, much the same way Saddam did, we will never fix hundreds of years of hate and distrust. It's insane to think so.

Dan,

I was talking to a Major in the U.S. Army this weekend, who has served in the Iraq war for two years and is about to head to Afghanistan... he told me something unsettling.

That the number of dead U.S. soldiers is far more than the reported 2,000 +. That only accounts for the number killed IN IRAQ and in the line of duty... But fails to account for the number of soldiers who die from wounds suffered in the line of duty in hospitals in Germany and elswhere... He told me that the number of total dead thus far is closer to 5,000.

Have you heard of this?

Ralph,

One correction . . . I don't think that Buckley makes the first error you accuse him of as I think he isn't "approvingly" quoting that Iraqi clothing merchant. I think his use is more matter-of-fact. That if the Iraqis think that then, well, we have failed in our objective.

You are definitely correct that Buckley is stuck in a huge contradiction but I would say it arises in a different place, although related to your sentiments.

Specifically, look at Buckley's talk of the "postulates" that were and are operative in our policies in Iraq.

The first postulate is that "the Iraqi people, whatever their tribal differences, would suspend internal divisions in order to get on with life in a political structure that guaranteed them religious freedom." I ask you Ralph, and others, what exactly is this postulate? I say it is the postulate of the revolutionary French "egalite," this postulate that Buckley treasures is the typical "Enlightenment" belief in egalitarianism, and the human rights regime that grows from it. Specifically, in the present case of Iraq, the "human right" at issue is the assumption that all people cherish "freedom of religion" as a government protected right afforded to all people in a society (say Shiite and Sunni alike, e.g.) since religion, to the enlightened, is simply a matter of personal avowal and plays no role in the public square.

So what is Buckley saying has happened here? He suggests that given our paltry show of force (a mere 130,000 soldiers) and unwillingness to use the tactics employed in WWII of complete occupying force, we have to face the fact that, as you might say, the Iraqis have shown themselves not up to our "postulate." But Buckley assures us, we cannot reject that postulate we begin with (the myth of liberal egalitarianism) b/c the alternative is "philosophical despair" (????!!!) and after all, this is a part of the "shrine of American idealism" at which Buckley apparently worships.

Instead, since apparently this postulate serves us well around the world (i.e. promoting the democratist creed, and the liberal human rights regime . . . he gives us no evidence that it does so serve) we must maintain it, since of course it worked in Germany and Japan. Only in Iraq we need to simply write this one off as not enough effort. But next time, mind you, (you listening Iran, Syria?) we will meet with success.

So that is Buckley's take. I say hogwash. Buckley is a liberal interventionist (now) pure and simple. This is why his magazine has been taken over by neoconservative Jacobins for a while. His "shrine of idealism" is a modernist idol, these "postulates" of American idealism are foolish ideals of leftist zealotry. Whether Buckley at one time meant what he said about not "immanentizing the eschaton" he clearly disavowed that long ago, probably in the heat of the ideological battle of the Cold War.

I haven't heard of that Michael, and I'm a bit skeptical of it. The death counts that I see are put out by media outfits and anti-war groups, neither of which seem inclined to positivity when it comes to Iraq. Their counts mesh with the military's counts, except that the military's counts generally lag a few days behund. Additionally, many of the counts that I have seen are accompanied by brief bios and pictures of the fallen servicemen. If they were to exclude servicemen who later died in hospitals outside of Iraq, my guess is that the families of these servicemen would rightfully throw a fit. That's just my take on this, but I'm no longer in the military and perhaps this major knows some things that I don't.

Ralph, your comments are absurd. First, Buckley doesn't say he agrees with the Iraqi he quotes at the beginning. It is an instance of how the Iraqis think, and he implies strongly that he disagrees. Second, Buckley never says (nor implies) that "The kidnapping, beheading, suicide bombing, [and] extremism and violence in Iraq" are the U.S.'s fault.

What he does say: Iraq was a mistake, and that fixing Iraq is really hard because our policy has been based on two false postulates: (1) that the Iraqi's would suspend their violent hatreds of each other to live in civil peace/freedom; (2) that the violent dissidents would be controlable by our policing and then by local Iraqi police whom we would train.

Now that I have explained Buckley's main critique of the conduct of the Iraq occupation to you, do you still think it is incoherent and incorrect?

My support for the war started sliding when I saw they were not fighting it like a war. When you worry about what other countries might think rather than doing what is necessary to win, you're asking for trouble. Arabs respect strength. We haven't show the right type to them. Until we do, which we won't, this will continue.

There are two major conflicts going in Iraq currently, and have been for quite a while.

The first is a war between the United States and foreign Jihadi forces led by Al Qaeda in Iraq. This war has gone stunningly well for the United States.

The second war is a civil war between the Sunnis and the Shi'ites. America has no real stake in this war, because whoever wins, we get the ally we are looking for.

Neither one has very much to do with democracy. If one defines the American cause in Iraq as the cause of installing a liberal democracy in the heart of the Middle East, there is no doubting that cause is as dead as the neoconservative movement that spawned it. A cause I admit I once, naivly, supported, and a movement I counted myself among.

As for the realist reasoning for entering the war in Iraq, setting up a new theatre in which to fight Al Qaeda, making an example out of Saddam Hussein, giving ourself a new bargaining chip in the Middle East to be used against the growing threats of Iran and Saudi Arabia, those all remain intact, and exist perfectly independent of the development or destruction of liberal democracy in Iraq.

Skeptic,

Why do you read Buckley as saying those postulates are false? He explicitly calls disbelieving or abandoning those postulates "a kind of philosophical despair." What he is doing here is trying to expressly limit "disillusionment" with those postulates to this one particular theater, Iraq.

In fact, he thinks the administration can defend its Iraq intervention "historically,": "standing by the inherent reasonableness of the postulates." So 1) he is not at all getting rid of the postulates, they are not "false" in any sense, and 2) he is again following the neocon line of lying about the origins of the war. He knows full well that these postulates were not the original casus belli, the (nonexistent) threat Saddam posed to us was.

He thinks these postulates are imminently reasonable, and thus the war can always be justified on those grounds, b/c he claims (with no evidence) that the postulates serve well in our foreign policy in South America, Africa, and elsewhere. Also, he claims that the postulates *backed by a fuller form of interventionism as well as military destruction of the subject nation* were vindicated in Germany and Japan after WWII. But this is just hokum history.

Anyway, he is implying that the postulates of "American idealism" were simply not backed w/ the requisite force needed (as Wm. Clement and many others have suggested on this site) in this case, but the postulates are not even false in the Iraqi venue, we have only failed to get rid of the "ice men."

Skeptic: "...and he implies strongly that he disagrees."

He does no such thing. By giving the view of the merchant, "the Iraqis we hear about," and Ahmadinejad -- namely, that America is responsible for the situation in Iraq -- he is implicitly agreeing with their position. Why else would he mention three separate advocates of the same view?

The reason that the first postulate has failed, according to Buckley, is because the American presence (directly and indirectly) has fueled the "internal divisions" among Iraqis.

Buckley's solution is to accept defeat and show the Muslim world that the U.S. lacks the courage of its convictions.

I disagree. Now that we're there, I think we should win.

Define what you think "win" means.

Brian: I agree with your criticiswm of Buckley, except for this, "[the postulates] are not "false" in any sense" for him. I think he's saying that they are for _for Iraq_--no?

Ralph, Buckley refers to the Iraqi merchant twice. First, with no comment on the quotation (which you take as implicit endorsement--this is your stongest evidence). Second, embedded in a long comment about the way Iraqi resentment blames us when we can't control the inter-group violence. I've quoted it below. I think you will find, if you read it, that Buckley does not blame America for "The kidnapping, beheading, suicide bombing, [and] extremism and violence in Iraq." Rather, he vaguely blames the weakness in Iraq of "The great human reserves that call for civil life." And then implies that it is absurd, but a fact, that the Iraqis end up blaming us for this stuff.

Oh, I also missed the part where he advocated "accept[ing] defeat and show[ing] the Muslim world that the U.S. lacks the courage of its convictions." I don't see what such demogogue's slogans get us. What have we, realistically, left to win?

---
"Our mission has failed because Iraqi animosities have proved uncontainable by an invading army of 130,000 Americans. The great human reserves that call for civil life haven't proved strong enough. No doubt they are latently there, but they have not been able to contend against the ice men who move about in the shadows with bombs and grenades and pistols. The Iraqis we hear about are first indignant, and then infuriated, that Americans aren't on the scene to protect them and to punish the aggressors. And so they join the clothing merchant who says that everything is the fault of the Americans."

While William Buckley is no longer optimistic on Iraq -- and the Bush cultists are sharpening their knives -- this essay was a convoluted mess. How could Buckley discuss Iraq without even once mentioning weapons of mass destruction? It was never a postulate of the war that our invasion and occupation would mend the differences between Sunni, Shi'a, and Kurd. The high flying rhetoric of democracy and liberation was all a rationalization for failing to find WMD in Iraq.

Wars need a purpose -- even if it's entirely propaganda. So in an odd way Buckley is wrong; our objective in Iraq hasn't failed. We won. The purpose was to rid Iraq of WMD and this was accomplished back in 1995. We won the war in Iraq eight years before it even started. What Bush cultists and Republicans are loathe to acknowledge is that the U.N. inspectors gave us victory in Iraq, whereas Bush just gave us a guagmire. Iraq was disarmed nonetheless and in that regard our objectives have been accomplished.

Skeptic,

The reason I think that he doesn't find the postulate to be false for Iraq (though it hasn't been achieved) is based on three grounds.

First, I read that mention of 130,000 American soldiers, combined with his later reference to the democratizing of Germany and Japan as the now usual McCain-esque critique that the U.S. simply hasn't been ruthless enough or sent enough soldiers in.

Secondly, again partly from the excerpt you give, he says that "undoubtedly" the "great human reserves that call for civil life" are "latently" there. Now, Buckley may here be playing lip service to the "cakewalk" neocons and actually mean with this statement to slyly agree more with Ralph, that the Iraqi people are realistically "animals" and uncivilized(-able). If that was the case then sure, you would be correct that the postulate would simply be false in the case of Iraq. However, combined with his later claim about never abandoning this postulate of "American idealism" I think he means it. The civilizing forces ARE there in Iraq but have been defeated by these "ice men" moving in the shadows.

Thirdly, I don't see how the postulate in question: "that the Iraqi people, whatever their tribal differences, would suspend internal divisions in order to get on with life in a political structure that guaranteed them religious freedom" can be treated by Buckley as simultaneously a particularized postulate and also a universalist principle determinative of American foreign policy around the world. He also says this postulate is "inherent[ly] reasonable" and the just means of defending the Iraq invasion historically. That is why I am saying this supposed postulate is an application of egalite to Iraq. As such it isn't "falsifiable" it is a claim about the "latent" humanity of the Iraqis that he is unwilling to simply abandon (he is not the "despairing" sort). It is a postulate that assumes that the Enlightenment's version of "human nature" is correct and ignores the lessons of history as well as culture.

Of course, this is myopic, what lefties would term "cultural chauvinism" if they had any clue what the insults they like to sling around actually mean.

The jury is out though I guess. Reading his thoughts here provokes more questions than answers for me about what exactly he believes in. I fear Ralph, you and I may have given what Buckley wrote more thought than he did when writing it.

Brian: as usual, I agree with everything, but with a caveat: I agree think that it is plausible that if we were more ruthless and sent in more troops we could eventually get the culture and people into shape materially to take on liberal democracy as a form. I think several hundred years of Roman-style empire would be very good for these people politically in the long run (this is much more than I'm sure McCain and Buckley think would do). Also, can't we read the "latent" line as just a claim about human nature-- i.e., perhaps Buckley wants to avoid the mistake that Ralph and many others make, of denying that these people are fully human?

I suported the war in iraq and still do. but the way it is run is another matter. we should have killed saddam and pulled back in the desert and built a airport and made a us. city out of it. that way the ragheaded retards couldnt hide behind burkas and snipe our troops. we know were the wmds are, but what are we going to do? this war is a side show, bush should have asked congress for a declaration of war. and the draft, and if collage punks didnt want to go then they should be deported. our troops have to go back too these places time and time again.its not fair for a soldier to sign up for his country and serve 5 of six year service in hostle zones, while the fratbums party on.

Buckley begins the article with a quotation: “I can tell you the main reason behind all our woes — it is America. Everything that is going on between Sunni and Shiites, the troublemaker in the middle is America.”

The worst thing “going on between Sunni and Shiites” is the destruction of the Askariya mosque (Buckley’s second quotation). Whose fault is that? Buckley’s third quotation give the answer: “The Iraqis we hear about are first indignant, and then infuriated, that Americans aren't on the scene to protect them and to punish the aggressors. And so they join the clothing merchant who says that everything is the fault of the Americans.”

Buckley then mentions Ahmadinejad’s “elucidation” of the same complaint against America.

The first half of the article is concerned with the view that America is to blame. Why? Why spend several paragraphs of a brief article on an accidental viewpoint?

It is more reasonable (and hardly absurd) to conclude that the viewpoint is not accidental to Buckley’s position.

The recounting of America as “troublemaker” moves (seemingly without transition) to a discussion of the two postulates. According to Buckley, both postulates have failed in Iraq. So why does he a-nalyze the failure of the second but not of the first? Because that a-nalysis is implicit in the first half of the article.

The reason why Iraqis could not suspend their internal divisions is because such divisions were strengthened (directly or indirectly) by the American presence.

Your reading of Buckley cannot account for the structure of his argument or the omissions in his a-nalysis.

I think Buckley is ambivalent here, perhaps by design, perhaps because his essays in recent years just seem more slapdash and confused. I am willing to agree though that his "latent" comment should be read as stating a belief in the essential humaneness of Iraqis. But it seems to me if you read it as such then it strengthens my claim that his "postulate" is not really falsifiable even in the case of Iraq despite the failure to realize it through this particular intervention.

I agree with your caveat, at least that is possible, but plausible? I am not really convinced.

First, it is difficult to talk of an Iraqi "people" and that is the real rub in all this. Iraq is still too clearly demarcated along tribal, ethnic, and religious lines.

NB, this is NOT to say that I agree with Ralph about their animality. Rather I think Iraqis are "human, all too human." I am sure that if you take the Kurdish territory in the North, e.g., and do an anthropological study of them then you would be very impressed at the cohesive and stable, as well as relatively civilized, by our standards, social life they have made for themselves. But combine Kurds, Arabs, Turkomen, and others who are also sharply divided in religious terms, (part of this division is even Arab against Arab btw), and civilized life becomes much more difficult. Heck look at Europe's own wars of religion that helped spur the very creation of the United States.

Secondly, the British, Ottomans, Mongols, and others, have failed in the past to forge the "Iraqis" into a unified people through direct rule.

And third, this hasn't been the way of the world for a long while. Rather, nationalism, "every people having a homeland" has been the movement of geopolitical history for the last 4-500 years. Look at the splintering of the states of the former Habsburg Empire, most recently and spectacularly with the disintegration into several states of the former Yugoslavia.

Ralph,

You are addressing Skeptic but I see your point. And now I am **absolutely** convinced we have thought about what Buckley wrote more than he did himself. Therefore, I am not wasting any more thought on it, see you guys in another thread!

Ralph: You are right: the view that the violence is the US's fault is not accidental to Buckley's view as presented in the article. I never said it was. That doesn't mean that it is his view. He never states it, and in fact he gives an explanation for where it comes from--the frustrated Iraqis who expect us to be able to stop it and the underdeveloped state of civic virtues in Iraq. None of this comes down to blaming the US for these things.

Now, and this is a different thesis: isn't it the case that Saddam controlled these things, and we can't seem to? That doesn't mean these murders are are fault, but it should call into question whether our ex post facto mission is winable.

Under Saddam there existed some stability, a certain order, and also some justice. If someone were to explode a bomb in a market place killing and maiming a hundred people or so, it was a given that the persons responsible (or assumed to be) would be dealt with (along with their families and associates). That was justice, however imperfect. Of course Saddam himself commited injustices along with his crew, but these can be seen as a trade off for the greater more common sense of justice.

We currently represent the absence of order, the negation of justice. It is at least a weekly occurance that someone explodes a bomb killing and maiming a hundred or so people. The suspects may be caught, but there is no certainty of it like under Saddam (who didn't have to deal with such things as certainty of guilt). And even if these people are caught who kill and maim hundreds, what is their punishment? To languish in prison and await a trial, the result of which may not even be death. Under Saddam, people knew what the penalty was for the crime. And they knew it would be swiftly carried out. In own society we have abandoned any pretense to justice being swift, but the Iraqis are not yet as civilized as we. They see anything less than imediate justice as no justice as all.

If we leave now, we leave them in chaos, which is all we brought them. And it's all we could have brought them.

The problem is not that we didn't send enough troops into Iraq,it's that we sent too many.

We should have gone in with an extremely light, spec ops centered force, based around renting out local militas and utilizing our combat air controllers to direct air power, like we did in Afghanistan.

This Rumsfeldian doctrine would have avoided the problem of post-war Iraq becoming our responsibility in the first place. We could have carried out our WMD hunt and fought the foreign Jihadi without the hassle of being responsible for the governance of Iraq as a whole.

Afghanistan? What a success that was.

I don't know what your cosmic meter is for success, but at accomplishing our goals in the country, yes.

That was an excellent assessment Fortunate.

Where Saddam didn't need to worry about the politics of it all, justice under him was swift and deliberate. So, Ahmed six-pack knew exactly what the consequences would be if and when a crime was committed.

Once we transitioned from an invasion/liberation force to an occupation force, our mission in Iraq was doomed. The ultra-sensitive politically correct media got involved and put our politicians back on their heels which essentially took the war out of the hands of the people who were fighting it. With the circumstances that exist in that country, we are not resolved to be a good occupation force and chaos will reign.

Brian,

I think you're probably right. It's surprising that Buckley would publish such an article.

Skeptic,

Is are ex post facto mission winable? Honestly, I'm not sure. At this point, I suppose I would define "victory" as a cohesive Iraqi government with a constitution and an capable military.

If the country falls into civil war, that's obviously impossible. At that point, I would be willing to talk about "accepting defeat." Until then, I think withdrawal is premature.

That's not to say that victory, so defined, would lead to greater U.S. security. It would, however, save face. And that, I believe, is important.

If, in the end, Iraq's government has a powerful military, is willing to allow US bases on it's soil, and is friendly to our interests, then I will consider it a success.

I want a counter-weight to Iran and Saudi Arabia, not a flowing river of candy and joy. Whether said government will be a democracy is up to the people of Iraq, and they have shown they are far more interested in killing each other in mass quanitities.

Which is perfectly fine with me. Better that they slaughter each other than us.

Well put, as usual, Dan.

For related thoughts, see my On Urban Legend Chain Emails and Iraq.