For the third time in less than a year, the [tag]Bush[/tag] [tag]White House[/tag] has initiated a “major public-relations offensive” to bolster support for the [tag]war[/tag] in [tag]Iraq[/tag]. Round Three began yesterday with an address to the [tag]American Legion[/tag]’s national convention. If you listened with an ear for new ideas, you were left wanting.
There was, however, a slight shift in emphasis. Bush has decided to raise the stakes: “The [tag]security[/tag] of the [tag]civilized world[/tag] depends on victory in the war on [tag]terror[/tag], and that depends on victory in Iraq.”
In other words, we’re not just talking about the future of Iraq, or the Middle East, or American security; when we consider the war in Iraq, we’re looking at the “security of the civilized world.” Slate’s Fred Kaplan argued persuasively that no one — not even the president — really believes this.
If you do [believe the “security of the civilized world” is at stake], then you must ask the president why he hasn’t reactivated the draft, printed war bonds, doubled the military budget, and strenuously rallied allies to the cause.
If, as he said in this speech, the war in Iraq really is the front line in “the decisive ideological struggle of the 21st century”; if our foes there are the “successors to Fascists, to Nazis, to Communists”; if victory is “as important” as it was in Omaha Beach and Guadalcanal — then those are just some of the steps that a committed president would feel justified in demanding.
If, as he also said, terrorism takes hold in hotbeds of stagnation and despair, then you must also ask the president why he hasn’t requested tens or hundreds of billions of dollars for aid and investment in the Middle East to promote hope and livelihoods.
Yet the president hasn’t done any of those things, nor has anyone in his entourage encouraged him to do so. And that’s because, while the war on terror is important and keeping Iraq from disintegrating is important, they’re not that important. Osama Bin Laden is not Hitler or Stalin. Baghdad is not Berlin. Al-Qaida and its imitators don’t have the economic resources, the military power, or the vast nationalist base that Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union had.
Good point. If Iraq is World War III, and if Iraq’s continuing downward spiral literally threatens the “security of the civilized world,” wouldn’t the U.S. government react to the conflict with a World War II-like response? And isn’t the fact that there hasn’t been this kind of response telling?
The other noteworthy tidbit from the president’s latest speech was his desire to conflate competing factions in Iraq as part of a larger, dangerous foe. Bush has done this before, but yesterday was more blatant than usual.
“If America were to pull out before Iraq can defend itself, the consequences would be absolutely predictable — and absolutely disastrous. We would be handing Iraq over to our worst enemies — Saddam’s former henchmen, armed groups with ties to Iran, and al Qaeda terrorists from all over the world who would suddenly have a base of operations far more valuable than Afghanistan under the Taliban.”
Except this is wrong, too. The reason for the civil war in Iraq is that these competing groups are fighting against one another. Bush lumps them together as simply a catch-all “enemy,” but after more than three years of fighting, he should probably be a little more aware of the nuances here. The president dismisses the sectarian violence as having been “inspired by Zarqawi,” as if one dead terrorist is single-handedly responsible for the religious conflicts that have plagued Iraq for years.
Looking at the big picture, Matthew Yglesias asks the right question.
[L]ooking back over, say, the past three years since the end of our first summer in Iraq, it doesn’t appear to be the case that the situation has improved at all with regard to the problems Bush is pointing to. So what, honestly, is the point? What about the events of the past year makes it look like things will be better one year from today?
If Bush gets to this question at any point during this “major public-relations offensive — Take Three,” I’ll be all ears.