The bottom line:
The basic problems the United States has confronted flowed from the enterprise itself and not primarily from mistakes in execution along the way. “The war itself was the original sin,” as one senior diplomat from the region observed. “When you commit a sin as cardinal as that, you are bound to get a lot of things wrong.” He illustrated the point, aptly, as follows: “When you enter a one-way street in the wrong direction, no matter which way you turn, you will be entering all the other streets in the wrong way.”58
Reality - insurgency would be a consequence, irrespective of intent or scale of deployed forces:
Even if a larger invading force had had an operational plan sensitive to the likelihood that anarchy would follow rapidly from the decapitation of the Iraqi state, it still would have been extremely difficult to prevent most of the large-scale looting and rampant criminality that descended on the country. Even had American forces understood that they were likely to face a growing insurgency after the war, it is doubtful that they could have elaborated an effective strategy for defeating it quickly, if at all.
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A realistic appreciation of the manifold problems that would arise from the invasion of the country actually pointed to the conclusion that Iraq ought not to have been invaded and “liberated” at all.
The following comment is an insight I discussed with friends on more than one occasion during the Vietnam fiasco and from the time we realized Bush and the neoconsters were going to attack Iraq, no matter what:
“Policy must know the instrument it is to employ,” says Clausewtiz in one of his enduring formulations. For certain purposes, like the creation of a liberal democratic society that will be a model for others, it seems fair to conclude that military power is a blunt instrument, destined by its very nature to give rise to unintended and unwelcome consequences.60
And, the facts on the ground that will haunt America's legacy for decades if not centuries:
It is notable, indeed, that the argument over “what went wrong” has seldom, if at all, brought into question the tactics employed by U.S. forces, but there was, in fact, a deep contradiction between the democracy the United States said it was trying to build and the methods it employed to battle the insurgency. Democracy, as it is commonly understood, is about more than free and fair elections. It requires “independent courts, equality before the law, and constitutional limits on the powers of government. It establishes independent institutions to control and punish corruption and abuse of power.” No one in a democracy “may be arrested, imprisoned, or exiled arbitrarily. No one may be denied freedom without a fair and public hearing by an impartial court.”61 Such restraints, however, had no bearing on the conduct of U.S. military forces, whose actions were governed formally by the law of armed conflict rather than the protection of individual rights typical of constitutional democracies.
NO matter how loudly you shout it, no matter how many flags you wave and prayers to the almighty you utter, you simply cannot hide an armed, illegal imperialist invasion and occupation behind words and pomp.
The credentials of the authors:
DAVID C. HENDRICKSON is Robert J. Fox Distinguished Service Professor at Colorado College. He has taught in the Political Science Department at Colorado College since 1983. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Dr. Hendrickson is the author of Peace Pact: The Lost World of the American Founding (University Press of Kansas, 2003), The Future of American Strategy (Holmes and Meier, 1987), Reforming Defense: The State of American Civil-Military Relations (Johns Hopkins, 1988) and three books with Dr. Robert W. Tucker: The Imperial Temptation: The New World Order and America’s Purpose (Council on Foreign Relations, 1992); Empire of Liberty: The Statecraft of Thomas Jefferson (Oxford University Press, 1990), and The Fall of the First British Empire: Origins of the War of American Independence (Johns Hopkins, 1982). He was the book review editor (“United States”) for Foreign Affairs from 1994 to 1998, and has published essays in Foreign Affairs, World Policy Journal, The National Interest, Orbis, and Survival. Dr. Hendrickson received his B.A. in history from Colorado College in 1976 and his Ph.D. in political science from Johns Hopkins University in 1982.
ROBERT W. TUCKER is Professor Emeritus of American Foreign Policy at the Johns Hopkins University, Nitze School of Advanced International Studies. He is a member of the American Academy of the Arts and Sciences and the Council on Foreign Relations. Dr. Tucker is the author of The Nuclear Debate: Deterrence and the Lapse of Faith (Holmes and Meier, 1985); The Inequality of Nations (Basic Books, 1977), The Radical Left and American Foreign Policy (Johns Hopkins, 1971), Nation or Empire? The Debate over American Foreign Policy (Johns Hopkins, 1968), The Just War (Johns Hopkins, 1960); and three books with Dr. David C. Hendrickson: The Imperial Temptation: The New World Order and America’s Purpose (Council on Foreign Relations, 1992); Empire of Liberty: The Statecraft of Thomas Jefferson (Oxford University Press, 1990), and The Fall of the First British Empire: Origins of the War of American Independence (Johns Hopkins, 1982). He was co-editor of The National Interest from 1985 to 1990, and president of the Lehrman Institute from 1982 to 1987. He has published essays in Foreign Affairs, World Policy Journal, The National Interest, Harpers, and The New Republic. Dr. Tucker received his B.S. from the United States Naval Academy in 1945 and a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1949.
The website:
The sponsoring US Government Agency:
This manuscript was funded by the U.S. Army War College External Research Associates Program. Information on this program is available on our website, www.StrategicStudiesInstitute.army.mil, at the Publishing button.
Link to the document file (.pdf):
http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/PUB637.pdfNever Forget: George W. Bush willfully violated National Security to cover-up his willful launch of a war of aggression and illegal occupation of Iraq.
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