Two Elephants in the Living Room of Bush's Iraq Policy

[Nancy Waterman]

My article was posted!!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/articles/04/04/16_elephants.html

Underlying all of the failures of this war in Iraq, however, and all of the deception used to get us there, is a flawed ideology that obsesses a small cabal of neoconservatives currently sitting in the highest reaches of power. The ambitious and grandiose plan of men such as Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, and Richard Perle, to name but a few, is well-documented in the writings of the Project for a New American Century (PNAC). In short, it seeks to maximize American hegemony, prevent any other nation from competing with that global dominance - both militarily and economically, and it begins with the ousting of Saddam Hussein and the creation of a puppet democracy in Iraq.

According to this plan, Iraq would then become a strategic center for American military power and dominance from which the entire oil-rich Middle East would be policed and controlled. It is important to understand that any significant transfer of authority to the United Nations during the current Iraqi transition, any allowance of the UN to supervise the creation of the new government and its economic foundations, is to relinquish the heart of the neoconservative agenda. This is why the Bush administration has thus far refused.

<snip>

This neoconservative ideology is like the proverbial elephant in the living room. It has recently been buried under a lot of distracting rhetoric about making Iraq a beacon of democracy, just as it was initially hidden by all the lies about Saddam's weapons of mass destruction and the coming mushroom cloud. But it stands as the true reason for our invasion, and it is the fatal flaw that underlies all of the mistakes, the unrealistic expectations, and the deceptions of the Bush administration's Iraq policy. Any sane plan to extract the United States from Iraq and from the current fiasco must first and foremost define and then repudiate the entire neoconservative doctrine.

<snip>

But there is another elephant in the living room that must also become a central theme in our national discourse. And this is America's addiction to oil. In reality, this elephant helped spawn the first. Without our rapidly growing consumption of a finite resource, would we be establishing a ring of military bases around the Middle East? Would we need to aggressively ensure our oil supply as the likelihood of decreased output rushes toward us from the future?

[randr]

1. That second elephant you mention

is slowly burying the room in shit. It has the Saudi smell all over it. From the beginning of this administration there has been a hands off any Saudi involvement in discussions, including the hunt for OBL. The flight of possible terrorist collaborators on 9/12 may be the chink in this armor.
I think the Iraq incursion was necessary in order to move our bases out of Saudi Arabia, one of OBL's demands, and provided cover for the failures in Afghanistan.

[Nancy Waterman]

6. Our entire Saudi policy is skewed becasue of the oil

We can't relate to them appropriately regarding terrorism because they control the spigots and protect our interests.

[coltman]

2. couldn't have put it more eloquently!!!!!

[BlueEyedSon]

3. Congrats!

[hermetic]

4. Good article

and it really gets to the heart, I believe, of our problem in this country. Here I am in a city of several million and our bus drivers/transit workers went on strike. And our brilliant ahole of a governor says, "so what-we don't need no stinking busses" (words to that effect). I guess there ARE none so blind as them that have SUV.

[Pat Cee]

5. Hammer.....Nail........Head.

" Underlying all of the failures of this war in Iraq, however, and all of the deception used to get us there, is a flawed ideology that obsesses a small cabal of neoconservatives currently sitting in the highest reaches of power. The ambitious and grandiose plan of men such as Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, and Richard Perle, to name but a few, is well-documented in the writings of the Project for a New American Century (PNAC). In short, it seeks to maximize American hegemony, prevent any other nation from competing with that global dominance - both militarily and economically, and it begins with the ousting of Saddam Hussein and the creation of a puppet democracy in Iraq.

According to this plan, Iraq would then become a strategic center for American military power and dominance from which the entire oil-rich Middle East would be policed and controlled. It is important to understand that any significant transfer of authority to the United Nations during the current Iraqi transition, any allowance of the UN to supervise the creation of the new government and its economic foundations, is to relinquish the heart of the neoconservative agenda. This is why the Bush administration has thus far refused."

It could not be said better. Thank you for this!

[Nancy Waterman]

7. I really feel this whole neocon agenda is the elephant in the living room

No one seems to say it outright, but everything Bush does is based on it. I think Kerry needs to spell it out more clearly and repudiate it, giving an alternative world view. He refers to Bush as being "ideological," but I don't think a lot of people know what that means. A few relevant quotes from some adminitration officials' prior writings would really make it clear.

[newyawker99]

12. Hi Pat See!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[Martin Eden]

8. "Any sane plan"

There are at least have a dozen passages worth quoting in your SUPERLATIVE article, but I'll limit my response to this one:

Any sane plan to extract the United States from Iraq and from the current fiasco must first and foremost define and then repudiate the entire neoconservative doctrine.

I agree with you 100%. The mission in Iraq is doomed to unceasing tragedy unless the American people become thoroughly acquainted with this elephant.

In the wake of the murder & mutilation of the four American contractors in Fallujah, I wrote this LTTE. The paper called to say they were publishing it, but they never did:

The brutal murder and mutilation of American contractors in Fallujah on March 31 should not prompt the withdrawal of our troops – nor should it galvanize our resolve to stay. What’s needed is a thorough evaluation of this mission, including the real motives behind the invasion. The claim that Iraq posed a significant threat is no more credible than the current rationale that all this blood and treasure is being spent for the benefit of the Iraqis, or that we invaded to combat terrorism. Iraq was not a hotbed of terrorism until we made it so.

The real motives can be found in the 14 long term military bases we’re building in Iraq, in huge oil reserves, in corporate profits, and in the neoconservative pipe dream of remaking the Middle East by force. Until we come to terms with the true nature of our involvement in this region, democracy and human life will take a back seat to the interests of those who started this war under false pretenses.

[Nancy Waterman]

9. Thank you, Martin!!! Beautifully written.

That was exactly my point!!! This influence needs to be clearly defined and repudiated. It permeates Bush's entire foreign policy.


And today I read a Salon article that points to how the Bush foreign policy with respect to Israel is also part and parcel of the neocon influence.

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/04/16/israel/index.html

In his press conference of April 13, President Bush gave several reasons for cracking down on Iraqi insurgents. He said their motivation was the same as those who set off bombs in Jerusalem; he tied them to the murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, executed by al-Qaida in part for being Jewish. He also cited Shiite radical Muqtada al-Sadr's support for the Palestinian Hamas organization and the Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah party. He gave as one reason for having gone to war against Saddam Hussein the former dictator's support for Palestinian terrorists. In this speech, he presented the Iraq war and its violent aftermath as an extension of the Israeli struggle to subjugate the Palestinians and Hezbollah.

Before the war, Bush connected nonexistent dots between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida. Now he and his neoconservative brain trust are mapping the Iraq conflict onto the Likud Party agenda in Palestine. This time, however, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy -- and one that will have devastating repercussions for U.S. interests in both Iraq and the entire Arab world.

The conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians is so central to U.S. diplomacy in the region that it cannot help affecting every other policy imperative, including Iraq. Many Arabs, including Iraqis, initially looked upon the U.S. as an honest broker, but its reputation has gradually been sullied. The U.S., for instance, had long opposed the aggressive Israeli colonization of the West Bank and Gaza as an obstacle to a full and fair settlement with the Palestinians. On April 14, however, Bush met with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in Washington and, breaking with longstanding U.S. policy, acquiesced in the permanent annexation by Israel of large swathes of the West Bank. In other words, as of this week, the Bush administration has endorsed the seizure of the land of one party by another in an international dispute.

[Martin Eden]

11. Repudiation of Bush foreign policy

It must be repudiated -- because as that Salon article demonstrates, we are plunging deeper into an occupation and cycle of violence that mirrors Israel's occupation of Palestine -- except on a larger scale.

The "repudiation" issue was the topic of a DU article I wrote last September:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/articles/03/09/23_solution.html

[liberalron]

10. A Part of the Policy

Unfortunately, it would seem that the Bush Administration's Energy Policy/Plan is to militarily dominant the oil rich areas of the world, which is a policy of disaster for the U.S. and the rest of the world.

[newyawker99]

13. Hi liberalron!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast: