Glad You Woke Up, Ken Adelman. Now Go Away.

by tristero

Ken Adelman’s flack has been getting him a lot of publicity lately, the latest being the lead-off “Had I known then what I know now” guy in this Washington Post article about rats deserting the sinking ship of George Bush’s state. And he seems genuinely horrified over what he contributed to, if still somewhat deluded on the subject of it being a good idea.

Now, being generous people, let’s take Adelman at his word and welcome him back to reality. And I’m not being sarcastic or snarky. I’m genuinely glad that Adelman has wised up, even if it’s late in the game. However, the fact that Adelman now understands the consequences of what he so foolishly advocated doesn’t change those facts, or his responsibility.

First of all, Ken Adelman has the blood of tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of innocents on his hands. Assuming the best, that he is at some level a moral person, he will have to live with the horror of that fact for the rest of his life, that he directly contributed to the slaughter and carnage. But that is not all.

If there are (as there should be but probably won’t be) trials for the perpetrators of this illegal war, Adelman may escape indictment on a technicality but he is morally obligated to testify truthfully about all he knew and saw within the Bush administration regarding the planning and execution of the Bush/Iraq war.

Assuming the likeliest, that there are no trials, Adelman needs to write a book describing in detail what his thinking was that led to the infamous “cakewalk” comment (and weasling out of it by saying it merely referred to taking Baghdad won’t do) and what he knows about the Bush administration.

Secondly, and in my opinion far more important than punishing Adelman (I know many of you disagree, and you’re probably right, but it’s just not my personality to focus on punishing people for their crimes), after writing that book he should immediately retire from having any kind of role in the theorizing or implementation of foreign affairs. Time for a career change, Ken, and I don’t mean teaching foreign affairs somewhere. I mean it’s time to reactivate those adolescent dreams of becoming a death metal superstar, or opening up the motorcycle chop shop you and your wife always fantasized about.

In short, it’s time for Ken Adelman to go away. He didn’t merely make a mistake. He made hundreds of spectacularly awful mistakes. He was wrong about Rumsfeld’s competence, wrong about the very idea of invading Iraq, wrong about the cakewalk, and wrong to keep his mouth shut for so long. Kudos for speaking out (sort-of) before the November election, but that is not enough to recommend Adelman for a continued career in international affairs.

The corollary, of course, is that people who were right about Bush/Iraq from the get-go should consider a career in foreign relations and they should achieve serious influence. Step one: Elect a Democratic president. Step two: don’t count on the mere election of a Democrat to the presidency to guarantee good advisers: work hard to make sure s/he appoints them.

The article is also useful as it gives more insight into the delusional aspect of Richard Perle’s thinking, and by extension the mindset of neoconservatism and the Republican far-right:

Perle said the administration’s big mistake was occupying the country rather than creating an interim Iraqi government led by a coalition of exile groups to take over after Hussein was toppled. “If I had known that the U.S. was going to essentially establish an occupation, then I’d say, ‘Let’s not do it,’ ” and instead find another way to target Hussein, Perle said. “It was a foolish thing to do.”

Perle, head of the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board at the time of the 2003 invasion, said he still believes the invasion was justified. But he resents being called “the architect of the Iraq war,” because “my view was different from the administration’s view from the very beginning” about how to conduct it. “I am not critical now of anything about which I was not critical before,” he said. “I’ve said it more publicly.”

In other words, Perle had a plan, a Grand Vision of exactly how to topple Saddam, install Chalabi, and transform Iraq into a land of milk and honey. Then, through some magical osmosis known only to neoconservatives, the rest of the Arab Middle East would follow. Oh, and by the way, while Israel would finally be safe unto eternity, they should hold onto those nukes they don’t have (wink, wink) just in case.

God save us from all future visionaries with clear plans to transform the world.

What Perle is saying is that he laid out the exact steps to follow and if things changed, hey, don’t blame him, they didn’t follow his carefully reasoned plan, which had to be followed to the letter if it was to work.

As if anything as complicated as the invasion and conquest of any country, let alone one the size and complexity of Iraq, can be done according to a linear plan with no deviations. Of all the insane assumptions behind the reasoning for the Bush/Iraq war, this was always one of the most idiotic, that you could write a straightforward narrative of what you wanted to happen and follow it. And it is truly incredible how many people fell for it. But they did.

The world simply doesn’t work the way Perle wants it to. As Anatol Lieven said, to title a book “An End to Evil” as Perle and Frum did, is insane. One cannot have serious discussions of American foreign policy with such people; it is simply incredible that they ever had, and worse, still have, influence in the foreign policy of the most powerful country in the world.

The article ends with words by Kenneth Adelman that are worth repeating:

The whole philosophy of using American strength for good in the world, for a foreign policy that is really value-based instead of balanced-power-based, I don’t think is disproven by Iraq. But it’s certainly discredited.

Good.

And going forward, let’s operate under the assumption that a “value-based” foreign policy has, in fact, been disproven by Iraq.

To those of you who may not be familiar with my earlier posts on the subject, I am not in any sense advocating “realism” nor an abandonment of ethical principles in foreign policy; nor, for that matter, do I believe that it is impossible for countries to identify “the good” and act to further it.

I simply believe that foreign policy must be guided, above all, by what Raymond Aron called “prudence.” I think what he means, at least in part – and I”m sure you’ll correct me – is that a country must act cautiously, carefully, and very knowledgeably in international relations, steering an unclear and inevitably compromised course between the Scylla of realism and the Charybdis of idealism. It is as foolish to behave like Henry Kissinger as it is like Elliott Ness (“Okay gentleman, let’s do some good!””).

I would emphasize caution and knowledge. Crazy people start unnecessary wars. The history of the last six years demonstrates quite well that the world would have enough problems to deal with had there never been a Bush/Iraq war.

Stupid people deal with other countries from a position of near-total ignorance. And again, the last six years proves that the so-called “black box” paradigm of realism – and its corollary, that all countries and peoples roughly aspire to Americanism with a local accent – is preposterous.

A policy of prudence will neither prevent war in all cases, nor preclude fighting a just war. It is not appeasement nor war-mongering. but simple common-sense. And it helps countries avoid wars. Even when you’re dealing with a crazed worsethanhitler lunatic like Saddam Hussein? Yes. Especially then.

In the particular case of Iraq in 2002, a prudent course would have been to drop the sanctions and/or try to refocus them so that they hurt Saddam’s administration rather than the people in the country. In addtion, it was necessary to reinstate the inspection regime, backed up with highly targeted force if necessary to compel inspections (the so-called coerced inspection idea).

What would be the prudent course in Iraq right now? There isn’t one. There isn’t any good course in Iraq. It is a monumental catastrophe. one our grandchildren will be living with. The best I can come up with is get the troops out as quickly as possible and then wait for Bush to leave office in January, 2009 and assess the situation then. Nothing good can or will happen as long as Bush is in office.

That sounds grim and defeatist, I know. But having lived with Bushism now for 6 years, I also know that it is a realistic attitude. The Hamilton-Baker Commission will achieve nothing except create more American deaths (both of Americans and by Americans) while delaying the inevitable withdrawal a few extra months.

And this tragedy – one of the worst debacles in American history, and that is saying a lot – is the legacy of men and women like Kenneth Adelman. And that is why I say, glad you woke up, Ken. Now, go away.

[UPDATE: Peter Daou, quoting Lambert, has a nice takedown of the very idea behind the article, that the most “powerful” criticism has come from his erstwhile supporters. They are, of course, absolutely right.]