What The Middle East Believes About Bush/Iraq

by tristero

Recently, Anne-Marie Slaughter was asked by Time Magazine her opinion of the question, “Was the War Worth It?” Here, she reports that three Middle-Easterners say, “Yes.” This drives her to this remarkably illogical conclusiont:

For those of us who increasingly think that the balance sheet of the war is almost entirely negative (in my case because of the way it has been fought more than its undertaking in the first place) — which describes virtually every American queried, the gap between our perceptions and the perceptions of those actually in the region should give us pause.

By the way, that is not taken out of context. That is her entire comment on the quotes she provides. A few comments:

1. It is impossible to find anyone in the United States who has even the slightest standing in the discussion on Bush/Iraq who also believes that Saddam was a nice, fluffy, warm-hearted kind of a guy who’d gotten a bum rap.

2. If she thinks the views here are at variance with the opinion of many Americans, there’s a protein wisdom I’d like to sell her. But hell, why pick on poor Jeff (besides the fact that it’s incredibly easy, as Wolcott would say)? In today’s NY Times there’s a nifty graphic you can click on where you’ll learn that 69% of all Republicans think the American military effort in Iraq is still going very well or fairly well. Dollars to donuts most would agree the war was worth it for, among other reasons, precisely the reason her Middle East commenters give.

3. Not only are the people she quotes not even crudely representative of Middle East opinion because they are all male, but they are also middle class or upper middle class. They do not begin to represent the huge populaton of Middle Eastern Arabs whose income falls far below any rational level of poverty.

4. I do not, as Anne-Marie writes, “increasingly think” the balance sheet of the war is almost completely negative. I’ve consistently thought so since I first heard that pre-emptive unilateral war against Iraq was being planned by the Bush administration. Following her logic – not mine – I therefore find nothing in the comments she quotes to give me the slightest pause. That Saddam’s regime would last more than 30 years? Who knows? That you can’t negotiate with these dictatorships for reform but you can now? Oh? Well, I guess the president of the United States holding hands with a Saudi oil bigwig is kind of, sort of, a negotiaton for genuine reform if I squint at the video just right.

Bush/Iraq has proven an all-but-umitigated disaster, plain and simple, for Iraq and the US. The proof is in the chaos, the deaths and mutilations, and the descent into a state of anarchy and/or civil war. Its effect on the rest of the region can hardly be said to be positive. Witness, for example, the election of Hamas, to name the first of many disasters that come to mind.

And in truth, the full effect of the Bush/Iraq has not yet been felt. For that we will have to wait for the children, whose fathers and mothers and brothers and sisters and friends and lovers have been blasted to kingdom come by American action, to grow up.