Iraq, Afghanistan & Pakistan

I am not an expert on the Middle East, but I think I have read enough about it over the years to form a useful opinion about America's aims and involvements there over the last quarter century.

The predominant view of the Bush II Administration was that American military intervention in semi-developed countries could bring about favorable changes which would enhance and augment our political and economic interests, while ushering in Western style regimes.

This view now seems discredited, if indeed it ever had any validity. From an historical perspective, the nations of the Near East, including Saudi Arabia, Syria, Jordan, Iraq and Iran, as well as those in the areas known as Afghanistan and Pakistan, were late arrivals to the family of world nations. They did not have a "tradition" of a unified government, nor of any practical sense of institutionalized democratic processes. During the 20th Century, much of the undeveloped Third World leap-frogged intermediate stages of nationalistic evolution and blossomed into florid monarchies or brutal dictatorships; this process continues today.  

The notion that populations, often living in relatively backward conditions, heavily informed with religious doctrine, divided by sectarian and ethnic fragmentation, could be brutally forced into the modern Western parliamentary paradigm of parties, elections, term limits and voluntary participation, is one that ignores centuries of continuity. Equatorial societies historically have not shown much predisposition towards open institutions. Attempts to foster the creation of such systems have typically failed.  

George Bush II was often quoted as saying that he saw no reason why Iraq couldn't be transformed easily into a "democracy"--once America had gutted their existing political framework, and "persuaded" the population with high-tech fire-power to adopt our suggested model. I suspect that the chances of anything like that occurring within the next century and a half, on the outside, to be non-existent.  

Iraq, as well as Afghanistan and Pakistan, are not fertile breeding-ground for democracy. They have no tradition of it, and all their religious and social institutions are inimical to it. Each has a long history of periodic violent conflict, and there is little evidence that they are capable of abandoning this pattern.

It is unlikely that Iraq will coalesce into an organized, civilized, peaceful nation, once American military presence is removed. I believe this would be true, no matter how much longer we maintain a significant presence there. In other words, I do not believe that Iraq would have any greater likelihood of a peaceful future, if America were to maintain a military presence there for another year, or five years, or ten years. Within 6 months of our departure--whenever that finally occurs--Iraq will inevitably fall into sectarian/civilian strife, resulting in open warfare, and the likely installation of an autocratic religious regime.  

Afghanistan and Pakistan have somewhat different histories, but I see no greater chance that democracy will "flourish" there than in Iraq. Moreover, these nations present vastly more challenging tactical military complications, which would make the prosecution of a stalemated state of temporary truce even more difficult to achieve than in Iraq. Even if we were able to reach this fragile condition, the likelihood that it could be "set up" to run on its own, after we had left, seems nil.  

Vietnam taught us, or should have, that we cannot suppress an indigenous population indefinitely, without eventually wearing out our welcome, no matter how altruistic our aims, or how determined we are to prevail.  Neither "surgical" military adventures, nor all-out campaigns, have proven to be effective in furthering our political or diplomatic objectives.  

In the long run, it is better to avoid intervening militarily in these countries.  It is no proof of our will or valor to insist that the measure of our commitment must always be a show of force. It is often more difficult NOT to act, than to act with insolence and arrogance, touting patriotism and difficult necessity as justification. As chaotic and cruel as these societies often seem to us, we are not in a position to alter the course of their development without inflicting undue harm on them, and ourselves in the process. The final outcome of our Iraq adventure may turn out to have been catastrophic, if as I expect (and may possibly even live to see) that nation will experience decades more of civil war and tens of thousands of needless casualties, as a direct result of our having forcefully removed their profane dictator.

America now stands on the verge of re-committing a large force to Afghanistan and/or the "tribal areas" of Northwest Pakistan (with, or without apparently the consent of our proxy regime there), in order to "stabilize" or "neutralize" the regional factions which threaten to retake control of those areas. This would compound our problems in all three of these nations, and would be unlikely to succeed. Further, it would likely encourage more terrorist sentiment among those populations, than already exists there.  

I would like to see a complete withdrawal of our forces from Iraq, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia at the earliest possible opportunity. When we left Vietnam, "with honor" as the Nixon regime claimed, no one had the audacity then to assert that we had accomplished anything there after 10 years of struggle and 58000 lives lost and 350,000 casualties. Whatever the losses are when we do withdraw militarily from the Middle East, these losses will all have been in vain, just as they were in Vietnam. 

Our leaders have learned nothing from history, and continue to repeat the mistakes of their predecessors.