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dangerbunny does texas |
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by Geoff Mueller
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." - George Santayana
In the case of George W. Bush, those who do not study their history learn nothing. The Bush Doctrine, which deals largely with Iraq, is a convoluted, self-contradictory, hypocritical statement, showing Bush's foreign policy severely lacking in historical knowledge.
At first glance, the doctrine appears to put to use knowledge of the failure of the Appeasers in an attempt to stoke the warfires against Iraq. Unfortunate for Bush and his colleagues, the events are so strikingly different that the rest of the world is having a hard time swallowing. Led by British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, the so-called Appeasers were several countries willing to overlook some of Adolf Hitler's "indiscretions" in hopes that he would be satisfied enough to do no further harm. In 1936, Dr. Kurt von Schuschnigg, the Austrian Chancellor, was forced to make far-reaching concessions to the Austrian Nazi party. By February 1938, Hitler, who was born in Austria (Braunau), had decided the time was ripe to take over his birth-land. After two months of threats and bravado, Hitler wrested away control of Austria from Schuschnigg, who would be imprisoned for the next seven years and miraculously survive the war. Austria could have only been saved by military intervention, something which the Appeasers were not willing to do. Thus, both Austria and the Appeasers paid dearly for the mistake over the next seven plus years. Just two days after he weaseled his way into keeping his new found Lebensraum at Munich in front of British and French negotiators, Hitler seized Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia. On September 1, 1939, Hitler would invade Poland.
What sets the modern circumstance apart from this historical one is several-fold. When Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990, the response was swift, strong, and, most importantly, universal. So far in 2002, Hussein has not invaded Kuwaitor Saudi Arabia, or, Israel, or anybody. There has been no "appeasing" Saddam Hussein, as there was for Hitler. Nor has Hussein given blatant cause for his ousting. Therefore, using the 'Appeaser' lesson as justification for a modern-day Iraq invasion is simply invalid.
A second approach used by Bush's Iraqi foreign policy is to depict Hussein as a madman who either has or is looking for weapons of mass destruction to immediately loose upon the world. Compared to one historical madman, Iosef Stalin, Saddam Hussein is the bona fide Santa Claus (or, at worst, a cheap discount store knock-off). Stalin had nuclear weapons and sent at least seven million people to rot away in the gulags of Siberia (seven million people would be about 1/3rd the entire population of Iraq). Yet, the United Nations did not go after Stalin. The reason? Deterrence. To be more precise, nuclear deterrence. If the Bushies *KNEW* Saddam had a nuke, they would not go after him because the risk would be too high. However, contradictory to their propaganda, Saddam most likely does not have nuclear capabilities. Additionally, if Saddam actually had a nuke, he would use it against American troops in desperation (and only American troops as there is no worldwide support for a strike against Iraq). But the truth is that Saddam is a megalomaniac, and he recognizes that you don't have power if you are dead. He wants to stay alive. Therefore, it is extremely unlikely that he will do anything to endanger that situation even if he were to have nuclear arms. Saddam fully knows that the next time he does something stupid, and world opinion is firmly against him, he will become Manuel Noriega's cellmate, at best. Nuclear deterrence saved the world from destruction for nearly four decades. Bush should learn something from that fact.
The final flaw in Bush's Iraqi policy is the detrimental effect ousting Hussein would have on not only the citizens of Iraq, but those of American citizens. Considering how many different ethnicities and beliefs make up Iraq's population, the consequences of a power vacuum if Saddam were ousted could easily embroil the country in a civil war of massive numbers. These groups hate each other almost as much as they hate Jews. Bush details no plan on how our administration would fill that void and stave off what would likely be a long, bloody fight for control of the country. Similar struggles have plagued Yugoslavia, Kashmir, and, more recently, Afghanistan. The likely result would be America's involvement as peace-holders,¹ forcing our occupation, potentially for years. And, as history has also demonstrated, these occupations do little more than train the native peoples military strategy, sometimes to be used against us, and provide them with a reason to do so (see Afghanistan). Why, then, is the Bush administration so intent on attacking Iraq?
In fact, the Bushies want to invade Iraq for two primary reasons. First, much of Shrub's staff worked under his father, George I. These include Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, and Colin Powell, men who have taken their inability to dethrone Saddam as a personal failure. In this sense, Shrub looks at the Iraqi situation as a way to avenge the stupidity of his father and his administration when Saddam should have been handled in the first place. To this day, the fact the Saddam survived the year, and continues to hold power, is perceived as one of the biggest blunders since the Vietnam War.
In the end, however, this is about oil. Iraq could produce, in theory, the second-most amount of oil in the world to Saudi Arabia. A U.S. controlled Iraq would give the U.S. a virtual monopoly on oil production as we would no longer need to be a part of OPEC. Nearly the entire administration has direct connections to oil interests, and Bush would be able to thank those that got him elected in the first place. Shrub has done nothing to repudiate insinuations that his entire administration is based upon making the rich richer and his oil-buddies wealthy beyond our wildest dreams. Iraq is yet another example of this.
If these accusations seem wild and baseless, they are nothing compared to those contained in the Bush Doctrine. It's obvious that Bush has learned nothing from the past, and the only thing that drives him is the love of power and money. Finally, it is ironic to think that the nation that has broken the most tenets of the Bush Doctrine is the United States, many times since the current administration has taken over.
"To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public." - Theodore Roosevelt
