Empire of Novices
Opinion

NYTimes.com
September 3, 2003

By MAUREEN DOWD

WASHINGTON

The Bush foreign policy team always had contempt for Bill
Clinton's herky-jerky, improvised interventions around the
world. When it took control, it promised a global
stewardship purring with gravity, finesse and
farsightedness.

But now the Bush "dream team" is making the impetuous
Clinton look like Rommel.

When your aim is remaking the Middle East, you don't want
to get stuck making it up as you go along.

Even officials with a combined century of international
experience can behave with jejeunosity - if they start
believing their own spin.

The group that started out presuming it could shape the
world is now getting shoved by the world.

Our unseen tormentors are the ones who seem canny and
organized, not us. As they move from killing individual
U.S. soldiers and Iraqis to sabotaging power plants,
burning oil pipelines, blowing up mosques, demolishing the
U.N. headquarters and now hitting the Baghdad police
headquarters, our enemies seem better prepared and more
committed to creating chaos in Iraq - and Afghanistan -
than we are to creating order.

They've also proved more adept at putting together an
effective coalition than the Bush team: a terrifying blend
of terrorists from other countries, Al Qaeda and Ansar
al-Islam fighters, radical Shiites and Saddam remnants, all
pouring into Iraq and united by their hatred of America.

If we review the Bush war council's motives for conquering
Iraq, the scorecard looks grim:

. We wanted to get rid of Osama and Saddam and the Taliban
and Al Qaeda. We didn't. They're replicating and coming at
us like cockroaches. According to Newsweek, Osama is in the
mountains of Afghanistan, plotting to use biological
weapons against America. If all those yuppies can climb
Mount Everest, at 29,000 feet, can't we pay some locals to
nab Osama at 14,000 feet?

. Bushies thought freeing Iraq from Saddam would be the
first step toward the Middle East road map for peace, as
well as a guarantee of greater security for Israel. But the
road map blew up, and Israel seems farther away from making
peace with the Arabs than ever. The U.S. has now
pathetically called on Yasir Arafat to use his power to
help after pretending for more than a year that he didn't
exist.

. Rummy wanted to exorcise the stigma of Vietnam and prove
you could use a lighter, faster force. But our adventures
in Iraq and Afghanistan may not banish our fears of being
mired in a place halfway around the world where we don't
understand the language or culture, and where our
stretched-thin soldiers are picked off, guerrilla-style.

. The neocons wanted to marginalize the wimpy U.N. by
barreling past it into Iraq. Now the Bush administration is
crawling back to the U.N., but other nations are suspicious
of U.S. security and politics in Iraq.

. Dick Cheney and Rummy wanted to blow off multilateralism
and snub what Bushies call "the chocolate-making
countries": France, Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg. But
faced with untold billions in costs and mounting casualties
in Iraq and Afghanistan, Americans are beginning to see the
advantages of sidekicks that know the perils of empire.

. The Pentagon wanted to sideline the C.I.A. and State and
run the war and reconstruction itself. Now, overwhelmed,
the Pentagon's special operations chiefs were reduced to
screening a 1965 movie, "The Battle of
Algiers," last week, as David Ignatius
reported in The Washington Post, to try to learn why the
French suffered a colonial disaster in a guerrilla war
against Muslims in Algiers.

. The neocons hoped democracy in Iraq would spread like a
fever in the Mideast, even among our double-dealing friends
like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. But after the majestic
handoff of democracy to the 25-member Iraqi Governing
Council, it seems the puppets (now nervous about
bodyguards) don't even want to work late, much less govern.
As one aide told The Times, "On the Council, someone makes
a suggestion, then it goes around the room, with everyone
talking about it, and then by that time, it's late
afternoon and time to go home."

. The vice president wanted to banish that old 60's feeling
of moral ambivalence, of America in the wrong. Our
unilateral move in Iraq, with the justifications on W.M.D.
and Qaeda links to Saddam getting shakier each month, has
made us more hated around the world than ever.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To Search in the Gambia-L archives, go to: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/CGI/wa.exe?S1=gambia-l
To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to:
[log in to unmask]

To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface
at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~