Less than two weeks ago, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta presided
over the final withdrawal of American troops from Iraq. Since then,
Iraq has been dissolving as quickly as an Alka-Seltzer tablet in
warm water.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s government issued an
arrest warrant for the Deputy PM, Tareq al-Hashemi, promptly after
the last U.S. truck convoy rolled across the border into Kuwait.
Maliki, a Shiite, accuses Hashemi, a Sunni, of involvement in
terrorism. Hashemi fled to the north, taking refuge in the Kurdish
region under the protection of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani.
Hashemi has admitted that some of his guards were involved in
attacks, but denied involvement and refused to return to Baghdad
for trial on the ground that Maliki exercised political control
over the courts.
Last Thursday, in a series of coordinated attacks, more
than seventy people were killed in Iraq. The Thursday attacks
spurred speculation that al Qaeda in Iraq had been revived, though
other terrorist groups were probably capable of the planning and
coordination that had previously been al-Qaeda’s trademark. Another
attack, a suicide bombing at Iraq’s Interior Ministry, killed at
least six the day after Christmas.
This carnage is not Iraq’s “new normal.” It is a return to
the old normal that will continue until some new strongman asserts
control over Iraq or Iraq is broken up into sectarian regions and
swallowed by its various neighbors.
On the day of the Interior Ministry attack, the
parliamentary minority controlled by Iran’s puppet, Moqtada
al-Sadr, demanded that the Iraqi parliament be dissolved and that
new elections be held to resolve the disputes. That a new
parliament would be able to resolve anything is risible, given the
several parliaments’ failure to act since the first one was
established after the fall of Saddam Hussein.
All of this was not only foreseeable, it was inevitable as
I have written
on this page for almost six years. The
bonfire of the neocons burns brightly in Baghdad.
Now we have to face the fact that there is neither any way
for us to stop Iraq’s dissolution nor any reason for us to
try.
It is not the fact that our troops have been withdrawn
that makes it impossible for us to influence Iraq’s future. It is
the fact that our standing in the Middle East has been weakened by
our unwillingness to deal with the terrorist nations’ intervention
in Iraq and Afghanistan, or with the Islamic ideology that propels
nations to sponsor terrorism.
There are some who will demand that American troops be
sent back into Iraq to provide order and stability as only they
can. The neoconservatives will insist that, like socialists
defending their flawed idea, nation-building didn’t fail because
its theory wasn’t properly applied or for a sufficiently long time.
This is a debate we should engage in eagerly, because on its
conclusion depends the future of American conservatism and,
perhaps, the future of America itself.
Neoconservatives will say, truthfully, that
nation-building doesn’t always fail. They will point to post-World
War II Germany and Japan to prove the point. But implicit in those
examples is that the defeated Axis powers were comparable to Iraq
and Afghanistan, which they were not. In neither Germany nor Japan
was there an undefeated enemy. In neither was there a dominant
religious imperative that prevented democracy from taking root. And
in neither were there third-party nations with the power and
motivation to prevent nation-building from succeeding.
Each of those conditions pertains in both Iraq and
Afghanistan, and any one of them could have prevented the success
of nation-building. When all three combine, the failure was —
again — both foreseeable and inevitable.
The conservative debate won’t be just between those who
support the nation-building theory and those who oppose it. There
is a third voice — that of the libertarians — who not only oppose
nation-building but also demand that America withdraw from its role
as a superpower.
Rep. Ron Paul, the libertarians’ most prominent voice,
demands not only withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan but also from
our bases in other parts of the world. Amidst our economic crisis,
the siren call of cutting defense engagements abroad is stronger
than it is in times of economic growth. There is some basis for the
idea of reducing our forces in Europe, where our NATO allies have
had a free ride since the fall of the Soviet Union. Why should we
defend those who won’t invest in their own defense?
In truth, we shouldn’t. But that doesn’t mean that we
should forfeit our influence there — or in Japan and the Pacific.
That’s because our interests in defending freedom are based on more
than vague moral principles. The libertarians are wrong because our
nation — any nation — is entitled to build and protect its
interests abroad. For America to remain free and prosperous, we
cannot abandon freedom of the seas, of the skies, of the cyber
domains and of space. If we fail, our adversaries — be they the
Islamic terror-sponsoring nations, China, or Russia — will prevail
and our freedom will decay as inevitably as Iraq will
dissolve.
American conservatism used to be defined in terms of
fiscal responsibility, personal responsibility, and strong defense.
If the libertarians and the neoconservatives succeed in redefining
it, the political force of conservatism will disappear until the
basic principles are re-established. We cannot allow that to happen
because the consequences for our nation will be too
dire.
For the next ten plus months, the critical campaign to
prevent Obama’s re-election will demand our best efforts and our
fullest attention. But we cannot afford to let the debate over
conservatism’s future be delayed. We can, and must, debate and
resolve our internal differences at the same time. If we do, we can
clear away the fog that now envelops the values of conservatism. By
so doing, we can push whoever the Republican nominee may be in the
right direction, in both meanings of that term.
Let’s begin with the principle stated by British Prime
Minister Henry John Temple, Lord Palmerston, stated to Parliament
in 1848: “We have no eternal allies and we have no perpetual
enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those
interests it is our duty to follow.” Palmerston’s Principle is as
correct with respect to domestic politics as it is to foreign
affairs. In the political circus that will be 2012, it is a
principle that should be a benchmark of the conservative
debate.
