Brent Scowcroft speaks out--Part 2

Part 1 ended by saying that Scowcroft had been shunned by the Bush administration.

Scowcroft and Rice

What happened between Scowcroft and Rice, who at the time was National Security Adviser, was indicative of how Scowcroft was treated by the White House as a whole. In "Breaking Ranks" Goldberg tells the story better than I ever could.

The disintegrating relationship between Scowcroft and Condoleezza Rice has not escaped the notice of their colleagues from the first Bush Administration. She was a political-science professor at Stanford when, in 1989, Scowcroft hired her as a Soviet expert on the National Security Council. Scowcroft found her bright–“brighter than I was”–and personable, and he brought her all the way inside, to the Bush family circle. When Scowcroft published his Wall Street Journal article, Rice telephoned him, according to several people with knowledge of the call. “She said, ‘How could you do this to us?’” a Scowcroft friend recalled. “What bothered Brent more than Condi yelling at him was the fact that here she is, the national-security adviser, and she’s not interested in hearing what a former national-security adviser had to say.

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Rice’s split with her former National Security Council colleagues was made evident at a dinner in early September of 2002, at 1789, a Georgetown restaurant. Scowcroft, Rice, and several people from the first Bush Administration were there. The conversation, turning to the current Administration’s impending plans for Iraq, became heated. Finally, Rice said, irritably, “The world is a messy place, and someone has to clean it up.” The remark stunned the other guests. Scowcroft, as he later told friends, was flummoxed by Rice’s “evangelical tone.”

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They also argued about Iraq. “She says we’re going to democratize Iraq, and I said, ‘Condi, you are not going to democratize Iraq,’ and she said, ‘You know, you’re just stuck in the old days,’ and she comes back to this thing that we’ve tolerated an autocratic Middle East for fifty years and so on and so forth,” he said. Then a barely perceptible note of satisfaction entered his voice, and he said, “But we’ve had fifty years of peace.”

And I wonder, because of the Iraq war and occupation, when that last statement can be made again.

Rice's attitude was and is typical of the delusional neocon world view, which Scowcroft does not share.

Scowcroft's realism v. the neocons' delusion

• "Delusion" defined
  

Here are some definitions of "delusion" from two sources:

• Merriam-Webster Medical Dictionary: a false belief regarding the self or persons or objects outside the self that persists despite the facts...
• WordNet (by Princeton University): an erroneous belief that is held in the face of evidence to the contrary

With these definitions in mind, let's take a look at Scowcroft's philosophy compared to that of the neocons.

• Putting "freedom on the march" in general
  

Scowcroft accurately told Goldberg that one of the primary objectives of the neocons is "the export of democracy, by violence if that is required." Scowcroft went on to say the following:

“How do the neocons bring democracy to Iraq? You invade, you threaten and pressure, you evangelize.” And now, Scowcroft said, America is suffering the consequences of that brand of revolutionary utopianism. “This was said to be part of the war on terror, but Iraq feeds terrorism,” he said.

The last statement has already been discussed in Part 1. I also point out that Wes Clark was saying the same thing during the 2004 Presidential campaign, and he was ignored by the Democratic party the same way the White House ignored Scowcroft. In May 2004 Clark wrote "But if the events of the last year tell us anything, it is that democracy in the Middle East is unlikely to come at the point of our gun." On one side, we have two generals with years of experience in military and international affairs, and on the other side we have the neocons, whose "intellectual" was and is none other than Paul Wolfowitless.

Before discussing Wolfowitless further, let's look at Scowcroft's take on spreading democracy through military force:

Scowcroft does not believe that the promotion of American-style democracy abroad is a sufficiently good reason to use force. “I thought we ought to make it our duty to help make the world friendlier for the growth of liberal regimes,” he said. “You encourage democracy over time, with assistance, and aid, the traditional way. Not how the neocons do it.”

So what makes Scowcroft's approach acceptable and the neocon's approach delusional? For starters, common sense and human nature. Humans learn best through experience. If we are forced to do something, we are not as likely to learn something positive from the experience. Forcing change on a person rarely if ever is as effective as that person deciding and choosing for himself to change. A forced change--even when the change needs to happen--can produce resentment. It is the forcing, not necessarily the change, that produces the resentment. Also, massive, drastic, and sudden change can often not be as effective in the long run as change that happens over time. This is particularly true when talking about change for millions of people at the same time. Why? 1) It takes time for millions of people to make the choice to change; and 2) if the change is forced, the potential number of people who could resent the action goes way up, meaning that time will then be required to resolve that resentment. In other words, change over time lessens the potential for problems (such as an insurgency) and increases the chances that the change will remain for the long term. The neocon approach is to go in and use force to make a sudden, drastic change for millions of people. Moreover, the neocons in the Bush administration have the belief that such use of force will necessarily result in peace and stability. Never mind that a significant number of those people might not want the change. Never mind that such action is an outsider imposing its will on another country. Never mind that the neighboring countries might not like either the change or the use of military force. That, folks, is following a belief that is oblivious to reality.

• Putting "freedom on the march" in Iraq
  

In order to understand why following that belief was truly delusional in the case of Iraq, one must first look at what Scowcroft told Goldberg about Wolfowitless.

Scowcroft said of Wolfowitz, “He’s got a utopia out there. We’re going to transform the Middle East, and then there won’t be war anymore. He can make them democratic. He is a tough minded idealist, but where he is truly an idealist is that he brushes away questions, says, ‘It won’t happen,’ whereas I would say, ‘It’s likely to happen and therefore you can’t take the chance.’ Paul’s idealism sweeps away doubts.” Wolfowitz, for his part, said to me (Goldberg), “It’s absurdly unrealistic, demonstrably unrealistic, to ignore how strong the desire for freedom is.”

(emphasis added). And it is not merely absudly unrealistic but abjectly delusional to think that the desire for freedom is the only thing that that needs to be considered. Now let's take a look at Iraq. I have previously given detailed explanations of why Wolfowitless has always been a dangerous fool (Paul Wolfowitz: prime example of everything wrong with the Bush administration; More on Wolfowitz and the blunders of the Bush administration; Wolfowitz's Reason 2 why Shinseki was wrong; Wolfowitz's Reason 3 why Shinseki was wrong), but here is a simpler breakdown in the example of Iraq...

I do not dispute that there is a strong desire for freedom, but there is also a very strong desire for power and a strong desire to keep others from dominion over oneself. All of these desires were and still are in play in Iraq, and only an moron would not have taken these facts into account. Under Saddam, the Sunnis, about 30% of the population, ruled and dominated Iraq to the exclusion of the the other two major groups in the country, the Shia and the Kurds. After years of oppression, persecution, and exclusion at the hands of the Sunnis, the Shia, who have a majority, naturally want to control Iraq and keep the Sunnis on the outside. The Kurds, who had enjoyed ten years of basically governing themselves in northern Iraq, naturally had a desire for freedom matched, if not exceeded, by their desire to have their own separate country. With Saddam ousted and the Sunnis out of power, it should have been obvious that while the Shia and Kurds desired freedom, they did not necessarily desire freedom within an Iraq they would share with the Sunnis. Once military force was used to suddenly remove Saddam from power and create drastic change, the neocons should have at the very least considered the very obvious facts herein described. Instead, they refused to take them into account. That is delusional.

• According to the neocons, post-war Iraq would be easy.
  

Remember that Cheney told Tim Russert on March 16, 2003, that we would be welcomed as liberators. The plain implication was that the post-war effort would be easy. On February 27, 2003, Wolfowitless skipped the implication and directly told Congress that we would be treated as liberators and that fact would make the post-war phase easy. Aside from the human nature and common sense facts discussed in the previous paragraph, there are other facts which expose the delusional qualities of the assessment of Cheney and Wolfowitless. Maj. Gen. William Nash (retired) was the commander of U.S. forces in northern Bosnia once the war there ended. Nash discussed the lessons he learned and what happened in Iraq in a November 1, 2003, New York Times article:

Nash, understandably proud of his service as commander of U.S. forces in postconflict Bosnia, is chagrined by the way American forces behaved in the immediate aftermath of the fall of Baghdad. ''I know they expected to be greeted with flowers and candy,'' he says, ''or at least the civilians in the Pentagon had assured them they would be. But we know from experience that this kind of welcome lasts only a few days at most. You are welcomed with roses -- for one day. Then you have to prove yourself, and keep on proving yourself, every succeeding day of the mission. There are no excuses, and few second chances."

(emphasis added). Gee, just like with Eric Shinseki, we had military generals with actual experience in these matters, but the civilians in the Pentagon (and that would include Wolfowitless) ignored them.

Still not convinced? Then perhaps some pre-war words from actual Iraqis will persuade you. This excerpt from "Is Democracy Possible in Iraq?", a March 3, 2003 article in Business Week Online, provides a good overview:

At least six opposition groups agitating for Saddam's overthrow are represented in the British capital, and many of the better-known Iraqi scholars and writers live there as well. They debate each other endlessly, but they nearly all agree on one important point: If the U.S. does manage to oust Saddam, it will have its hands full managing the country the moustachioed strongman leaves behind. "There will be wild jubilation," says Faleh A. Jabar, an Iraqi sociologist. "But it could quickly turn into wild opposition."

A prominent Iraqi exile, Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim, leader of the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, had many warnings before the war, as expressed in a February 25, 2003, MSNBC article. Hakim said that 1) a U.S. military presence in post-war Iraq would not be welcome; 2) a post-Saddam U.S. military presence will offend “national sensitivities;” 3) “Muslim countries will refuse any foreign administration of Iraq, (and) this could start a religious war in Iraq and neighboring countries;” and 4) even the appearance of a U.S. occupation of Iraq would destabilize Iraq and the region, which could "open the door to violence and terrorism against the United States. This extremism will be very dangerous to Iraq and its neighbors.”

But wait, there's more. Kamil Mahdi is a lecturer in Middle East economics at the University of Exeter in England who was an Iraqi political exile. On February 20, 2003, the Guardian published an op-ed piece by Mahdi entitled "Iraqis Will Not Be Pawns in Bush and Blair's War Game." Therein he asserted that the U.S. would be able to obtain some Iraqi and regional assistance “with varying degrees of pressure.” Mahdi then pointedly said that

This in no way bestows legitimacy on its objectives and methods, and its policies are rejected by most Iraqis and others in the region. Indeed, the main historical opposition to the Ba'ath regime...has rejected war and U.S. patronage over Iraqi politics. The prevalent Iraqi opinion is that a U.S. attack on Iraq would be a disaster, not a liberation[.]

When added to the other opposition statements listed above, Mahdi showed that, even amongst any disagreement between groups, a common opinion before the war within much of the Iraqi opposition was that a strong U.S. occupation would not be “welcomed” by Iraqis.

And yet, in the face of all these facts, Wolfowitless and Cheney remained convinced that we would be forever hailed as liberators, thus making the post-war process easy. That, friends and neighbors, is delusion.

• More evidence of the delusion of Wolfowitless
  

I could stop, but just in case there is anyone still not convinced, "Breaking Ranks" has this nugget of insight:

One day I mentioned to Scowcroft an interview I had with Paul Wolfowitz, when he was Donald Rumsfeld’s deputy. Wolfowitz was the leading neoconservative thinker in the senior ranks of the current Bush Administration. (He is now the president of the World Bank.) I asked what he would think if previously autocratic Arab countries held free elections and then proceeded to vote Islamists into power. Wolfowitz answered, “Look, fifty percent of the Arab world are women. Most of those women do not want to live in a theocratic state. The other fifty percent are men. I know a lot of them. I don’t think they want to live in a theocratic state.”

Un-freaking-believable. I have no doubt that many Arab women do not want to live in a theocratic state given that such a state would give them almost no rights, but right now Arab women don't have many rights, and they have very little power. Women's rights in Arab countries is a topic in itself, so for now I highlight some recent findings from a survey of women's rights covering 17 countries in the Middle East and North Africa done by Freedom House. The survey was released May 20, 2005, and was explained and summarized in an essay by Sameena Nazir. Here are some excerpts from the essay:

A substantial deficit in women’s rights exists in every country reviewed in this study and is reflected in practically every institution of society: the law, the criminal justice system, the economy, education, health care, and the media.

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The comprehensive reports presented in this survey detail how women in [the surveyed] countries face systematic discrimination in both laws and social customs. As a consequence, women do not enjoy equal rights as citizens, nor do they have a full, independent legal identity.

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Arab women are significantly underrepresented in senior or executive positions in politics, government, the judiciary, and the private sector. The participation of women in political life in [the surveyed] countries is the lowest in the world. Women are not allowed to vote in Saudi Arabia. In some countries, women are barred from certain professions, and many women face social pressures to remain at home and eschew a career. Although some countries under review have enacted laws prohibiting gender discrimination, few offer women the practical mechanisms to bring complaints of bias.

(emphasis added). The point here is that as of May 2005, Arab women were not in a position to affect the political process--and that held true whenever Goldberg interviewed Wolfowitless. That is a fact that was completely ignored by Wolfowitless.

His second statement--about knowing a lot of the men in the Arab world--is absurd on its face. According to the atlas sevice available through Mapquest, the estimated population in 2000 of Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen was 163,675,301. Half of that number--which would be the total male population according to Wolfowitless--is 81,837,650.5. That means that Wolfowitless was asserting that he knew enough of over 81 million men to know what those over 81 million men wanted. I have a simple response: bullshit. I maintain that in light of the numbers (that is, facts), Wolfowitless's statement is prima facie delusional. Some might want to argue that Wolfowitless was simply engaging in innocent hyperbole. The problem with that argument is that Wolfowitless's policies and decisions--which were those of the Bush administration--were based on this and other bullshit statements which had no basis in factual reality.

• Conclusion
  

Which brings us back to Scowcroft. Scowcroft is a realist. What does that mean? In the context of the Iraq war, Scowcroft's realism has in part been stated already in his description of Wolfowitless: "I would say, 'It’s likely to happen and therefore you can’t take the chance.'" Elsewhere in "Breaking Ranks" Scowcroft said, "My kind of realism would look at what are the most likely consequences of pushing out a government. What will replace it?" The last paragraph of the article says,

For Scowcroft, the second Gulf war is a reminder of the unwelcome consequences of radical intervention, especially when it is attempted without sufficient understanding of America’s limitations or of the history of a region.

Using his brand of realism, before deciding to invade Iraq Scowcroft would have examined all the known facts (including the history and culture of the area), considered possible consequences of various actions--both short-term and long-term, and then would have made a decision. What a concept! Bush and the rest of his band of idiots did none of this. They ignored facts. They ignored history and culture. They refused to even hear differing perspectives and opinions. They made proclamations that had no basis in reality, and then they made decisions based on those proclamations.

Those decisions have cost hundreds of billions of dollars, strengthened terrorists, damaged our reputation in the world, put huge strains on our military, and cost the lives of over 2000 soldiers.

Maybe I'm the one who is crazy, but it seems to me that before making a decision to go to war, one should consider the factors present in Scowcroft's realism. Maybe the failure to do so might not be delusional, but it is beyond stupid. It is criminally negligent.