Why we're in Babylon

The war in Iraq wasn't stupid, or irrational, or evil. It'd be a lot easier of a situation if it were--and it would let us as the American people off the hook. We could then just pin the blame on Bush.

But we can't, not if we're being honest with ourselves and with our increasingly-frustrated elected leader. It's not his fault; it really isn't. Even as we near the fifth anniversary of 9/11, we've pushed to the backs of our mind how scared most people in this country were in the days after those planes flew into our buildings.

The war in Iraq was a direct and inevitable outgrowth of who we have become as a people post-9/11. It is the ultimate manifestation of the us against them mentality that has come to define our society--the only thing that changes is the increasingly harsh definition of 'them,' on issue after disparate issue, from abortion to gay rights to economic disparity to free trade to religion to immigration.

We've in essence chosen to become a zero-sum society, suspicious of and resistant to arguments that aim for a middle ground, convinced of our ultimate righteousness despite our muddled positions. It's why liberals demonize President Bush, and why conservatives lionize him.

We're all acting like America is at the end of her rope, that the lunatic right's Armageddon is indeed nigh and we better fight for what we can get in these precious days before it all (literally) goes to hell.

But put it all aside for a minute, if you can. Take a deep breath, admit that we live in the greatest country in the history of humanity, and that there is much more good than bad in America--and that the good is growing because our society as a whole is changing, whether we like it or not and whether our 'side' will profit from it all.

Let's take a hard look at why we're in Iraq, so we can figure out what to do now. We, in this case, meaning the U.S.; in Iraq meaning occupying the country with thousands of troops; what to do now meaning how do we get out of this mess.

Are we in Iraq for oil? I don't think so; if we are, why did we so quickly hand the oil industry back to Iraqis to run? All the top decision-makers are Iraqis, many of whom have moved to quickly distance themselves from the U.S.

And as Iraq feels their way down the path to democracy they're going to go through all sorts of wild fluctation in policy. Oil markets value stability and predictability over everything else; and the big oil companies uniformly would and did prefer an Iraq run by a clearly-in-charge dictator dependent on oil revenue to fund his murderous treasury, to one run by an independent democracy for whom the dollar is not always going to be the bottom line.

Historically, when commercial interests hold sway the U.S. intervenes to throw out democracies and installs dictators and shahs so they can pump more oil for their protectors. We've never, at the behest of corporations, fought a war to give more natives more say over a country's policy.

So unless you belive that oil interests were just strong enough to drag the U.S. into a war but suddenly weren't smart or strong enough to dictate the peace, the oil for war argument is just liberal pablum.

Are we in Iraq to spread democracy there and through the Middle East? There's no way; first, explain to me how a conservative Christian would suddenly halfway through his first term decide bringing democracy to Muslims was his life's calling card, worth any amount of hatred from his brethren, and scorn from the entire world?

Besides, why didn't the administration spend more time on a post-war plan, so that other countries would have a blueprint to follow? Why did Iraq get to turn to a liberal professor to help draw up a constitution instead of the administration providing a fellow traveler?

Why haven't we in any way, shape or form tried to get the Saudis or Egyptians to start moving toward democracy? Wouldn't the examples of Algeria and Turkey, where both times the country's military took over after Islamic parties won the first-ever free and fair elections, serve as more of a cautionary tale?

Democracy wasn't mentioned in the build-up to the war in Iraq; it was a feel-good after-thought, thrown in after all else failed. Even were this our motivation, at this point it's a moot point, since nobody's going to be persuaded to go democratic based on our track record in Iraq (hey, we, too want civil war and mass bloodshed! Where do we sign up?!)

Are we in Iraq to find weapons of mass destruction? Not mainly; it seems to me that was more a stick to get us into the war, the bogeyman waved--along with are you a patriot or a terrorist-lover?--in the face of those on the fence and to try and get other nations to help foot the bill.

The argument has been made a millions time, but the essential point is by the time the war drew near the adminstration knew there were no active WMDs in Iraq, yet it didn't pause their movement toward war one bit--if anything, they rushed the war along before more people could find out what they knew. At any rate, there aren't any WMDs in Iraq today, so this also is a moot point.

Are we in Iraq because of the war on terror? I actually do think this was one of two main reasons why we invaded Iraq... but not in the way the Bush administration has tried to spin it. Iraq wasn't involved with al-Qaeda before the war; that was all rhetoric, and the Bushites know it.

The neo-conservatives and our co-opted president essentially snuck the war in Iraq past a scared and shell-shocked post-9/11 America. We feel in our gut that we failed at the time to stand up and be courageous, which is why so many are so angry now. In psychological terms we feel guilty and mad at ourselves, with a twist of Monday morning everybody hates a loser thrown in to enoble us now to displace our feelings outward toward the sitting president.

Because modern American culture has no mechanism for societal confession and penance (and because in our private lives our dominant religion has been hijacked by fanatics who have perverted Jesus' humble message into 'America right or wrong'), many of us have externalized our feelings of having been suckered, and spun them into anger at 'them,' holding them responsible for what weighs on our soul.

Which is neither right, nor productive. What the Bush adminstration did after 9/11 was to make a hard decision on behalf of a temporarily-infantilized society. They decided it's better to fight terrorists on their 'home turf'--the Middle East--then on ours--New York City.

In essence, they decided to send Americans over there to spare the terrorists the trip here. At least in the Middle East, the administration figured, we'd be able to fight them with soldiers; on the home front it would be cops and civilians.

They counted on al-Qaeda et al, like any other organization, to do the cost-benefit analysis and then travel a few dozen or hundred miles to kill highly visible Americans, instead of traveling thousands of miles past beefed-up border security to try and murder again in a strange land. They counted on al-Qaeda realizing that whatever their previous level of support in the Mideast, fighting 'infidel' warriors come to despoil their holy lands was gonna fly a lot better with public opinion than killing women and children, especially when a significant portion of those killed on 9/11 were actually Muslim (it wasn't called the World Trade Center for nothing).

Iraq was chosen by the administration because Saddam Hussein was a bad guy, it was near our bases in Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf, it was a flat easy terrain for our tanks and guided missiles, there was at least the possibility the enemy had WMDs but he didn't have a very good army, it didn't seem like the populace would be particularly hostile to us, and above all it was easy for terrorists to get to.

I actually don't have any problems with the underpinnings of this policy, from the point of view of the Bush administration. If you're gonna assume after 9/11 that for whatever reason there's a critical mass of Muslims who hate us and want to destroy us at all costs, it makes sense to use the best defense is a good offense strategy, and not just go after them but stick around afterwards so any future terrorist attacks will be against professionals wearing body armor.

I don't agree with any of the administration's assumptions; for one thing the war in Iraq probably created as many terrorists as it has killed. But given that it's what the administration--and lest we forget, the majority of Americans in those heady days post-9/11--thought, they actually made a logical decision.

I do wish the administration had thought fit to share their reasoning publicly, and the fact they didn't says a lot about how they view their fellow Americans, and the world. I guess it's kind of hard to stand up in front of the UN and tell the people of Iraq essentially that you are simply in the wrong place at the wrong time--that too many strategic goals are served by a war in your home, besides which, frankly we'd rather innocent Iraqi civilians die than American civilians.

It's a bit hard to say that--but if you're going to do exactly that, you ought to bear the full brunt of your decision. If the rest of the world calls you cold-hearted, Machiavellian, uncivilized, selfish, and self-righteous, you should be willing to take the justified abuse, look them square in the eye, and say you're right, but we're willing to have this on our soul.

And make no mistake--in this post-9/11 world if we held a national vote with the question, Would you rather a large number of Middle Eastern civilians and smaller number of American soldiers die, or a smaller number of American civilians die, most Americans would in the privacy of the ballot booth pull the lever to kill the foreigners and the poor troops, God bless their souls.

So let's not pretend this is an evil Republican regime dragging us kicking and screaming down the road to hell. It explains in part why Bush looks so peevish all the time--he must be dying to scream out you idiots and hypocrites, I made the hard decision because it's what all of us wanted, you're like teens who whine about animal cruelty while wolfing down hamburgers.

Aside from wanting to do what we thought would save our own skin, I do think there is a second reason why we're in Iraq--because we owed Israel.

During the first Persian Gulf War, Saddam launched missiles at and hit Israel. In an event unique in Israeli history, they didn't retaliate. This has never happened before--Israel's sine qua non is that if you hit me, I hit you back times ten.

But the U.S. was justifiably worried that the Arab members of its coalition would never fight on the same side of Israel, and so President George H. W. Bush was able to prevail on Israel to let America punish Saddam in its stead.

Problem is, even in light of Saddam having invaded and burned Kuwait we couldn't make up our mind whether he was a bigger threat or the Iranians. We didn't dare risk taking him out altogether for fear Iraq would disintegrate into civil war (hmmmm) and Iran would be left without a 'balancing' power.

So we deliberately stopped short and left Saddam in Baghdad, where until 9/11 the Israelis fretted. For logical and psychological reasons relating to the first war, and strategic reasons related to Iraq's proximity, size and unpredictability, many Israelis temporarily replaced their hatred of Iran with a fear and loathing of Saddam.

Even before Bush II took office Richard Perle and the rest of the neo-conservatives started sounding the drums about Iraq; they're part of the line of American policy which has always held that what's good for Israel is good for America. And even if it isn't... we're so big and strong that we can go out of our way a little to help our little brother, and if necessary take punishment on their behalf.

The counterbalancing wing in American foreign policy, which like liberals has had an inaccurate and limiting label--'Arabists'--pinned on them, has traditionally argued for a broader examination of American and world interest in the Middle East. They argue that as a honest broker America could more effectively promote macro goals like democracy and stability in the region, which are in our interests and, in the long run, Israel's as well.

This wing, of course, lost any power they had after 9/11. At which point the neo-cons saw a chance to push through their plan to remove Saddam as a threat to Israel primarily, and America secondarily. Those hypothetical weapons of mass destruction could've be loaded onto missiles and wiped out Tel Aviv; there was never any evidence that Saddam would suddenly turn on his old American allies.

Part of the American public's hypocrisy and ignorance is how quickly we've erased from our public discourse the fact that the only time Saddam used weapons of mass destruction against another country was when we supplied him with the latest in satellite imagery so he could drop thousands of chemical shells on Iranian troops and civilians.

The war between the two neighbors was started by Iraq, with the encouragement of the U.S. (not that Saddam needed much of a push--more important was the American assurance that they would back him militarily, which we did).

The Iraq war, in the end, is really a perfect storm for Americans. It says so much more about us as a people than we'd like to admit; even the fact that we gaze regularly on the news at the bodies of slain Iraqis but profess shock and outrage when al-Jazeera shows our dead speaks volumes about how we literally see the world.

Image from William Blake's 1808 edition of John Milton's Paradise Lost found online.