Iraq Post-Mortem

The press got hold of part of the new Iraqi Constitution. It looks like it's going to be a version of strict Islamic Shariah law - just like the ruling Dawa Party and the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq vowed to make it. Goodbye, women's rights; Hello, Islamic morals police.

US Ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, is speaking out publicly against any result that doesn't give women equal rights, but since President Bush insisted on handing political and administrative control to the Iraqis, we have little leverage left. Remember, the argument wasn't that Iraq couldn't hold an election, it was that they shouldn't hold an election - until they established security and basic democratic institutions.

Seeing as how, over the last two years, US influence in Iraq has dwindled to impotent diplomatic protests, this seems like a good time to judge whether President Bush achieved the stated goal(s) of his Middle East adventure,

Destroy the WMD/terrorist nexus in Iraq: We now know it never existed.

Regime change: Success. But... Is an Islamic fundamentalist, pro-Iranian regime an acceptable outcome? Wasn't replacing corrupt, autocratic regimes with anti-American Islamic states the stated goal of Osama bin Laden? Who is the winner here?

Create a stable democracy, inspiring democratic reformers throughout the Middle East: Evaluating success here is a little less clear cut. There was a lot of ballyhoo over Libya's renunciation of WMD, Lebanon's "Cedar Revolution", and Palestinian elections, but it's unclear how much, if any, credit can be given to President Bush's invasion of Iraq.

It's hard to conceive how Syria's decision to assassinate Rafiq Hariri, the catalyst for Lebanon's anti-Syrian revolution, had anything to do with Iraq. Similarly, it's doubtful Yasser Arafat keeled over because Bush took Baghdad. And the Libya deal had been in the works since the Lockerbie bombing, apparently the result of crushing sanctions rather than fear of US military intervention.

More disturbingly, in Lebanon and Palestine, the terrorist groups Hezbollah and Hamas are poised to take control through free elections. In the case of Palestine, the ruling Fatah Party suspended democratic elections indefinitely to forestall the country's takeover by Hamas.

If you look at reform movements in other parts of the Middle East, you find that they're doing worse now than before the war. In Saudi Arabia, clerics calling for a constitutional monarchy were jailed - even after an appeal by Condoleezza Rice. In Egypt, President Mubarak just made it impossible for opposition parties to get on the ballot without the approval of the regime which they're opposing.

In Syria, opposition leaders are actually supporting Bashar Al Assad's regime. "This is the dilemma," says Omar Amiralay, a prominent Syrian filmmaker and opposition leader. "Between wanting the regime to end, and, on the other side, fear of repeating the catastrophe in Iraq."

Strike a blow against terrorism: If you get beyond the fact that there were no terrorists in Iraq before the invasion, you find that - according to the CIA and State Department - the Iraq invasion is actually attracting thousands of new al Qaeda network recruits. In addition, Iraq has become a classroom where apprentice terrorists get trained, then go back home to carry out attacks.

You often hear President Bush claiming we're fighting them in Iraq so we don't have to fight them over here. Whatever the reason we haven't seen another attack on US soil, it has nothing to do with Iraq - as was made clear in Madrid, Bali, Egypt, and London. While terrorists are obviously having a field day attacking US troops and collaborators in Iraq, to insist that Iraq is drawing 100% of terrorist attacks is to live in a fantasy world of spin.

All in all, President Bush's Iraq gambit has been a magnificent failure. The only bright spot being the downfall of Saddam Hussein - and even that achievement is marred by the fundamentalist, pro-Iranian regime with which he's been replaced. And the most frustrating part is, there just isn't any way to turn this debacle into victory. With the Pentagon dragging its heels getting Iraqi security forces trained, terrorists infiltrating the Iraqi police, the Iraqi government unwilling to disarm their militias, and the distasteful nature of the new government itself, I just don't see any scenario in which we clearly win.

To make matters worse, if insurgents are still carrying out attacks when President Bush pulls out the troops and declares victory (assuming the country doesn't fracture into civil war first), it will ring as hollow as President Nixon's "peace with honor" retreat from Vietnam. From our enemy's point of view, it will be a bigger victory than Reagan's retreat from Lebanon and Clinton's retreat from Somalia.