The neocon conundrum
With the situation in Iraq darkening, hawks are saying we can't leave
without unleashing a catastrophe. The problem is, that'll happen if we stay,
too.

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By James P. Pinkerton



April 17, 2004 | As a sense of gloom about Iraq escalated along with the
fighting the past two weeks, so did neoconservative calls to "stay the
course" -- even if it's a course to nowhere.

Once, the right painted visions of cakewalks, of jubilant Iraqis welcoming
their own conquest, of blossoming secular pro-Western democracy. Now that
mirage has dissipated. Following President George W. Bush's press conference
last Tuesday, neocon Bill Kristol told the Los Angeles Times, "I was
depressed." The publisher of the Weekly Standard freely conceded that for
those Americans who were "doubtful or worried," Bush failed to close the
sale. "He didn't explain how we are going to win there."

So what do the neocons do now? Their optimistic vision of Iraq as the first
domino to fall in their favor may have failed, but they are never at a loss
for words. So they have a new line. Instead of offering us carrots, they're
threatening us with sticks. OK, they seem to be saying, there's not much
upside, but look at the downside.

"The consequences of failure in Iraq would be unthinkable," the president
told the nation on Tuesday night. To sum up the hawks' arguments, if we
leave Iraq we will have:

1) Instability and maybe civil war.

2) Encouragement to terrorists. Bush says that our "will is being tested" in
this series of "Black Hawk Down"-like horrors. And if we flunk this test,
the "Somalia syndrome" awaits.

3) Loss of prestige and influence in the Arab world and beyond. As Osama bin
Laden said in November 2001, the U.S. is the "weak horse" in this race, so
others will be looking to the stronger horse.

4) Loss of the ability to use or threaten force elsewhere. We'll be
paper-tigerized.

5) A nourishing of future violence. "We must fight them in the Middle East,"
say the hawks, "so we don't have to fight them in Middle America."

Columnist Mona Charen is one of many neoconservatives urging fortitude. She
quotes James Burnham: "Where there's no alternative, there's no problem."
Then she explains further: "The work of transforming the Middle East is
going to be messy and difficult. But there is no alternative."

Burnham, of course, holds a sainted place in the hearts of the neocons,
because back in the '50s he was one of the first Trotskyites to become a
"rollback of communism"-type conservative. So citing Burnham is a way of
recalling the days when the Gen. Patton right wanted "regime change" in
Moscow.

But what the neocons don't want you to notice is this: Those same disasters
will befall us if we stay in Iraq.


In other words, if we remain in Iraq we will have:

1) Instability and maybe even civil war.

2) Encouragement to terrorists. Actually, we're recruiting them for the
other side. President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt has estimated that our
post-Saddam "harvest" will be "a hundred bin Ladens."

3) Loss of prestige and influence in the Arab world and beyond. According to
last month's Pew Research Center international opinion survey, "Discontent
with America and its policies has intensified rather than diminished ... the
war in Iraq has undermined America's credibility abroad." Here's the view
from key countries: By a 46-37 margin, Moroccans think that Iraq will be
worse off post-Operation Iraqi Freedom; the "worse off" margin is 45 points
in Jordan and 53 points in Pakistan.

4) Loss of the ability to use or threaten force. As retired four-star Gen.
Barry McCaffrey told Time magazine, "There are no more U.S. troops to send
to Iraq" -- without a draft, that is. So we don't hear the White House
saying much about the rest of the "axis of evil" anymore, because the North
Koreans and Iranians know that the U.S. can't attack when it's mired in
Mesopotamian quicksand. Meanwhile, North Korea is reported to be showing off
at least three of its nuclear weapons.

5) A nourishing of future violence. Those who don't have a TV to see the
gates of hell opening in Iraq might contemplate these additional numbers
from the Pew Center: By a 46-36 margin, Pakistanis support suicide bombings
against Americans and other Westerners in Iraq. In Morocco, suicide-bomber
proponents outpolled opponents 66-to-27. And in Jordan, 70-to-24.

So it's damned if we stay, damned if we go. And one more thing: damned if we
question. If the 9/11 commissioners ask too many questions, they're accused
of playing a partisan blame game. Even White House correspondents, who are
paid to ask questions, are liable to get whacked, too -- in some cases, by
other journalists. Pressies are piranha-ing the president in their
"second-guessing eased by hindsight," snipes Joseph Curl of the Washington
Times. For Curl, reportorial questions seem not only annoying, but tedious:
"False premises. Errors in judgment ... Mistakes, mistakes, mistakes." So
much for speaking truth to power.

Another group that shouldn't be questioning is the widows of those who were
killed on 9/11. "This spectacle of the widows, awash in their sense of
victims' entitlement, as they press ahead with ever more strident claims
about the way the government failed them," is appalling to Dorothy
Rabinowitz of the Wall Street Journal, so she wrote a takedown of them on
Thursday.

The Iraq war was the neocons' baby, so it's not surprising that they still
love it. But the rest of us should ask: Who got us into this lose-lose
situation? James Burnham was wrong: Where there's no alternative, there is
indeed a problem -- and it's a big one.


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About the writer
James P. Pinkerton is a columnist for Newsday and Fellow at the New
America Foundation. He worked on the White House staff of presidents Ronald
Reagan and George H.W. Bush, Sr.