- "An emerging democracy in Iraq will change the regional status quo that for decades has bred alienation and spawned the transitional terrorism that targets us today."
- "Failure in Iraq will embolden terrorists..."
- "It is not realistic to expect a fully functioning democracy [sic] to be in place less than three years after Saddam was finally removed from power."
- Regime change in Iraq is a vital U.S. interest, but not because of an imminent threat of WMD use; it is vital because we need a beacon of democracy in the region to provide an alternative to extremism.
- That goal is attainable, but not with just a few billion dollars and a short military campaign, but rather with a long-term (more than three years at least) and huge resource commitment to political, security and economic efforts.
- Potential use of WMDs by Iraq.
- Distribution of WMDs to terrorists who might use them directly against American targets here or abroad, bolstered by...
- Repeated claims that there was a linkage between Al Qaida and Saddam Hussein.
- This was our strategy all along and it just wasn't "spotlighted," or
- The administration adjusted strategy when political expediency forced a change.
Since we have no proof (yet) that intelligence was intentionally manipulated to make the WMD claims, I will also assume for the purposes of this blog entry that the administration truly believed in the WMD and Al-Qaida-link intelligence when they put these justifications for war in front of us.
So assuming the best of our leaders and that today's stated strategy was always the policy, here is what must be the timeline:
- Early on in the administration there was a recognition that the key to security and stability in the Middle East was a democratic Iraq.
- Knowing these lofty justifications would be a difficult "sell" to Congress and the American people, Bush focused on the WMDs as the key argument (believing it true and thus highlighting only one in the most urgent of his many reasons for removing Saddam).
- Bush assumed that political stability in post-war Iraq would come quickly and the longer-term goals of democracy would be attainable with minimal additional cost.
- Since things didn't work out with minimal additional cost, the administration is now forced to bring those longer-term, loftier goals to the forefront of the stated policy.
When a direct linkage was not found, WMDs, paired with intelligence "linking" Saddam to Al-Qaida provided the most effective argument. Recognizing this as the best way to get the Congress and the rest of America behind the war, the administration focused on this argument almost exclusively at the time.
At the same time, again assuming the best of intentions, the administration severely underestimated the scope of the aftermath. The insurgency was unanticipated and security turned out to be far more difficult than anyone predicted. Also unanticipated were the political difficulties in creating a government and the infrastructure challenges in re-establishing basic services in support of the economy. The administration assumed that we would be welcomed as liberators and that it would be "easy" (relative to what we are experiencing) to accomplish the longer term goals now explicitly stated in our National Strategy.
Since the short-term approach didn't work quickly enough to establish the democratic beacon of hope, the administration is now forced to either change or fully publicize this as the central pillar of our strategy there. Now that the WMD threat is clearly gone, we need a new justification.
In almost no scenario do I believe the Bush administration felt that WMDs were the only justification for war. In truth, it would be naive for any of us to think there is only one reason. We've heard many reasons floated (oil, Bush Sr. assasination-attempt payback, WMDs, freedom and democracy, Al-Qaida linkages, moral outrage at Saddam, etc.) all of which make sense and probably combined to influence the final decision.
In this "best-intentions to the administration" theory, the key undoing of the plan was underestimating the post-war time it would take to establish a stable government. This critical error was avoidable and was predicted by many (I remember at least reading Thomas Friedman detailing these kinds of difficulties before the invasion). Nonetheless, we assume the best of intentions and an honest miscalculation.
However, the real mistake was focusing America and the international community on WMDs as the primary justification for war. The American people should have been told the real goals, which would have fueled public debate on how to accomplish those objectives. This could have led to:
- Realistic expectations of ordinary Americans with the commitments and sacrifices necessary to achieve the goals--and therefore--longer-term support for the war.
- Recognition of the potential post-war issues. My assumption is that had our true objectives been exposed, public debate would have uncovered the post-war risks far better than they did and better prepared us for them.
- More international support for the war effort, so we could share the load and better establish a new government in Iraq.
- The real possibility that none of this would have "flown" with the public and America would not have supported a decision to go to war. This is a better option than fighting a war we don't end up having the stomach to finish.
Wouldn't it have been better to have been told the truth from the beginning?
