Bush and the Reasons for the War in Iraq

The U.S. goal for Iraq, which is, by anyone’s assessment, to establish a democratic, western-style state, that, rather than acting as a breeding ground for terrorists, is a secure ally… is a goal that cannot possibly be met in the near term. What is currently being established in Iraq appears, fearfully enough, to be a state that, on some level, will be heavily influenced by Iran and fundamentalist Islam.

George W. Bush believed that Iraq, under Saddam Hussein, had weapons of mass destruction.

Of course he did… everyone believed it. Probably because Hussein wanted other countries to believe it… Undoubtedly Hussein thought that such a notion would provide a deterrent against invasion. The flaw here is not in what Bush believed or didn’t believe (whether or not he lied about WMDs), but what he chose to do with that perceived information. Other world leaders chose to deal with that perception in a very different manner. Europe, for instance, was willing to follow a path of containment… A path President Clinton had followed as well.

Bush’s “lie” was not in whether he believed that Hussein was a ruthless despot who had victimized his own people… He did not “lie” about Hussein’s desire to obtain Weapons… The lie was in how this perception was presented to the American people and the rhetoric leading up to the war that consistently, and unrelentingly, coupled Hussein’s name with the attacks of 9/11.

The lie was also in why we were going to war. It was not because Hussein presented a direct threat, but because Iraq seemed, based on the intelligence provided by Chalabi (and others), ready to overthrow Hussein, welcoming of an American presence and modernized to a degree that would make it sympathetic to Western interests. Iraq was a prime piece of real-estate that, if an ally, could provide a base for the U.S. to operate in the Middle East.

Bush didn’t present these reasons for going to war because the ideas were too complicated, he thought, for the American people to understand. Bush is a firm believer in the sound-bite. He believes in speaking to the American people on a seventh grade level in an accent that suggests a working class background and in invoking language reminiscent of Baptist sermons. (How on earth did such a working-class Texan come from a father who didn’t know what a scanner in a grocery store was or how to eat a tamale and whose family has a long Northeastern history? Why doesn’t anyone else in his family share George W.’s accent?)

Bush is guilty not so much of lying to the American public as he is of a catastrophic failure in judgment. He was naïve about the political situation in Iraq before the start of the war. He didn’t understand, and did not take the time to find out, that Iraq was, and is, a factionalized country and that it was this factionalism that allowed Hussein to maintain power. There was no unified resistance to Hussein.

The Bush administration seems equally naïve about what is currently driving the struggle between radical Islam and the West. Underlying terrorism is a conflict in ideologies. Our failure to examine what motivates a terrorist is the very thing that renders our efforts against terrorism only partially effective. Why are these people willing to die in order to kill those who they see as the enemy? Is it a reaction to globalization; to the gangrene like spread of Western music, video games, movies and perceived values; to our desire to spread our “way of life”… Does the American image really reflect America? Britney Spears, Michael Jackson, Grand Theft Auto… is this who we are?

And what about the image of Christianity? Does the politicizing of religion and the rhetoric that goes along with it… does that help or hurt our cause? (Does it do Christianity any great good or reflect accurately its tenets?)

How do we reconcile the violence and intolerance of our own culture, as well as the aims of capitalism/consumerism with the values we profess to uphold?

Bush believes in his rightness. He believes that he hasn’t made any mistakes… He leveraged the loss of the lives on 9/11 to promote an ill-conceived war in Iraq. He doesn’t question the course of his actions, but I think maybe we should…

Let us do what is difficult…let us be leaders in peace…