Three for the price of one

More proof that Iraq was not a war that benefited Israel.

More proof that Iraq was not a war that benefited the United States.

More proof that democracy in and of itself is dangerous and combustible, and should not be "spread" without a good deal of contemplation--or by organic means...

A shoe by any other name...or..."a similar foot"

Regarding the shoe-thrower, al Zaidi, in Iraq (who missed Mr. Bush by a hair at a press conference):

Yes, this man could have (or could have tried) to do something far more diabolical. He could have attempted to smuggle in a bomb or weapon and attempted an assassination. That would have been horrible, obviously, and the alternative--the throwing of a pair of shoes--is a far more benign form of protest. And I understand it. Sometimes these symbolic gestures speak much louder than all the words we can muster. Perhaps this journalist thought of this--perhaps he was thinking of some scathing article he could write, and found himself facing the futility of repetition.

So he tossed a shoe at the President. And then another. I get it. Iraqis do have every right to be frustrated--possibly with the invasion, but more likely with the really, really bad management post-invasion. I don't think spending too much time on the supposed "hilarity" or "horror" of the event is important. Personally I am a bit offended when my President has a shoe thrown at him or is faced with any sort of violence no matter how small, and I don't find it in the least bit funny. I thought Bush himself handled the event rather well. But I also don't think this is an act of cowardice or wickedness on the part of the shoe-lobber either.

It's more likely just an act of writer's block, or desperation, however you look at it.

I'd be frustrated too.

Wouldn't it be "nice" if Iraqi's had all just taken off their shoes and begun throwing them rather than blowing themselves up willy nilly ? If only. Such a novel protest may have been quite effective--who knows? Certainly after a couple years of incoming shoes the Americans may have gotten the point. And since security issues never would have reached the level they are at now, perhaps Americans could have pulled out long ago, chased back to the USA by a downpour of Iraqi shoes, sandals, slippers, and so forth.

Then again, what good does "if only" thinking do us? In the end, like the flying shoe itself, this is an exercise in futility. The point has been made already with dozens of suicide bombs. The shoe came too late, and missed its mark.

I suppose the next question is whether or not Obama will face a similar fate?



Quite an arm on that guy, eh? And quite the nimble President we have...

Iraq

Totten has a piece in Commentary about the dismal state of affairs in Iraq:

For the past two weeks I’ve been embedded with the United States Army in Baghdad, and I find myself unable to figure out what to make of this place. Baghdad, despite the remarkable success of the surge, is as mind-bogglingly run-down and dysfunctional as ever, even compared with other Arabic countries. Iraq is a dark place. At times it feels like a doomed country that has only been temporarily spared the reckoning that is coming. Other times it is possible to look past the grimness and see progress beyond the mere slackening off of violence and war. Is Iraq truly on the mend, or has a total breakdown been merely postponed? Opinions here among Americans and Iraqis are mixed, but nearly everyone seems to agree about one thing at least: terrorists and insurgents will respond with a surge of their own in the wake of the upcoming withdrawal of American forces.

This has been my concern for some time now. So much of the success in Iraq is built upon factors like the Anbar Awakenings, population shifts, etc. It could all crumble in an instant once we leave. Perhaps there's nothing for it but to collapse. Perhaps our mission was accomplished those many years ago when Bush stood cockily beneath that banner: Saddam was deposed. Iraq had been freed. End of story. Perhaps this has merely been an exercise in futility these past five years.

Roland Responds

Roland disagrees with my skepticism of Obama's hawkishness, and he could be right. I am not so sure, but we shall see:

I do think that his commitment to not only continue our mission in Afghanistan, but deepen and broaden it, is a hawkish position...

Obama initially positioned himself on the left of his party on this issue, but I would have a hard time believing anyone deduces that he continues to hold those foolish positions after looking at his appointments.

Indeed, expanding efforts in Afghanistan is certainly not dovish, though perhaps owl is a better term than hawk when it comes to Afghanistan. After all, Afghanistan has long been the "good war" while Iraq has been its more sinister twin. Certainly walking away from either would be disastrous, as Roland points out, but being smart and practical about these things is not the same as being a hawk.

Now if Obama decides to either A) invade Pakistan, or B) take a hard line with Iran or C) flex our military muscle with some other future threat, I may be willing to concede. But as it stands, I see Obama more as the practical politician (thank God!) who knows when quitting is simply the wrong, and inhumane action.

This is why...

...I would read Larison all day long and leave the Hot Air conservatives to wilt in the sun of their own self-absorption.

In another fine moment at Eunomia, Larison sums up exactly my thoughts those long years ago as I was derided as unpatriotic for not supporting the Iraq war. (I have since been derided as a Bush-loving fascist for not wanting to withdraw immediately, so I suppose all good things come to those who wait!)

This adoption, or rather perversion, of the language of morality by supporters of aggressive policies abroad lends them an initial advantage in framing the debate and setting the terms. I cannot count the number of times that advocates for invading Iraq derided opponents for supposedly being unable to distinguish between good and evil or even for not recognizing the validity of such categories. On the contrary, I think opponents of the war were paying more attention to the line between the two, but what we objected to even more was the ready identification of a bad policy as an expression of Goodness and the idea that opposition to it was somehow morally corrupt.

War, What is it Good For?

Writes John Schwenkler:

The reasons to disown the Iraq war and the kind of foreign policy thinking that got us into it go far beyond a desire to restore the Republican Party’s electoral hopes, however. For this war was also a profoundly unconservative war — a tremendously costly attempt at “democracy promotion” that was enabled by a “Trust us, we’re the executive branch” approach to decision-making that probably had the Founders rolling over in their graves. There’s a reason, too, why it was so widely opposed by Christian leaders: for war is indeed, as Pope John Paul II argued in 2003, a defeat for humanity, and the willingness of so many professed Christians to acquiesce in the unnecessary invasion of a foreign country and the consequent deaths of soldiers and civilians alike marked a profound moral failing. Is the prospect of admitting a mistake so horrifying that basic moral principles count for nothing?

As exciting as I would find a broader rethinking of American foreign policy, perhaps along the lines proposed by Andrew Bacevich, the proposal on offer here is nowhere near as radical as that. Copping to failure in Iraq does not mean repudiating the Cold War legacy of Reagan, nor does it mean abandoning the fight against terrorism or even the push to spread democracy. All that it is, to borrow a much-abused turn of phrase, is a matter of sensitivity to conditions on the ground. The sooner conservatives admit to their mistakes, the better their chances of being heard from again.

Short of such an admission, it’s hard to see why they’d deserve the hearing.

I agree. If we hope to maintain a robust armed forces capable of humanitarian intervention, and capable of applying pressure to dictatorial regimes we need to stop invading countries like Iraq when the situation doesn't merit it. If it is not a clear and present danger or genocide that we can prevent, or the an escalation that needs to be stopped, we should not engage. Iran could become a clear and present danger. Darfur is a genocide we should prevent. Kosovo was an escalation of events that we were able to stop. Iraq? Iraq was stable enough. We could have used other means.