April 7, 2004

Dissent and Regime Change

A top U.S. general in Iraq vowed on Wednesday to "destroy" a Shiite militia led by wanted radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr that has launched a wave of attacks against coalition forces in southern cities. "We will attack to destroy the al-Mahdi Army," Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt told reporters. "Those attacks will be deliberate, precise and they will be successful." [USAToday.com].

al-sadr.jpgThis could be a very serious escalation of the occupation resistance and a terrible long-term blunder. How is it possible to foster democracy in Iraq if the U.S. "destroys" dissenters, especially those who oppose the occupation itself? This is the kind of stuff that gives guerrillas the political advantage. And since insurgents don't need to defeat the occupiers in order to win, how America responds to al-Sadr may well dictate whether we get out of Iraq as scheduled on June 30 and whether the whole thing turns into the sort of quagmire that some have predicted.

Now Rush Limbaugh replies that

We don't want to destroy the country in order to liberate it, but at the same time, if the terrorists the world are going to gather there, they're going to give us no choice. We are going to wipe them out.

Calling an indigenous resistance to foreign occupation -- which is what al-Sadr, a leading Shia cleric, represents -- "terrorists of the world" is precisely the problem. We're lumping all Muslims together and fomenting the very sort of hatred that began so long ago with America's installation by coup d'etat, and long support for, the brutal dictatorship of the Shah of Iran. That blunder, termed by Business Week "regime change that backfired," launched the Iranian revolution of 1979, defeated Jimmy Carter and undermined American international prestige for a decade or more. We're still suffering the consequences.

George Will actually got it right.

[T]he (relatively) pretty phase of empire -- the swift dispatch of an enemy army -- is over. Regime change, occupation, nation-building -- in a word, empire -- are a bloody business. Now Americans must steel themselves for administering the violence necessary to disarm or defeat Iraq's urban militias. . . . For the near term, U.S. policy must flow from Napoleon's axiom: "If you start to take Vienna -- take Vienna." We started to take Iraq 13 months ago. That mission is far from accomplished.

So America is the new Napoleonic empire? That's not what I want our country to be, and certainly not how Jefferson, Wilson, Roosevelt (T.R. or Franklin) or even Ronald Reagan believed the U.S. should lead the world.

 Posted by glenn

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