Friday, January 12, 2007
Suez
People now routinely say that our involvement in Iraq is the worst foreign policy disaster since Suez. What they do not say is that Iraq may mirror Suez exactly. The lesson we learned from our Egyptian adventure in 1956 was that we had no choice but to act in concert with the Americans. The lesson we draw from Iraq may be exactly the opposite. And that would, indeed, be disastrous.
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A blog about, among other things, imaginary ideas - What ifs? and Imagine thats. What if photographs looked nothing like what we see with our eyes? Imagine that the Berlin Wall had never come down. What if we were the punchline of an interminable joke? All contributions welcome.
Though on the surface it appears Britain is following America's lead, perhaps this is merely a short-cut in our reasoning. Both countries' actions are mirroring each other almost exactly from foreign military action to curtailing of civil liberties at home. The idea that Britain in the form of Blair feels obliged to act as a kind of restrainer on the well-intened US is perhaps little more than an idea that represents the cosy idea of world-affairs where we, hte public, have some kind of clue as to what is really going on. As an addendum, I wonder if for the sake of clarity we should refer to America, Britain, Russia etc when engaged in political discussion, by the more accurate the fuckers that run America/Britain/Russia etc? This would do away with the very misleading notion that the actions perpetrated are on behalf of some kind of pseudo divine entity- the nation state, as oposed to the actions of coteries of very powerful men.
ReplyDeletebelieve, Bryan, that Tony Blair advocated deposing Saddam as early as 1997, but could not persuade the timorous Bill Clinton to agree. I rather think that Eden et al. were correct on Suez and Eisenhower was wrong. It is timorousness I worry about
ReplyDeleteI don't disagree with you, Frank, in principle and, indeed, I supported the attack on Iraq. Two things went wrong: there were no WMD and I'm afraid I think it was criminally badly handled, militarily and politically. As for Suez, right or wrong, it was a horrific miscalculation. We should not be fearful, but we should also be smart and my present fear is that US tactics have weakened the US. I want America to remain the global boss and I want us to be your primary ally. It is the best hope for my daughter's generation. This is why I find the bookends of Suez and Iraq so troubling.
ReplyDeleteI think the lesson to be learned from Iraq is that GWB is a horse's ass. But then, most of the country voted for Al Gore.
ReplyDeleteIraq would be in more or less the identical situation now regardless of the presence or absence of WMDs. I'm surprised you still appear to believe that was actually a genuine factor, Bryan.
ReplyDeleteWhy would it be disastrious? From what i've read america is going down, it's economy most likely to crash within the next 5 years.
ReplyDeleteThat's why it's going nuts in the middle east, if oil prices get too high then america will feel the pressure worst of all. They thought they could get an easy access to the remaining oil by causing a democratic revolution in the middle east.
Unfortunatelly it didn't happen and they'll no doubt drive oil up to $78 again with Bush's mind blowingly stupid, agressive foreign policy.
I think we are mostly on the same page, Bryan, but that you are more pessimistic than I regarding the situation in Iraq and its likely outcome. Not that I am any Pollyanna, but I do think this gentleman may know what he's talking about. I could say that I am in agreement with Iran, Syria and Al Qaeda in that I believe Iraq needs to be won.
ReplyDeleteAs for the "disastrious" U.S. economy, the Dow hit another record yesterday, the deficit is dropping faster than expected, tax revenues are at record levels also, retail sales were higher than expected, and unemplyment, at 4.5 percent, is virtually nil. All this following the trillion-dollar dislocation of 9/11, two wars, and Hurricane Katrina. Were Bush a Democrat the New York Times would be hailing him as the second coming of FDR.