[Mb-civic] Iraq: A Solution to Nothing

[Reeeees at aol.com]

Published  on Wednesday, March 1, 2006 by the _Seattle Times  _ 
(http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/) 
Iraq: A Solution to Nothing  
by Scott  Ritter 
As the United States and Iraq approach the third  anniversary of the invasion 
and occupation of Iraq, it might do all  Americans well to take some time out 
and reflect on how we got where we  are, as well as where we are going in 
Iraq and the Middle East as a whole.   
Gone forever is any talk of song and flowers,  economic recoveries paid for 
by Iraqi oil, or a blooming democracy in the  cradle of civilization. The state 
of affairs between the Bush  administration and the newly elected government 
of Prime Minister Ibrahim  Jafari is strained, to say the least, with the 
United States threatening  to cut off aid to Iraq, and Iraq telling the United 
States to "butt out."   
Nearly three months have passed since the  "historic" elections of December 
2005, and the Iraqis have just now  selected a prime minister (Jafari, a Shiite 
Islamic fundamentalist closely  allied with Iran), and seemed hopelessly 
deadlocked on the issue of  forming a government that will not promote an 
immediate outbreak of  sectarian violence once formed.  
The Sunni insurgency is stronger than ever, and  Shiite death squads roam the 
street in the guise of government police and  soldiers. Torture, rape and 
murder are rampant as official tools of  government suppression. And American 
troops appear to be powerless to stop  this mindless slide into the abyss, all 
the while being killed and maimed  for a cause that has always been nebulous.  
"Duty," "honor" and "country" mean little when the  majority of the American 
citizens supposedly being served by the ongoing  occupation of Iraq are more 
interested in "American Idol" than the process  of bringing peace and stability 
to ancient Babylon, or when American  politicians seem content to continue to 
allow the men and women who honor  our nation through their service to die 
while those in power grasp for a  politically face-saving way to "solve the 
Iraqi problem." And herein lies  the problem: We continue to try to solve a 
problem we have yet to define,  meaning we are seeking a solution to nothing.  
America continues to pretend that we are building  something of value in 
Iraq. And yet, common sense dictates that when one  seeks to build on a corrupt 
foundation, whatever it is that is being  constructed is doomed eventually to 
collapse. Our nation's involvement in  Iraq is based on as corrupt a foundation 
as imaginable. We didn't go to  war for sound national-security reasons (i.e., 
a threat that manifested  itself in a form solvable only through military 
intervention), but rather  for domestic political reasons based on ideology that 
exploited the fear  and ignorance of the American people in the post-Sept. 11, 
2001, world.   
In the topsy-turvy world of domestic American  politics, this reality 
continues to fail to resonate. Those who opposed  the invasion of Iraq continue to be 
demonized and marginalized, while  those who supported it are embraced and 
applauded.  
This "through the looking glass" quality in the  American body politic not 
only hamstrings the nation collectively on the  issue of solving the Iraq 
problem, but also continues to distort reality  when dealing with other emerging 
problems confronting our country and the  world, such as the looming crisis with 
Iran over its nuclear programs.   
Even as we fail to grasp the lessons of our  unraveling failure in Iraq, we 
seem to be moving full steam ahead into a  similar catastrophe in Iran, making 
the same mistakes by embracing a  threat model (nuclear weapons) void of any 
hard evidence, and promoting a  solution (democracy) that is undefined.  
If the upcoming leather anniversary of the U.S.-led  invasion of Iraq tells 
us anything as a nation, it is that we are in  desperate need of a national 
"time out" when it comes to the issue of  Iraq, Iran and the global war on 
terror. We need to learn the lesson that  every soldier, sailor, airman and Marine 
serving oversees knows only too  well — you don't reinforce failure.  
If our politicians, Republican and Democrat alike,  are unable or unwilling 
to engage in a rancor-free discussion about where  we as a nation are heading 
when it comes to issues of war and peace, then  perhaps we the people should 
engage in one of our own, and in the process  establish agreed-upon principles 
and standards that not only would serve  as a solid foundation upon which to 
build any future endeavors in the  Middle East and elsewhere, but also set 
forward values and ideals that  could be used to hold to account those whom we 
elect to represent us in  higher office.  
Scott Ritter is a former U.N. weapons inspector  in Iraq (1991-1998) and 
Marine Corps intelligence officer. He is the  author of "_Iraq Confidential: The 
Untold Story of the  Intelligence Conspiracy to Undermine the U.N. and 
Overthrow Saddam  Hussein_ 
(http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1560258527/commondreams-20/ref=nosim) ," published by Nation  Books.
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