Friday evening, I had dinner with a few friends and one friend’s parents. After we concluded the discussion on the egregiousness of the Marlins-Tigers trade this past winter, we forged right ahead into a brief political discussion — about what exactly a Barack Obama presidency would be like.
My friend’s father mentioned the extended honeymoon period he imagines an Obama presidency would entail. Afterward, I realized that Obama, still self-righteously awash with his own 2002 forethought and surrounded by liberal supporters clamoring for an end to the Iraq War, would succeed in withdrawing the troops from Iraq.
I will not argue in this space or any other that, afforded the retrospect of now five years, the decision to invade Iraq and its original execution was the wisest foreign policy decision ever made by the U.S. Clearly, nay. Removing the Ba’athists from power and dismantling the government in its entirety went against the conventions of successful democratic reconstructions, with post-war Germany and Japan as the chief examples.
However, past errors cannot be a justification for any action that will immediately devastate the improvements of the past year. And those improvements are legitimate; as Time reporter Bobby Ghosh wrote last week, “In commercial districts (of Baghdad), more shops and businesses are open than there were a year ago. Shoppers are taking the time to haggle with vegetable vendors … There are no queues at the gas stations. Baghdad even sounds different. In my first two days, I hear no explosions or gunfire.”
These statements echoed those of Angelina Jolie, a UNHCR ambassador when she wrests herself away from the bearing of children, who wrote for the Washington Post in late February, “As for the question of whether the surge is working, I can only state what I witnessed: U.N. staff and those of non-governmental organizations seem to feel they have the right set of circumstances to attempt to scale up their programs. And when I asked the troops if they wanted to go home as soon as possible, they said that they miss home but feel invested in Iraq. They have lost many friends and want to be a part of the humanitarian progress they now feel is possible.”
Iraq has advanced, preparing itself for the day lasting change can be affected in the minds and actions of its people. What may derail this success is an ill-advised withdrawal of the forces. Ghosh reports that the fears of ethnic cleansing and a descent into sectarian violence “explain why every Iraqi who (offered him) a view on American politics seems to be praying for a McCain victory.”
In his novel “Saturday,” Ian McEwan frames the Iraq war in the context of the uncomfortable opposition between the anti-Hussein humanitarian cause and the desire to avoid a prolonged loss of life and a potentially unjust war. I think this is again relevant, in terms of ensuring that Iraq’s success is not only a temporary avoidance of sectarian conflict, but a stable government in fifty years. While certainly not an easy or sure process, the existence and continuance of the Iraqi nation has become our responsibility — like it or not.
The decision to invade is a sunk cost, a lamentable and hasty, but well-intentioned mistake made in a chaotic era of American history — one we have to accept and continue to move forward with. As a nation with a cracked, tenuous standing in the world, we cannot afford to toss Iraq into the pile of broken toys. If anything, we have born witness to the unfortunate consequences of an aborted foray into the internal workings of a hostile nation — the Afghani insurgents who fought U.S. troops with weapons the U.S. provided during the Cold War come to mind.
Obama could ruin this promise for the future very easily with one nationally televised speech, pandering to a war-weary public, overstepping the more cautious foreign policy of the Washington establishment, the very establishment led by John McCain, whose son James serves in Iraq and who will likely be joined by brother Jack. Announcing opposition to a war as a state senator who has no vote and even less say in the matter differs profoundly from being handed the keys to the world’s largest military force; unfortunately, the former experience has boxed Obama into a corner, should his legacy as the leader to abandon Iraq distress him enough to recant, he will have to answer to the millions he bewitched with his anti-war rhetoric.
The potential for this seems doubtful, however; in all likelihood, the liberal jubilance of a post-Bush world will propel a swift end to the war and a new age of violence in Iraq. Perhaps then McCain would have the satisfaction of being right about the war, a feeling less glorious and more bittersweet than the one Obama has garnered from his 2002 statements.
—Katherine Miller is a sophomore in the College of Arts and Science. She can be reached at katherine.m.miller@vanderbilt.edu and blogs at Right-Wing Vitriol, the blog of the Vanderbilt Torch.
