In America: Bitter Recriminations About the War in Iraq

From the heights of the political and business classes to the ranks of the people, Americans are finding the lessons of Iraq unendurably unpalatable.

Consider the illusions that most Americans had at the time of the invasion in 2003:

• Saddam Hussein’s regime, which was implicated in the attacks of September 11, 2001, was developing weapons of mass destruction that could be used in a sneak attack on the United States.

• Victory in Desert Storm in 1991had been easy. It was time to finish the job in a march to Baghdad to topple the tyrant.

• The American military, the most formidable, well-lubricated instrument of naked power in human history, would have no trouble carrying out the mission.

The first three acts in the drama exceeded expectations: the pyrotechnics of “shock and awe” in the sky above Baghdad on the first night of the attack; the toppling of Saddam’s statue; and George W. Bush’s landing on the aircraft carrier to declare “mission accomplished.”

That should have been the happy ending.

Then came the militias, the suicide bombers, the rising toll of American soldiers killed, the collapse of the Iraqi infrastructure and economy, the flight of four million Iraqis from their homes, the rise to power of an Iraqi government dominated by the Shiite majority from which Sunnis and Kurds recoiled, and the dispiriting revelations that there had been no weapons of mass destruction and that Saddam hated Osama bin Laden and had had nothing to do with 9/11.

Wind this film back to the beginning though and what stands out is that almost all Americans stood behind George W. Bush from the early days after the terror attacks until things started to unravel in Iraq. And that included most of the leading members of the Democratic Party. The idea that their country had the right to invade another country which had not attacked them was OK with most Americans. The problem was that it didn’t work.

Whose fault was that?

The majority of Americans blamed two sets of culprits for the debacle: Iraqis themselves and their political leaders; and President George W. Bush and his closest advisors.

The charge against the Iraqis was that, having been liberated by the Americans and their allies, they failed to establish a viable government that could foster unity and security. One of the most common narratives in the US today is that unless the Iraqis get their own act together, the Americans should leave. If the situation were not so tragic, this would qualify as macabre humour.

Americans, including those running for the presidency in both parties, are chastising the nation the United States invaded for its failures.

The other culprit was the once supremely popular president, George W. Bush. His approval rating plummeted, not because he launched the invasion, but because it came to grief. Americans, who had praised him for being an uncomplicated leader, who knew where he was going, turned on him for having planned the invasion and its aftermath poorly and even for having led them into the wrong war.

The idea took hold in the United States that the occupying army had been too small and that Saddam’s army should not have been dismantled.

What did not gain traction in the US, except in isolated circles, was the notion that most Iraqis never saw the Americans as liberators, but as foreign invaders who did not belong there. In that respect, Iraqis were not much different from most peoples in the world. They did not want US soldiers on their soil and regarded the US as an imperial power that was bent on controlling their oil and the Middle East.

For George W. Bush, the journey from lionized commander-in-chief to hapless incompetent, did not take long. To a man, incurious about history, it must have seemed that many of his own people had betrayed him, just as many Americans came to feel betrayed by their president.

For Americans who live in the bubble of their nation and its identity, who have been raised to believe they are the freest, richest, most fortunate people in the world, it was not surprising that the war was perceived in terms of Iraqis who couldn’t get their act together and a president who had let them down.

If you don’t know much about the rest of the world and are sure that your country is at the centre of it, it is natural to think in personal terms about failure and betrayal.

What still has not penetrated the consciousness of the American people and its political leaders is that their country presides over a global empire. The question that looms over their future is whether their empire is desirable and even sustainable. Until they face up to that, Americans will be trapped with a spectrum that extends from the highs of national ecstasy to the lows of bitter recriminations.