Condi Rice, literally and figuratively

Believe it or not, there’s a lot that I like about Condoleezza Rice. Last June, I even asked if it was finally time to give her her due. At the time, she had just called on Egypt and Saudi Arabia “embrace democracy by holding fair elections, releasing political prisoners and allowing free expression and rights for women”. Plus, she had “met with Sharon and Abbas to help hammer out an agreement for a peaceful Israeli withdrawal from Gaza; told Syria to ‘knock it off’ in Lebanon, where it continue[d] to foment instability; and pressured Pakistan to return Mukhtaran Bibi’s passport so that she [could] travel freely”. And impressive list of rhetorical accomplishments from Colin Powell’s replacement at Foggy Bottom. Finally, it seemed, Rice had grown up. No longer the sycophantic tutor to the foreign affairs neophyte in the Oval Office, she was tackling some of the world’s most pressing and dangerous problems.

And she’s still at it. According to Bloomberg, Rice said at a press conference in England that “the U.S. will no longer give explicit support to governments that are not elected, suggesting that spreading democracy now takes priority over maintaining political stability”. Of course, that still leaves ample room for implicit support, but at least it’s something.

And so, too, was her refreshing acknowledgment on Friday that the U.S. has made mistakes in Iraq: “I know we’ve made tactical errors, thousands of them I’m sure”. Thousands? Yes, probably. She didn’t “cite specific mistakes,” but one wonders if her boss can name a single one.

Unfortunately, the refreshment for us critics of the Bush Administration and its gross mismanagement of the Iraq War was short-lived. There have been thousands of errors, but: “[W]hen you look back in history, what will be judged is, did you make the right strategic decisions.” This is true, in a way, but it’s a cop-out. There may have been thousands of errors, but they don’t really matter much in a larger historical context. What matters is the strategy — the war itself, not the details of its conduct. And when in “history” will judgement be made? Next year? 10 years? 100 years? Instead of a issuing a refreshing acknowledgment, Rice simply did what her boss, her Cabinet colleagues, and their apologists have done throughout this self-made quagmire (or whatever you want to call it): avoided responsibility.

See, things may be bad now, and there may have been some “errors,” but, well, who are we to say that it’s all been a failure? Indeed, we’re in no position to say that it has been. Only with the benefit of hindsight, only out there in some distant future, only with “history” behind us, will we (or anyone) be able to determine the Iraq War’s success or failure. So Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice herself, and the various other architects of this war get off without any real blame whatsoever. It may look like they messed up, but, hey, let’s wait a century and see how it all turns out.

And in case you missed it, Rice claimed on Saturday that she was speaking “figuratively, not literally”. Which means what, exactly? That there haven’t been “thousands” of errors. That there have been, like — what? — seven? Or none — do we need the benefit of hindsight even to acknowledge that there have been any at all? Is it possible that all those errors could turn out to be blessings in disguise? She may be right that “the decision to overthrow Saddam Hussein and give the Iraqi people an opportunity for peace and for democracy [was] the right decision”. At the very least, let’s debate that, given what we now know about what they knew — that Iraq wasn’t an imminent threat to the U.S., that Saddam wasn’t building a nuclear arsenal (see here) — in the lead-up to war. But, once more, all we have is the abdication of any real responsibility for what happened, and for what went wrong.

Do I need to remind you that this is precisely how this presidency operates? And that this is precisely what is wrong with it?