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The Iraq Hangover

July 26th, 2008
By JAZZ SHAW, Assistant Editor

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Back in June, as I prepared to go on my annual vacation, I was invited out by some friends to a local watering hole for drinks and a few games of pool. Despite years of experience, good times with good friends stretched the evening out and the phrase “a few” rapidly disappeared from descriptions of both billiards and beverages. At one point I found myself engaged in a heated discussion – let’s be honest and just say it was an argument – with a woman who attends our church, on the subject of professional soccer in the United States. The debate raged over whether or not Americans really cared about soccer and if there was room for another professional sports league. To be perfectly frank, I no longer remember which side of the argument I took, and the following week the woman and I sheepishly admitted that neither of us really knew anything to speak of about soccer and, further, didn’t really care. The morning after that not particularly fateful but still embarrassing outing, I found myself wandering about the house in a daze and wishing to block the entire sordid incident from my memory.

The month of July, 2008, is quickly becoming the time when our national hangover regarding the Iraq war will set in. From the beginning I opposed this war, acting on my beliefs in every way imaginable. I marched with peace advocates in the streets – though I was often keeping company with people who shared little or nothing else in common with me. I wrote passionately on the subject and found myself backing political candidates with whom I may have disagreed strongly on other important issues, based solely on their opposition to the war. Since 2004 I continued to feel that this would be the One Issue for 2008, and that most other concerns could be safely shelved until this urgent disaster was resolved.

In the fallout since July 19, when the Prime Minister of Iraq tied John McCain’s shoelaces together, the real truth has begun to come into focus. Both Barack Obama and John McCain now have essentially the same “plan” for our future in Iraq, though they will continue in an elaborate sword dance to make it appear as if they disagree. To the disappointment of the most fervent war opponents, there will be no sudden dropping of weapons and abandonment of Iraq, with Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and company being led off in leg-irons to a cell in The Hague. Nor shall there be a 100 year American military presence in the country (just like Germany and Japan!) following a massive celebration at the newly erected George W. Bush Arc de Triomphe in Baghdad, with the America 2.0 government of Iraq toddling off on its first steps to fight the menace of Radical Jihad.

As we draw the curtains on this tragedy of errors, the war will indeed end - not with a bang, but a whimper. (Or perhaps a protracted whine might be more appropriate.) The troops will slowly come out, leaving Iraq much as it once was but with new faces in old, familiar positions of power. We shall be left pondering the words of Jeanette Rankin, who said, “You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake.” There will be messy loose ends to tie up in Afghanistan, but what then? Quite likely we will be forced to return to worries about mundane affairs and cast our votes based on concerns over keeping the lights turned on and the trains running, whether or not we’ll have a job and a home next year – in short, the troubles which plague us before and after any great moment of national crisis.

I also suspect more than a few of us will be looking at each other with a bit of embarrassment over the entire affair. So… do you really think soccer will ever be as popular as baseball?



This entry was posted on Saturday, July 26th, 2008 at 4:20 am and is filed under Withdrawal, Newsweek Blogitics, Iraq War, John McCain, Barack Obama, 2008 Elections, War, Politics. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Viewing 9 Comments

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    The war may end with a whimper, but the arguments about it, heated and hate filled, will continue on and on and on.
    Afghan is going to be difficult, so that will be another battlefield of words and bullets.
    Prepare for a forever hangover.

    PS I still don't know what to make of McCain's saying that Obama's timetable is pretty good. .
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    I know exactly what to make of it. He's being realistic. We can try to spin al Maliki's comments all we like and talk about his playing politics at home, but the facts remain stubborn. He is reflecting the fact that the Iraqi people have no interest in having us stay there indefinitely as a military force or even a partner. When the PM comes out in an interview and makes a public comment about his frustration at being unable to prosecute Americans for "crimes against our people" then you're beginning to be seen as less of a liberator and more of an occupier. We're on the way out. McCain knows it. Obama knows it. Bush knows it. It's just a matter of timing on packing up boxes and calling the movers at this point.
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    Wow, go for a colonoscopy for an hour yesterday, and find yourself completely out of the loop, apparently.

    Not entirely unexpected in many corners, but wow. To see it said is something else.
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    PS I still don't know what to make of McCain's saying that Obama's timetable is pretty good. .

    Thats because McCain has had on his website that he believe that a vast majority of the troops would be out of Iraq by the end of his first term. He has not proposed 100 years other than a failed attempt at humor.

    However Jazz, I do not feel that Afghanistan is as you put it...........There will be messy loose ends to tie up in Afghanistan, but what then?

    I wish it were so. However the drum beat of war is beating too loudly by the left and the Obamalamadingdongs.........They want their war. They want their day of reckoning. They want to prove to all those nay sayers that they can fight a war too.

    I somehow dont think that Afghanistan is quite as over as we all think and there is still Pakistan and Iran and there is still Obama's call for the world to fight terrorism
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    ...leaving Iraq much as it once was

    When you say "as it once was", do you mean before Saddam's military escapades, in the 70s, when the per capita income was around $8,000? Or after, when the per capita income was around $2,000?
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    Because George W Bush wanted to fight wars without raising taxes, we have a huge budget deficit as a result of the Iraq war.

    Surely, the effects of servicing that debt will be with us for a long, long time.
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    While Bush, McCain. and Obama may be converging on the 'reality' of needing to leave, they are not getting there on the same path.
    Obama has gone out on a political limb by saying that decisions should be made by the civilian CIC, and the military can only advise and assist. The implication is that he would adjust his plan accordingly, but not abandon it.

    Both Bush and McCain have (at least in public) relied on military opinion (the tired boots on the ground) as the final arbiter. This gives them political cover and the appearance of authority, with the air of inevitability, to do whatever they want at any moment.

    The difference may seem petty now, but I worry about what would happen if conditions in Iraq were to change for the worse to some degree., at which point this difference could become crucial. When reality shifts, even slightly, the HOW of decision making becomes vitally important;

    That's why I'm not sure what to make of McCain's statement. Today's convergence around the need to withdraw sits atop a very wide divergence about how the length of our stay should be determined. .
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    Bush will leave it to the next President to stop the Iraq war. If it's Obama that gives the Republican strategists a talking point that, "It was the cowardly democrats who pulled us out of Iraq" and "We could have won if we'd only stayed" ie: rehash of the post Vietnam talking points.
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    "rehash of the post Vietnam talking points"
    is inevitable, even long after we're substantially out of Iraq. It will continue through every foreign policy decision .for the foreseeable future.
    We're still refighitng WWII, after all.