spinoff

Mr. Baker and the Iraq Study Group’s (ISG) report on the situation in Iraq marks a turning point. If his recommendations are taken up, the Iraq project will have been profoundly transformed for the better.

     

Mr. Baker has recommended: engagement in the Israel Palestine situation; engagement with Iran; engagement with Syria; a drawdown of troops from Iraq. These suggestions differ absolutely from the approach pursued so far by the George W. Bush White House.

       

Though the report by the ISG has been hotly anticipated, its contents have been no real secret – strategic leaks have seen to that. Often during the Iraq war it seems that politicians have approached Iraq with fully-formed and unshakable conclusions already in mind. Not so Mr Baker. His suggestions are born of nothing other than dry reason.

     

This is in sharp contrast to George W. Bush, and to the mindset that he engenders. For the President has a perfectly-formed world view. Perfectly-formed world views are complete. There is no room for alteration. Such mental states do not allow, indeed cannot allow, any deviation from a rigidly formed outlook on the world. In the case of George W. Bush, this rigidity is a consequence of a starkly moral world view. This view has proved fatal. 

    

At root, the U.S. neo-conservative credo is a moral one. At its base stands one simple moral judgement and it is this: “the U.S. is good”. Certainly, such an assumption is uncontroversial. The U.S. has done great things and contributed much via its rich culture, its financial institutions and so on. In one sense of the word, the U.S. is certainly “good”.

    

But there is of course another application of that word, one that stems from the American exceptionalist view that the U.S. is not only culturally, practically and materially beneficial, but is also morally good. When combined with the fact that the U.S. is the lone super power, the neo-con conclusion is this – that there is a moral obligation for the U.S. to use its strength in order to transmit “good”.     

       

The Iraq war is a manifestation of this attempt at transmission. A small, highly mobile and technologised U.S. force was deployed to: liberate, free, bring democracy, fight the forces of terror in Iraq. The idea of the small and surgical U.S. army force was envisioned, specifically by Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld (who still technically retains that post until his successor is confirmed) as the perfect neo-con foreign policy tool – the ideal moralistic army, small, able to penetrate a country quickly and with the minimum of casualties, and then depose the undesired leadership, replacing it with a U.S.-friendly government. 

          

But a moral view of the world necessarily prohibits giving any quarter to “the bad”. The effect of this is to limit one’s choice of potential allies. There can be no half way – either “the bad” is made “good” or an attitude of aggression must be struck. The world is therefore cast sharply into two camps: “you are either with us, or you are against us.” This binary view is extremely potent for two reasons, firstly because of its extreme simplicity and secondly, its emotional basis. 

       

But a moral view of the world is both practicably useless, and philosophically anachronistic, and in political terms, the urge to act solely on perceived moral grounds is highly restrictive. Neo-conservatives – the current White House administration – are thusly restricted. As a result they have been unable to speak to Syria. They cannot negotiate with Hamas. They cannot talk to the Iranian government. They will not see Shia clerics or leaders of the insurgency. (They also could not talk to the North Koreans. The result? Disaster.)

     

But now we have Mr Baker. We also have his report. For the first time, in connection with the war, leading U.S. voices are making statements such as: “Our political leaders must build a bipartisan approach to bring a responsible conclusion to what is now a lengthy and costly war”.

    

Implicit in this statement is a refutation of the most fundamental bases upon which the case for this war was constructed. Mr. Baker has no political career to protect. He is not running for office. He is disinterested and rational.

    

We must hope that this voice of political reason is capable of drowning out the self-destructive moralists whose fictional and overly-simplistic view of the world has prevailed so far with such catastrophic results.

     

Yours etc.,

     

Spinoff.