Those of us who thought the Iraq war was going to be a disaster failed to persuade the majority. Those who believed that the war was going to be a success or at least that it was a good idea, now recognize they were unthinking or deceived. There aren’t many good feelings going round this Memorial Day weekend.
Even people who were against the war wanted it to go well, or at least for some good to come out of it. As we all gradually became aware that the adventure had transformed itself into a disaster, this single ambition shared by almost every American, that all the deaths should achieve something positive, seems now quite unrealistic.
I was struck how many cartoonists, who often accurately identify public preoccupations, reflected yesterday and today on the death toll.
People are now in one of three camps: those who want to quit Iraq now, those who want to quit later and a final diminishing element who feel that things will in some way turn around and we will secure peace and victory. Even the supporters of the “surge” are really proposing quitting later. I wonder if there are any genuinely informed people in the third opinion group; if so, perhaps they can persuade themselves that the war avoided something worse. Something worse is increasingly difficult to imagine. Public opinion will gradually coalesce – the two groups who support withdrawal will gradually coincide on when is a good time to leave Iraq and declare the war over. At that point public opinion will become decisive.
An article in the UK newspaper the Daily Telegraph, entitled Bush gets ready for Iraq U-turn by Brown predicts that the next prime minister of the UK, widely expected to be Gordon Brown, will announce a withdrawal of British troops within the first 100 days of taking office. This will be around the time that General Petreaus is expected to deliver his assessment of whether or not the surge has been effective. If the UK withdraws its troops and the increased US military engagement is not seen as definitively succeeding, the pressure on the Bush administration to start some form of disengagement will become impossible to withstand. Republican members of Congress have already indicated that their support cannot be taken for granted beyond the summer.
What will happen after a withdrawal is not entirely clear. Central government authority in its present form cannot survive, so the country will either fracture following a period of ethic cleansing or a strongman will emerge, most likely from the Shi’ite community. It is not impossible to imagine an Iraq that is hostile, nuclear-armed and subject to Iran. That such a comprehensive catastrophe faces us, brought about at the expense of so many lives, makes for a very sobering Memorial Day weekend.
