History is Happening Now

     I try not to be a conspiracy-theorist.

     But no matter how hard I try, there are times when I feel as though a small community of elite, powerful people have a secret, shared understanding of what’s going on in the world, and the rest of us are being treated like mushrooms, as the saying goes: we’re being kept in the dark and fed crap.  

     I had this feeling in a big way today when I read a recent editorial in The Washington Post entitled “The Iron Timetable.” The editorial criticized Obama for promising yet again to keep his long-held campaign promise to withdraw the vast majority of U.S. troops from Iraq within 16 months (give or take). 

     This editorial does an excellent job showing how consistent Obama has been in calling for a speedy withdrawal, even as circumstances in Iraq have changed since Obama launched his presidential campaign in early 2007.  The editorial also does an excellent job of conveying a simple idea: that withdrawing from Iraq now would be irresponsible. 

     It does a extremely poor job of explaining why.  And the editorial writers at the Post aren’t the only ones these days who are arguing passionately that we should stay in Iraq but can’t explain why – at least, not clearly or publicly. I don’t know what these editorial writers are thinking but I know this about their failure to explain themselves: It’s not because they’re bad at explaining things.

     The most frustrating part of this editorial is the ending:

“What’s missing in our debate,” Mr. Obama said yesterday, “is a discussion of the strategic consequences of Iraq.” Indeed: The message that the Democrat sends is that he is ultimately indifferent to the war’s outcome — that Iraq “distracts us from every threat we face” and thus must be speedily evacuated regardless of the consequences. That’s an irrational and ahistorical way to view a country at the strategic center of the Middle East, with some of the world’s largest oil reserves. Whether or not the war was a mistake, Iraq’s future is a vital U.S. security interest. If he is elected president, Mr. Obama sooner or later will have to tailor his Iraq strategy to that reality.

First of all, I don’t buy the Washington Post’s claim that Obama doesn’t care about what happens to Iraq after we leave. Consider, for example, another excerpt from this same editorial:

At the time he first proposed his timetable, Mr. Obama argued — wrongly, as it turned out — that U.S. troops could not stop a sectarian civil war. He conceded that a withdrawal might be accompanied by a “spike” in violence. Now, he describes as “an achievable goal” that “we leave Iraq to a government that is taking responsibility for its future — a government that prevents sectarian conflict and ensures that the al-Qaeda threat which has been beaten back by our troops does not reemerge.” How will that “true success” be achieved? By the same pullout that Mr. Obama proposed when chaos in Iraq appeared to him inevitable.

     So according to the Post’s very own editorial, Obama is very clear in saying that he’d like to leave a stable government in Iraq. It’s true: Obama, like most Democrats, was once willing to withdraw troops from Iraq even if it meant a spike in violence there and possibly a civil war. But now that things have changed — now that it seems within the realm of possibility that the U.S. can withdraw without the violence, without the civil war – Obama wants to plan carefully, withdrawing in a way that will make stability in Iraq more likely.

     In other words, Obama wants both: he wants to withdraw troops from Iraq, and he wants Iraq to do well after we’re gone. But there’s no doubt that if Obama is forced to choose between those two, he considers withdrawing U.S. troops more important than protecting the Iraqi government from collapse. So Obama does care about what happens in Iraq, but he cares even more about withdrawing U.S. troops.

      On it’s face, Obama’s position is perfectly reasonable, but for some reason the Post’s editorial tries to characterize it so it sounds incoherent or inconsistent. Stability in Iraq isn’t Obama’s overriding number one top priority, and so the Washington Post accuses Obama of being “indifferent” to the war’s outcome. (One could just as easily accuse McCain of being “indifferent” about whether our troops live or die, since McCain is willing to continue sending them off to die in Iraq.) This spinning is intended to obscure the editorial’s basic point, which is that Obama should care more about what ultimately happens in Iraq. 

     Then the Post attacks Obama for this supposed “indifference,” calling it “an irrational and ahistorical way to view a country at the strategic center of the Middle East, with some of the world’s largest oil reserves.”

    Irrational? Ahistorical? Hmmm. This is where the conspiracy theorist in me starts yapping away. Is there some history we should know about? Is there some rational argument we’re missing? What is the Washington Post talking about? We can only speculate, since the Post is clearly unwilling to be forthcoming with the American public.

    So let’s speculate. It’s clear that Iraq — and the Middle East more broadly — has the oil. And it’s clear that we need the oil to fuel our economy. So I guess the Post is saying we should make sure Iraq keeps pumping oil for us to use. I guess the Post is worried that if we pull out of Iraq and a new Iraqi regime emerges and this new regime — possibly an “evil” dictatoriship – stops pumping oil, it will screw up our economy. Is that it? Is that what makes Obama’s “indifference” so “irrational and ahistorical”? Our need to keep the Iraqi oil flowing? Is that why Obama’s number one top priority should be to keep American troops in Iraq past 2010, extending the war into its ninth year? If that’s what the Post’s editorial writers believe, then they should come right out and say so. Instead they use words like “ahistorical,” “irrational,” and — my favorite — “vital U.S. security interest.”

      The conspiracy theorist inside me believes the term “vital interest” was created by a small community of elite, powerful people so they can tell us something is very important without having to explain why. I don’t know about you, but I’m sick of that kind of talk.

     I can just imagine an editorial writer for the Washington Post reading this blog entry and chuckling at my lack of sophistication, my lack of elite, insider knowledge. “You clearly don’t understand international relations,” this imaginary writer is thinking as he chuckles. “You clearly don’t understand the global oil economy. You don’t understand our vital interests in the Middle East.”

     That’s right. I don’t understand. That’s why I rely on the Washington Post to explain it to me.  But you smarty-pants Post writers haven’t explained why it’s so crucial that things go our way in Iraq. You just use the word “oil” and “vital interests” and expect us to just nod and agree. All you’ve done is make us afraid of what will happen if we withdraw troops, which is all the Bush administration has been doing since this stupid war became a fiasco.

     Maybe the Post’s writers have some grand theory about the global oil market that explains why we should keep sending our brave volunteer soldiers to die in the Middle East. Maybe this theory is well-known to a group of policy-makers in Washington, but for some reason it never makes it onto the front pages of the Post. Maybe the Post and the policy-makers are conspiring to keep us ignorant of this grand theory so when the elites need to fight another war for oil they can once again call it “the central front in the war on terror,” and we’ll have no choice except to go along, terrified that nuclear missiles will destroy our cities, our freedoms.

     The American people are sick of being kept in the dark and fed crap. If you editorial writers at the Washington Post have a specific concern about what might happen in Iraq, you should share it. If you don’t have the courage to write your minds, then you should keep your pens capped. But don’t try to scare us with your vague words and ominous analysis. If you people had any real insight into this situation, we wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place.

     -Ian