Failure in Iraq

In his February 24 column, William F Buckley Jr asserts that the United States has failed in Iraq. Our failure, according to Mr. Buckley, lies in our failure to train the Iraqi amry to effectively cope with the insurgents. There is something to this. If the Iraqi army were capable of dealing effectively with the insurgents, America would not be blamed for the violence caused by the insurgents. However, if this were simply a question of how well the Iraqi army has dealt with the insurgents, it seems reasonable to conclude that the army itself and the Iraqi government responsible for it might be blamed for their own ineptitude. What has happened is something different. We have been blamed for something we never set out to do: provide law and order. Instead, it has been our objective to establish an Iraqi government capable of doing this.

Although much has been accomplished along these lines, from the establishment of an interim government, to the ratification of a constitution, to the election and seating of a parliament, as well as much progress in the training of an army and the rebuilding of infrastructure, we have failed in one critical respect: We have been unable to stop the Iraqis looking to us to provide security. As a result, we are blamed for problems that aren't our fault and expected to handle situations that aren't our resposnsibility. It isn't that we're unable to deal with probblems such as this (look at what happened when we finally went into Fallujah), but that we have limited our responsibilities in the hope that the Iraqis will look to their own government to guarantee liberty and security. Up to now, this hope hasn't been realized, and until it is, our venture in Iraq cannot be said to be a success.

It isn't easy to midwife a democracy. It only makes it harder when you're expected to be father to it.