December
2006
Iraq: In the Context of No Context
George W. S. Trow’s landmark 1980 essay, “Within the Context of No Context,” has been on my mind lately not only because of Trow’s recent death but also because of the utter weirdness of the current Iraq discussion in the United States.
Just this morning NPR featured a series of interviews with top Congressional Democrats, none of whom–Ted Kennedy included–was willing to call for using the power of the purse to put an end to the catastrophic occupation. Cutting off Congressional funding for the occupation would “send the wrong message,” thrummed #2 Senate Democrat Dick Durbin of Illinois. “As long as our troops are there,” Durbin continued, “we need to see that they are well-armed and well-provisioned.”
Incoming Senate Armed Forces Committee chair Carl Levin of Michican was even weirder. “This war will end,” said Levin, “because the American people have spoken loud and clear that they want it to end and not because of anything we do in Congress.” Well, um, didn’t the American people give Democrats the leadership of Congress precisely so that they would begin to implement the people’s wish to see the troops brought home? Isn’t that what Congress does?
I could be missing something, but as long as the Decider in Chief says that he will not accept defeat, and as long as McCain, the generals, and the policy experts can debate among themselves over whether more troops may be needed to (1) decisively crush al Qaeda-like insurgents in western Anbar Province, (2) train and deploy with Iraqi security forces, (3) stabilize the Baghdad region while pressuring warring sects and factions to forge a grand compromise, it’s hard to see anything but more misery and failure and death on the horizon.
None of the “bulk up before we stand down” objectives now being breathlessly reported in the media is even remotely realistic, but that does not stop the non-debate from raging on while the hapless and clueless Occupant wings his way through day after day of meaningless non-statements.
This is why Trow’s phrase, “within the context of no context,” applies to Iraq; it’s as if everyone charged with responsible decisionmaking has buried his/her head in the sand, remaining willfully blind to the appalling reality of a hopeless situation.
The appropriate images for our leaders’ willfulness and stumbling are those of Isaiah 59: “We grope for the wall like the blind, we grope like those who have no eyes; we stumble at noon as in the twilight, among those in full vigor we are like dead men…Justice is turned back, and righteousness stands afar off; for truth has fallen in the public squares, and uprightness cannot enter.”
This is how bad it has become: even Tom “What, Me Worry?” Friedman now thinks it is very bad indeed. Friedman wrote this past week that our troops “are providing a floor under the civil war that allows some parties to behave outrageously or to make impossible demands because they know that we won’t let things spin totally out of control.” Friedman notes that our soldiers have become the shock absorbers as well as the common target of all sects and factions–that as long as we remain there, “Iraq implodes, and we absorb a lot of the pain.” Were our forces to leave decisively and quickly, Friedman continues, Iraq would no doubt explode. But then at least the factions would be forced to reach some compromises among themselves or watch what remains of their country sink violently into total obvivion.
I never thought I would say this, but Friedman has it right in this instance and his unblinking candor is helpful. Much as we might not like it, Iraq today is the very epitome of a no-win situation for the United States. This is the actual context, and all the “findings” of the Iraq Study Group and all the senseless pratings of the cowardly politicians only serve to move us farther and farther away from the reality. There is nothing moral or useful that Americans can now do in regard to Iraq apart from getting our troops and bases out of there and then seeing whether we can make some kind of eventual restitution by means of international aid agencies.
I’m planning to write to Levin, Kennedy, Durbin, Obama, and the rest who say that cutting off funding is not an option–not even worth considering. My message is going to be, “How dare you keep our troops in harm’s way for the sake of pointless face-saving politics? We’re finished in Iraq: just deal with it.”
Anyone care to join me?