Who's Sorry Now?

It was a pleasant weekend for those of us who have been against the Iraq War from the beginning. The Washington Post had an article on the bitterness and regrets of those in the Bush administration who concocted and ran the war and have now left. Some of them have nightmares. Nothing like the nightmares of the prisoners of Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo or the Black Sites, but hey, a few nightmares are progress. Maybe they will have more, and then they will have mental breakdowns and they can experience electroshock therapy -- that would be a nice payback for them. In the New York Times magazine, there was an article about Kanan Makiya, an exiled Iraqi scholar who was a big cheerleader for the war, and who seems to have given Bush and Cheney a rationale that they could use as a cover for their real motives. At the end of the article, there's an interesting interview with Ali Allawi, who was the Minister of Finance in the Iraqi transitional government in 2005 and into 2006. Allawi was opposed to the war, but went to Iraq to try and put Humpty back together again. He failed. And, of course, there's Blackwater. Whoops. Americans have recently gotten a good look at our very own right wing death squad (paid for by us to the tune of 445,000 per soldier, per year), and we know there are more RWDSs where that one came from. And I loved the headline of David "the Pig" Brooks' op-ed in last week's Times, "The Republican Collapse" -- is there a lovelier phrase? I used to send letters to David Brooks asking when the New York Times was going to fire him. He never responded.

All the same, though, the emerging consensus (another vast rightwing conspiracy to my mind) is that everyone's intentions were good, if not great. Makiya, for example, knew all the horrors that Saddam Hussein had committed against the Iraqis and the Iranians, and just wanted to get him out of there, even if the odds, as he calculated them, against actually establishing a stable government were 20-1. He thought Ahmed Chalabi was going to be the Nelson Mandela of Iraq. And the same for Meghan O' Sullivan, who was about THIRTY when the fates of the Iraqis were put into her hands -- she just wanted to help. As for Karl Rove and that Permanent Republican Majority -- well, he didn't mean to hurt anyone -- really, the one who's been hurt here is Karl himself (also the refrain of Clarence Thomas).

What I see here, especially when you add in the Israelis and the Neocons and Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, is a perfect storm of opportunism, opportunism compounded of ignorance, greed, self-regard, power-lust, and sheer shallowness. "Opportunism" is when you use someone else for your own ends, thinking that you will pretend to give the other guy what he wants and in doing so, you will get what you want. I think the World Champion Opportunist Award these days goes to those Israelis who ally themselves with the American Rapture people, knowing full well that in Rapture theology, the wholesale conversion of the Jews is the prerequisite for the Second Coming of Jesus. These Israelis will work with people who anticipate another Holocaust -- who hope for it -- in order to get American money and arms for Israel. That is opportunism taken to a new level -- but not that new.

The Iraqi exiles thought they would use the American government and military to get their country back. The Neocons and Israel thought they would use the Americans to get rid of Saddam and remake the Middle East so that Israel would be more secure. Rove thought he would use "war" to entrench his power base. Cheney thought he would use the exiled Iraqis to get access to Iraqi oil fields and to establish an authoritarian presidency in the US. Bush thought he would use everyone to get a sense that he had both avenged his father and outdone him. Tony Blair thought he would use his alliance with Bush to press some of his own programs, like helping Africa and distinguishing Britain from Europe. Rumsfeld thought he would use the war to remake and outsource the army, thereby enriching his friends. Erik Prince thought he would use the American taxpayers to get rich and also to move toward an American theocracy. The religious right thought they would use the war and consequent "patriotism" issues to consolidate, fleece, and militarize their base. The Free Market theorists thought they would use taxpayer money to experiment with privatizing the Iraqi economy. The result is failure and recrimination, not to mention a refusal by almost every one of these people to take responsibility for what they've done. As they see it these days, bad things in Iraq just happened somehow.

Opportunism often looks good on the surface, but it is based on manipulation rather than relationship, and masks an absolute misunderstanding of human nature. What happened with the Iraq war was no mistake and no accident. It grew out of the failure of conservatives, from the time of Ronald Reagan, at least, to understand and accept the necessity of government in a complex and populous society, and therefore to think about what government could and should do. The more they refused to think about it, the less they knew. Reagan, with his smiling soothing phrases and his tone of benign condescension, served as an appealing front man for what the nasty and unlamented Lee Atwater himself called "ruthless ambitions and moral decay". Reagan Republicans thought of government as a mechanism for increasing their own power and wealth. They never accepted that the US has many different regions, ethnicities, and enclaves, all of which have equal claim to citizenship. From at least the 1960s, the Republican Party has worked actively to pit region against region, class against class, and ethnicity against ethnicity, and to reap profits therefrom. Men like Karl Rove came to think habitually in terms of propaganda, manipulation, and deceit.

These were the people Makiya and Chalabi turned to for help against Saddam. These were people who were so cavalier that they didn't bother to read the reports of their own experts about how difficult the aftermath of the invasion would be. Allawi was smarter, though. He says in the Times, "Ahmad Chalabi, Kanan Makiya, all of these people became media stars, but their influence on decision making was next to nothing. I can't believe that a person like Wolfowitz or Cheney or whoever it was in the neocon cabal would allow themselves to be manipulated... They are far too cynical. They have their own agendas. And these agendas were boosted by Iraqis who seemed to be singing from the same song sheet. The Iraqis gave them credibility, gave them substance. But I don't think they were influenced by them."

Various rightwingers maintain that if the Iraq adventure had worked out, we would all be praising the Bush administration. What they don't understand is that it could not have worked out because of how it was conceived and the shallowness of the motives behind it. This was evident in 2003. In fact, it was evident in 2000. When the vote in Florida turned out to be rigged, or at least suspect, Bush and Cheney did, not what honorable men to, but what opportunists do -- they used intimidation (against the vote counters) and influence (on the Supreme Court, notably with Clarence Thomas) to seize what might or might not have been theirs by right (everyone who has read The Best Election Money Can Buy knows that Jeb and Katherine Harris also set up the Florida vote ahead of time, but I think it was in the counting that the real theft took place). Bush could have exerted himself both publicly and privately to make the vote count as scrupulous as possible. He did not. The apple was offered to him and he bit it. He never understood what elections represent in the US -- not seizure of power but acceptance of responsibility -- and so he has never understood his position or his job. His idea and Cheney's idea was that they were going to use their jobs to get what they could for themselves and their powerbase, just as they used the election controversy to get the job. They have surrounded themselves with people of like mind and those who don't think this way have left or been forced out.

The clusterf**k of opportunism that is the last seven years was bound to end in a cluster of fingerpointing and grievance. People hate feeling used and betrayed, even as they are using and betraying others. Remember when Bush expressed his annoyance at the ingratitude of the Iraqis? And have you noted the resentment of the religious right at being the last to know that nobody in the Bush administration actually cares about their agenda? Were the Republicans grateful to Katherine Harris? Nope -- they let her humiliate herself in front of the whole nation. Those Iraqis -- they sure don't show much loyalty to Blackwater. Even Alan Greenspan has done what he can to divorce himself from the very people he sucked up to five years ago.

Is it possible to have no sense of civic responsibility at all? Yes -- that's what Free Market theory, and the last generation of Republican culture is about. It elevates commerce and deal-making above every other human activity, and therefore glorifies opportunism. A generation of coaching by Free Market gurus has robbed Americans of the means of a decent existence.The reason we can't get out of Iraq is that none of the opportunists dares to admit why he or she wanted to make a war there in the first place, and so we, the American people, don't actually know what the goal was and can't ever judge whether it has been achieved. Though Cheney's goal was to secure the oil, he can't admit that to the Iraqis, who don't want to give up the oil. If the Iraqis' goal was to use our military to fight the battle and then take over themselves, they ceded that goal every time they flattered the Americans. If the Israelis consider their existence to be worth every American sacrifice of money, corruption, and human life, they dare not say so. If the military industrial complex really is happy to profit from death and destruction, do they actually pretend to their children that they are human? A lot of PTSD says they do. I could go on.

In order to gain power, the Republicans long ago (and knowingly, thanks, Mr. Atwater and others) handed the citizenry, and themselves, a bill of goods, a set of philosophical and economic ideas that were bankrupt. The citizenry, suckers that we were, bought it because it appealed to their worst selves. The price we have paid and will continue to pay in Iraq for this bad bargain is a steep one, and could break the bank. But if we don't understand how we got here, we could buy it again, because the politicians and the pundits still have it for sale.

Comments

[GenericBlogger]

Well said Ms. Smiley.

Ronald Reagan was the most famous neocon but the movement was rooted in the 50s. Irvine Kristol, Bill Kristol's father is a neocon pioneer. Barry Goldwater politicized its concepts and Ronald Reagan popularized the neocon movement. Many democrats unhappy with government programs turned Republican. Reagan was a Democrat and boasted his respect for FDR and his disdain for post WW2 Democrats.

A side note on neocon ingratitude. Donald Rumsfeld provided our troops with inadequate protection then added insult to injury by using a machine to sign letters sent to families of fallen service personnel. He was too lazy and ungrateful to even sign his own name with his own hand.

On opportunism, before 9/11 many Christians criticized and thought less of Jews for not adopting Jesus as their prophet and savior. Some still do, particularly a controversial blonde who uses anti-Semitic feelings and accused Jews of being imperfect to sell her books. After 9/11, many Christians used a strengthened relation with Jews and Israelis as a Christian show of strength towards Muslims.

Muslims depict Middle East conflicts as evil acts of infidels.

European leaders against Dubya's wish for war took advantage of the anti-Bush sentiment in Europe and boosted their chances of re-election or ratings in Germany and France. Anti-war politicians in Spain took advantage of the tragic bombing in Madrid to secure the election and defeat pro-Bush Spaniards.

An egregious form of opportunism was practiced by the news media. News reporters, directors, producers, executives, etc. allied themselves with Dubya's administration, forfeited their ethical obligation of objectivity and helped mislead so many.

The truth is that one person or group using another, i.e., opportunism is nothing new and it's part of human nature. Opportunism is called just that in a pejorative sense when it fails and cooperation, team work, solidarity, win-win, etc., when it works. Opportunism was an inherent part of WW2 among our allies but no one calls it that.

Opportunism as a culprit is secondary to impulses.

[thinkgra]

Thank you for expressing this so succinctly. It's been there in front of our eyes ever since Nixon, but only now are we starting to see the web of greed and deceit. My concern is that this is just a stepping stone to the total demolition of Democracy. The Iraq war has been a fundraiser for mercenary organizations, enabling them to arm themselves and skim the cream off the US Special Forces, and for the economic elite, who, presumably would be hiring mercenaries to protect their interests. Oh, did I mention that the Army is broken and the Reserves and Guard's equipment is all Over There?
Be afraid. Be very afraid.

[thatvisionthing]

Question to Jane: You say about the 2000 election, "When the vote in Florida turned out to be rigged, or at least suspect, Bush and Cheney did, not what honorable men to, but what opportunists do -- they used intimidation (against the vote counters) and influence (on the Supreme Court, notably with Clarence Thomas)..." What about Sandra Day O'Connor? That's the one I can't grasp or forget. When she retired (hey thanks Sandra) she gave a speech warning against dictatorship here. Hey thanks Sandra. You so helped.

[Collielady]

Ms. Smiley, you have written very well what I've been trying to say and write for several years now.

Everyone has belittled Bush for being stupid and he has smirked along because of it, knowing that as long as people saw his policies as "mistakes", they wouldn't see the real hidden agenda.

For the fascist neocons everything has gone splendidly. What we consider to be a disaster has been one opportunity after another for them. The longer the war drags on the wealthier they all become.

A true American statesman would have engaged in much critical thinking after 9/11, and rallied the world community to deal with terrorism. But then, there isn't financial profit in diplomacy.

[ErrinF]

Opportunism is hardly exclusive to just the Republicans. Many Democrats were guilty of that during the Bush years too. Even today with the Iraq war there is much opportunism on both sides. What's so tough about criticizing your own side while criticizing the other? Having double standards is commonplace with partisanism, apparently.

[TommyO]

Ms. Smiley,
Another outstanding piece and you are absolutely correct to note that Iraq was no mistake. I do take some issue with singling out the Repubicans, however. The modern version of them isn't a very bright bunch so they've had to borrow heavily and stupidly -- much, but not all of it, from Wilsonian and Cold War Democrats and their modern day incarnations. America's imperial aspirations are very old indeed having much to do with markets, race, and a perceived closing of the geographical frontier. I doubt America can tackle its inner demons until it comes to grips with its internalized past.

[darker]

Enough of "conservatives" and their GWBush, the PRETEND-COWBOY president.

Enough of "christian" pussies like GWBush who hides behind Jesus so he can GIVE EVERYBODY HELL!

Cowardly pussy-wussy GWBush is a criminal hiding behind his cabal of media-crazy nut-head "advisers".

Bush all but "sucks his thumb" in public. Bush has no respect for anyone ['good job' raising him, nasty-cynical-cruel BARBARA BUSH & POPPY!] and BUSH DESERVES NO RESPECT--NONE.

Bush Family values? NOTHING. ZERO VALUES. No spine. Just rabid opportunism, cruelty, GREED, war profiteering smoke & mirrors & torturing others is "okay". It is not.

We don't need more republican media-preening fools for president.

We don't want ACTORS for President.
We want THE REAL THING.

THE REAL THING is H. Clinton.
H. Clinton HAS GUTS & BRAINS.

That's what matters in a President of USA.
Go for it!--SUPPORT HER and SUPPORT AMERICA before the rabid REPUBLICAN SMEAR MACHINE goes into high gear TO DESTROY AMERICA and replace the American way of life with their insane Fascism-FOR-GREED.

[thatvisionthing]

You sound rabid yourself. Clinton is Bush all over again. She voted for the war in Iraq, has never apologized for it, then made the same vote again for war in Iran. The first thing she wants another country to know is that she will beat them up if they don't suit her or shun them until they do. That's not a decent respect for the opinion of mankind, that's bullying. And self-defeating. I'm sick to death of it. I'm sick to death of American empire. I ain't voting for her.

[OckhamsElectricRazor]

Another factor is that Neo-cons, from the cradle, are imbued with a visceral hatred of government. Therefore, when elected they are unable to govern. Effective administration takes a particular set of skills and commitment. Neo-cons have repeatedly demonstrated that they can only tear down government processes. They are totally at loss when it comes to using government to achieve an end.

[Ray Mann]

Thank you Jane for your insightful analysis of the motives of the players in this game. I'll have to read ALL of your past articles as well as your new ones.

[Iguanadon]

Regarding this statement:

"I think the World Champion Opportunist Award these days goes to those Israelis who ally themselves with the American Rapture people, knowing full well that in Rapture theology, the wholesale conversion of the Jews is the prerequisite for the Second Coming of Jesus."

I don't know where you heard that the "wholesale conversion of the Jews" is a "prerequisite for the Second Coming..." You are misinformed; sadly, this brings your other (unsubstantiated) assertions into question.

Here's a link that provides a more accurate take on Rapture Theology:

http://www.cresourcei.org/secondcoming.html

[Collielady]

Accuracy surrounding mythology? Are you for real?

[bumpersticker]

What an enlightened person and great writer you are, Jane. Your line, "Opportunism often looks good on the surface, but it is based on manipulation rather than relationship,...." really underlies the smirk we have seen for the last seven years.

A petty dictator sitting on black gold was an opportunity sold as Black Bart with nukes in his belt.

War was an opportunity for the dullard, lazy black sheep of the family to "Show them" he was a man to be respected - a Shakespearean tragedy that made us embarrassed to be on the same stage.

[arkansawtravler]

I really enjoyed your post. Thoughtful analysis like this should have been the media hallmark back in 2003. That unfortunately did not happen. Whats stands out for me is the complete and total "collective" failure of so many institutions, beginning with the Generals, with the exception of Sheneniski, the media, the intelligentsia, education institutions, congress, and a highly gullible public. I will not inlcude the administration and the supremes in that list as I consider what they did as a willful perversion of the constitution. I do not mind saying I had nothing at all against Moveon.org's Betray us ad, frankly that is how I feel. More to the point everyone I talk to feels the same way.

[GCOBAU]

I agree for the most part with this article. It reminds me of how after the invasion of Iraq, i could see Rumsfeld for what he was, when most of the mainstream media still showered him with kisses. They appeared to be masochistic becuase they would heap love and praise upon him while he treaded them with condescention, derision, and scorn.

[dora rice]

It grew out of America to much kissing Israel's duck

[Marnie1]

Thank you for reminding the world that Duhbya had his chance to prove his heroism, patriotism and manhood in the mess that his baby brother made of the Florida election 2000.

Even Florida Repugnants admit, had that state applied its own recently updated election laws, Duhbya lost.

Had Duhbya stood up for the American people, even in losing in 2000. He probably would have won not only two terms starting in 2004, but would, very likely have won the greatest prize the world offers - The Nobel Peace Price.

Dhbya is a looser. America lost. Gore Won!!

Your comment about the sheer shallowness of the Bushies is a reminder of the late and much missed Molly Ivins. She commented about H. Duhbya Bush "Deep down he is really shallow."
That is true of him and all his spawn. And of the Bush Mafia as a whole.

I am so happy for Gore, and so sick of the Traitors that displaced him as "leaders" of our government.