What We've Really Lost in Iraq: Legitimacy

By Joe Rothstein
Editor, USPolitics.einnews.com

May 18, 2007

Do yourself a big favor.

Go to http://www.sais-jhu.edu and click on the speech given the other day by retired General Wesley Clark to an audience at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University.

In just 20 minutes, Clark presented the most cogent case I've yet heard for what the Iraq misadventure has cost America and Americans, and what's needed to clean up the scene of this crime.

Clark titled his speech: "Legitimacy---First Task for America's Security." Here's his core argument: For all the military power the U.S. has at its disposal, the nation's safety and economic strength ultimately depends on maintaining our status as a nation that pursues objectives held in common by most peoples who share the planet:

--The wise and benign use of power
--Defense of human rights
--Protection of civilian populations
--Cooperation with, not intimidation of other nations
--The primacy of the rule of law

All of that, he argues, has been put into question by our nation's behavior in Iraq. And the result has "robbed every American" of his or her heritage and made us all less safe and secure.

Six consecutive Pew polls of those who live in other countries have recorded a declining belief in the historic aims and purposes of the U.S. And that, he says, not only undermines our ability to rally the rest of the world to fight the forces of terror, but has other consequences as well: It weakens our ability to marshal allies to confront Iran; it makes our arguments less persuasive when pressuring the Russians to be less authoritarian and bullying to their neighbors; it compromises our credentials for challenging human rights abuses in China. And so on.

The rest of the world understands, says Clark, that the U.S. government distorted and exaggerated the Iraqi threat and launched a war preemptively, not as a last resort. The rest of the world heard our leaders brag about "shock and awe," a military campaign that showed little concern for civilian casualties. It is common knowledge that once Saddam was gone, we failed to protect lives and property. In violation of the Geneva Convention, which our leaders dismissed as an archaic concept, we tortured prisoners, held others without trial and generally engaged in behavior that in the past most nations, including the U.S., condemned.

Clark's indictment: "What we've done in Iraq is not simply a botched execution, but a monumental strategic blunder."

His point: Instead of isolating the relatively few terrorists in the world, we have compromised our own case and widened the pool of those who would do us harm. More planes, carrier groups or troops in the field will not resolve this problem, he argues.

As his last military assignment, General Clark commanded NATO forces that ended the war in the Balkans. He was deeply involved in negotiations that led to a final peace settlement. That experience drives his thinking about how to bring the Iraqi conflict to a conclusion that all parties in the region will agree to and respect.

The key, he believes, is what we once relied on as "diplomacy," in this case exercised on a grand scale. After his speech he responded to a question about this in some detail. His answer won't fit on a bumper sticker and is too long to review here. But it certainly has the ring of realistic clarity, spoken by a man who's been there before and left the room with a deal that's still holding, 10 years later.

Beyond shutting down the conflict, Clark believes it is important to delve openly into how the U.S. got into this mess, why it happened and who to hold accountable.

Of all of the major public figures on the political scene, Clark is the first I have heard make the case for accountability.

Here's why we can't just consider this a black chapter of American history and move on: because we did that once before---in Vietnam. The Johnson and Nixon administrations took the nation into Vietnam and kept us there on the basis of lies, deceits and violations of the law. No one ever was held responsible or made to pay a price for it. Except, of course, for the 55,000 men and women in U.S. uniform who were killed, the hundreds of thousands who were wounded and scarred for life, and the million or so Vietnamese casualties.

Charges should have been brought against those in office who ordered such carnage. If that had happened, just maybe the Bush-Cheney White House would have been more sensitive to the truth and less willing to bend and violate the law to take us where we are today.

Clark isn't talking about a show trial, either. He specifically called for an inquiry into "the highest authorities" at the Pentagon, the Justice Department and the White House.

"We have to hold our leaders to high standards of behavior," said Clark. That's a line many politicians use in speeches. But it's a tough line to enforce when the people you call to account are the most powerful in government. Clark has the guts to say what many people are thinking. It would be tragic if the costs and humiliation of Iraq were to come and go without accountability.

What I've recounted here does little justice to the power of Clark's own words. Listen to them yourself. And pass them on to the presidential candidates of your choosing, pressing them to incorporate these views as their own.

Joe Rothstein, editor of US Politics Today, is a former daily newspaper editor and long-time national political strategist based in Washington, D.C.

See all previous articles by Joe Rothstein here.