Expectations A Problem
by Charley Reese
The dangerous part of the mess we are making of the occupation in Iraq is expectations.
The Iraqi people expected that the world's superpower, with its incredibly high-tech weaponry and enormous wealth, would easily get the electricity and water running in no time. In fact, 100 days after the so-called end of the war, we are producing less electricity and clean water than Saddam Hussein did before the war.
The Iraqi people cannot accept the fact that we are incompetent. They believe we are doing it on purpose to punish them and to make them subservient. They're ticked and getting more and more ticked every passing day. They do not like the idea that there are long lines at gasoline pumps in a country that literally floats on a sea of oil. There weren't any lines before the war.
Americans are used to the idea that our politicians are better talkers than they are performers. The Iraqis, unfortunately, expected us to perform as well at rebuilding their country as we did in destroying it. Alas, no. We have become a nation that excels in destruction and consumption, but no longer in building and production.
It is intellectually dishonest for American officials to blame the state of Iraq's infrastructure on "35 years of mismanagement." The facts are that the bad state of Iraq's infrastructure is our fault. After 40 days and nights of bombing in the first Gulf War that targeted Iraqi infrastructure, such as power plants and sewer and water plants, the American commander boasted on global television, "We have bombed Iraq back into the preindustrial age."
Then followed more than 12 years of severe sanctions. All too often, when the Iraqis tried to buy parts to repair their infrastructure, the United States would block the purchase. "Dual use" was the favorite excuse. Furthermore, we failed in our responsibility to prevent looting after this war. Well, we wrecked Iraq's infrastructure, and unfortunately, we have now inherited it. We killed thousands of Iraqis, including a half-million children, with bombs and sanctions. Now we expect them to like us.
Talk about being delusional.
It's clear from recent events (the death of a Danish soldier, the bombing of the Jordanian Embassy and the United Nations compound) that those shadowy forces opposing us are sending a message to outsiders: If you help the United States, we'll go after you. Near-daily attacks against U.S. soldiers and acts of sabotage are not helping matters either.
If you think it is irrational for the Iraqis to blame us for having no power and no water and not the saboteurs, then, my friend, you are not ready for the Middle East. There is a story about a scorpion that begged a frog to carry him across a river. The frog at first refused, saying the scorpion would sting him. "Don't be silly," said the scorpion. "If I sting you, I'll drown, too." The frog gave in and started across the river. The scorpion stung him. Just before they both drowned, the frog said, "Why?" "Well," said the scorpion, "this is the Middle East."
The American rhetoric, if not the facts, is starting to resemble the Vietnam War era. Turning over security and jobs to Iraqis sounds a lot like the claim of "Vietnamization" of that earlier war. And talk about persevering and ultimately triumphing sounds like the Vietnam-era talk of "light at the end of the tunnel."
I have never believed from Day One that we could impose a democratic government on Iraq. Iraq is a hard place to govern. As one Iraqi put it, every time a good guy tried to govern the country, they killed him pretty quickly. I suspect in the end we will get frustrated, appoint our own dictator and leave. The question is how many lives and how many billions of dollars it will cost before Washington's neoconservatives have all their misconceptions smashed on the rocks of reality.
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