Chalcedon Blog

The despotic dragon from the underworld of neoconservative foreign policy, Henry Kissinger, is coming clean on Iraq. First, Alan Greenspan admitted this week that the reason the U.S. is in Iraq is oil--though this is not a criticism on his part. It is an admission.

Now, Kissinger gives a tell-all. The war is not about WMDs or 9/11, but it's about U.S. hegemony and establishing "global order":

The missing ingredient has not been a withdrawal schedule but a political and diplomatic design connected to a military strategy. The issue is not whether Arab or Muslim societies can ever become democratic; it is whether they can become so under American military guidance in a timeframe for which the U.S. political process will stand....

However much Americans may disagree about the decision to intervene or about the policy afterward, the United States is now in Iraq in large part to serve the American commitment to global order and not as a favor to the Baghdad government.

Wow. In the words of Thomas Friedman, "suck on this patriotic Americans!"

Kissinger, like the other neocon armchair quarterbacks, has a clear case of "Hind's view is 20/20." In other words, he thinks a withdrawal from Iraq will only multiply the evil terrorists in the region:

Two realities define the range of a meaningful debate on Iraq policy: The war cannot be ended by military means alone. But neither is it possible to "end" the war by ceding the battlefield, for the radical jihadist challenge knows no frontiers.

An abrupt withdrawal from Iraq will not end the war; it will only redirect it. Within Iraq, the sectarian conflict could assume genocidal proportions; terrorist base areas could re-emerge.

Under the impact of American abdication, Lebanon may slip into domination by Iran's ally, Hezbollah; a Syria-Israel war or an Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear facilities may become more likely as Israel attempts to break the radical encirclement; Turkey and Iran will probably squeeze Kurdish autonomy; and the Taliban in Afghanistan will gain new impetus.

That is what is meant by "precipitate" withdrawal - a withdrawal in which the United States loses the ability to shape events, either within Iraq, on the anti-jihadist battlefield or in the world at large.

Dear Mr. Kissinger: if you were worried about Iraq becoming a hotbed for Jihadists, then need I remind you that there was no more successful suppressor of radical Islam than Saddam Hussein! And, there was no greater resistant to Iranian hegemony than Saddam's Iraq! By encouraging Saddam in his policies against Jihadists and Iran, we could've stopped terrorism and Iran for a pocketful of change and without the loss of U.S. lives. But noooooo! You had to make up stories about Saddam being in bed with Bin Laden. You had to send Colin Powell to the U.N. with "graphics" (no photos) of mobile weapons labs. You had to frighten the psychological distraught American people still reeling from 9/11 with tales about stockpiles of chemical weapons ready to be dumped on American cities.

Well, sports fans, the elite are coming clean on why we are in the Middle East, and still, the Religious Right says nothing.