Iraq War...was it a failure?

Both the Iraq War and the War on Terror have been a collosal failure.  That Iraq is now a semi-democracy as opposed to an authoritarian regime under Saddam is hardly any reason to call it a "success" considering that Iraq was never a global security threat in the first place, in addition to the many excellent reasons that Jerry had mentioned above.  I would only add that contrary to the Bush administration's spin, the world is not a safer place as a result of the War on Terror but is now more dangerous than ever, thanks to U.S. foreign policy.  

The Iraq War, in particular, became a rallying cry for Islamist terrorist groups throughout the Middle East, drawing thousands into the fold.  Al Qaeda is but one of numerous terrorist groups to experience a huge boon in new recruits since the start of the war.  Thus, rather than becoming weaker, Al Qaeda is now stronger than ever.  It will continue to grow in strength in spite of the election of a new President, who has pledged to continue the War on Terror by withdrawing from Iraq to free up forces to deploy to Afghanistan.  Unfortunately, Al Qaeda is too diffuse as an organization to target as a centralized group operating within a single national border.  Making the notion of extending the war to Afghanistan sound eerily reminiscent of Cambodia or Laos. 

And even if Osama Bin Laden is ever hunted down and killed, it would have no impact on curbing terrorism.  The movements themselves are too strong, too many, and  too varied such that other groups and younger leaders are ready and willing to step in as a replacement.

Steve, it's a good question, and congratulations for having the courage to ask it!  :)

Yes, it's not an open-and-shut case. I think part of the trouble is that once people who are opened up enough to really feel things see all the carnage and injury and suffering it's very difficult for them to think that it's anything but wrong. I think this would be especially true for people with a more feminine typology.

Some people have argued that civil war in Iraq was inevitable. Perhaps it wasn't inevitable, but it certainly was likely. A Sunni minority had oppressed the Shia majority for some time, killing hundreds of thousands; Sadaam couldn't hang on forever; I don't think the Bathists could hang on forever--a violent conflict in Iraq seems fairly likely to me with or without an invasion. Perhaps, just perhaps, the U.S. military presence helped them navigate that transition better than they would have otherwise.

And, as you say, we don't know what kind of trouble Sadaam and the Bathists might have caused--David Kay, for example, who eventually declared that there were no WMD (and who was not a Bush administration stooge) also said that Iraq did have a lot of potential in that regard. (See appendix.)

I think we need a little more time before we can make a final judgement on it, and of course the debate will still be going on then. There was a rational argument for regime change in Iraq. This is why Ken Wilber said that if you're Green you're against the war but if you're integral you may have seen an argument for it. Tony Blair, who Ken has recognized asTeal, gave many eloquent arguments for it in the House of Commons debates. If the American people had heard those the debate here would have been different.

Of course I'm not saying everything the Bush administration has done is right by a long shot, particularly during the post-invasion period, but I think the truth is more complex than simply saying the war was wrong and was a failure.

Best,

David

Appendix: a few comments from David Kay before the Senate Armed Services Committee

The State of the World: There Isn't Any Integral Politics Out There

A conversation between Ken Wilber and Jim Garrison (audio)

Here is my revised description of the audio above: 

Toward the end of the conversation, Ken Wilber reveals the paradoxical nature of his position which was one of support for a regime change in Iraq (on the one hand) but of opposition to the U.S.-led invasion and war on Iraq (one the other).  His argument for regime change is based on the evidence that Saddam Hussein had violated international law by murdering 300,000 - 500,000 of his own people.  Thus, a regime change and invasion of Iraq was necessary, but it should have been carried out by an international peace-keeping force (say, by a "World Federation") rather than by another nation-state (say, by the United States), concluding that "the right thing" (regime change) was done for the wrong reasons and by the wrong people.

Jim Garrison takes a slightly different perspective, arguing that the United States was complicit in aiding the B'ath Party and Saddam Hussein's rise to power between 1963-1978.  The United States furthermore continued to facilitate a dictatorship by providing Saddam with anthrax and other biological weapons which he then purportedly used on civilians.  As such, Garrison argues that others, in addition to Saddam, should share in the blame but was not very explicit insofar as his position on an outright regime change by a World Federation. 

My analysis of this discussion thus far: there is no integral politics out there, nor on this thread.  With the exception of Jerry's contributions, everyone else's responses strike me as being "first tier."

This is even after throwing my own posts into the mix above, dis-identifying from self, and temporarily suspending all judgment as to interiority or relative depth of consciousness of the poster under question, including my own, to measure their degree of integrality and wholeness based on their quality of posts to this discussion.  Thus, witnessing myself dispassionately and objectively from a distance, I arrived at the following conclusions:

1.  Jerry is Integral.

2.  barbi hammond seems postmodern green and looks like the "feminine typology."

3.  David seems modernist orange.

There were other perspectives here that echoed the views above and/or continued down in colour gradation or altitude, so I will confine my analysis to the sample 3 participants above.

Obviously, those who pay premium membership fees and participate on these discussion forums are familiar with the works of Ken Wilber.  As such, their purpose is to connect with others in the Integral Life community to engage in meaningful, online discourse using the Integral approach.  I would also guess that the vast majority of members on Integral Life (whether deservedly or no) identify themselves as being on the leading edge consciousness, that is, "Integral," which at present is estimated to be the developmental stage of the top 3 or 4 percentile of all humans.

Now, having witnessed myself dispassionately and objectively, I'd like to respond in a manner that is more befitting of a person who is "Integral."

Was the Iraq War a failure?  According to Gebser, the question itself is not even "Integral."  Better to call it for what it is, which is a non-integrated, goal-oriented, strategic, and three-dimensional rationalization based on a perspective and a specific target end "point" or objective.  As such, is non-inclusive in terms of wholeness or integration but is merely target-oriented upon a fixed point in space which they hope to be able to call "successful" instead of a "failure."

But returning to your comment, David,

You seem to think that the United States is justified to act unilaterally when the rest of the world chose not to participate in this illegal war.  Your position is antithetical to the spirit of the Integral, which prefers a multilateral solution on issues of foreign policy.  Please go to audio above.

The entire rationale for going to war was based on charges of weapons of mass destruction.  George Tenet, head of the CIA, briefed Bush prior to the war to inform him that Iraq had no "weapons of mass destruction."  Thus, George Bush already knew that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.  The CIA report given to Congress to authorize the use of force to invade Iraq was altered without the CIA staffers' knowledge to report the opposite of its conclusion, that Iraq had WMDs.  But I see that you are still intent on arguing on the possibility of WMDs in Iraq based on an alleged European Intelligence report in spite of that article link that I posted that you chose to ignore.

To be truly Integral, we must not merely honor as many perspectives as possible, but we must also know how our present policies and actions will impact our children and the world in the years to come.  Thus, time is perhaps the most crucial component to consider when considering the relative "success" or "failure" of a war.

For example, when looking at the problems of today and tomorrow, I don't see the "War on Terrorism" as being the top priority or issue that is facing us as a humanity.  Our most pressing issue today is Global Warming and Climate Change.  Based on leading scientists, we have only a few years left--four, at most--to radically change energy policies and to implement them globally.  Second to that is perhaps the economic collapse and recession that is occurring worldwide. A distant third is perhaps the threat of Terrorism.  We must know how to prioritize.

Hi Steve,

I just wanted to say thanks again for opening this line of inquiry/expression. It was far better for you to explore what others had to say than to simply come to a conclusion and move on to other things.

Jerry

--

It is in the clarity of Conscious Awareness that Truth is revealed.

This is my last post on this thread.  These nested threads are too complicated to navigate.

David (2nd person):

May I remind you, David, that it is you who had attempted to assess my altitude as "green" and as a "feminine typology" in third-person to Steve because I had commented that the Iraq War was a collosal failure.  It is therefore you, not I, who posted in bad form and initiated these personal attacks against me that inspired me in turn to post in bad form.  The fact that your remarks were not addressed to me directly doesn't excuse you from the fact that they were obviously directed at me (albeit indirectly to be politically correct), and were furthermore disrespectful. 

As for "feminine typology," not sure what that was about but I gather that it was in reference to the poster immediately preceeding your post, which is me.  I'm autistic with an E.Q. (Empathy Quotient) of 9 so your statement strikes me as very curious, to say the least.  Others would also like to know what such a chauvinist statement has to do with a peace/war discussion.

I'm actually more interested in hearing your argument in defense of a pre-emptive war and regime-change of one nation-state by another nation-state from an Integral standpoint.  You have yet to do so.

Here is your opportunity to do so:

http://integrallife.com/member/barbi-hammond/blog/how-i-judge-altitudes-posters-and-reader-comments

To all readers:

He (3rd person) never did so, of course; nor did he ever address me or refer to me once by name in spite of my asking him directly.  In fact, his only references to me were in third person to Steve in an indirect way; so that makes his indirect kind of assessment of "my" altitude and typology admissible in the eyes of polite society; whereas my doing so more honestly and directly is "disrespectful."

This is hypocritical.

I am sorry for all of you.

Dear Steve:

  I read the emails that were available before I wrote this and would tend to agree that the way your question was worded was more pejorative than integral.  But then, perhaps that was deliberate in order to elicit more comments...you sneaky devil.  On the other hand, if a person were so inclined, they could make your question integral through looking at it through the 4 quadrants and 8 perspectives.  So, I will give it a try, but I'm not an expert, so readers, please don't laugh or send me emails listing my ineptitudes.  I'm aware of my faults..well mostly.  And my ego...mostly.

  That said, a first analysis, and there is a point to naming it as such, as there will be a second analysis, might start by looking at the question from the left upper quadrant.  How do I feel personally about this and looking at zone 2, has this changed my development?  Well, I personally don't like the war and see it mostly as a not successful and yes, I think it has changed my development in some as yet to be determined way.

  Looking at the lower left quadrant, it has had a significant and what could (probably) be called a negative effect on our culture, both with my little we (friends) and big we (USA) and even bigger we (world). 

  Looking at the upper right quadrant, the war certainly has had a negative physiological effect on me.  I sigh a lot, bite my tongue, fret, don't sleep well, etc.  Looking at people's behavior, hmm, a lot of those people don't look happy.  Again, pretty negative things, I would allow.

  Looking at the lower right quadrant makes me wonder how much of the sub-prime mortgage melt down is related to the Iraq war vis a vis distracting us from what was going on in our financial backyard.  Looking at the systems related to the Iraq war itself, well, someone's been making out well, but it looks like the tab is due and the waiter is looking at me.

  My second analysis of the question is different from the first, because I changed perspectives, I think.  With lots of mental grunting, I tried to put the Iraq war into the whole world system and looked what that has and will wrought from a bigger perspective.

  Looking at the left upper quadrant, internally the war has made me look at myself in a way that nothing short of something that made me physically ill for months could do.  It made me look at the whole system and ask: "How could this happen?"  Because of this, the (and my) whole world system (Q2,4) has shifted in ways that I can just barely or not even yet comprehend.  My internal structure has been squashed and shifted and I find I'm not doing things they way I used to.  Seeing as basically I'm a beige critter, and won't change unless I've got to, in some ways then I can say I've benefitted from having this situation give me a strong kick in the butt and get me moving again.

  Looking at the left lower quadrant, I also see cultural shock and good changes resulting from it: "Holy cow, we elected a black and mostly integral president!"  Would we have done this without the Iraq war?  I see Bush's policies as something that finally pushed our culture so far that they snapped something and so we came out of our amber/orange coma and said:  "Hey, what the hell is going on!"  So, once again looking at the really big picture, the war did something to possibly change us from a course that I felt was leading us, well, can I just say the wrong direction?  I will avoid references to hot places and head baskets, etc.

Looking to the right upper quadrant, I'm now sleeping easier, but a lot of my physiological parameters are still not in the norm.  But my tai chi is helping.

  Looking at the lower right quadrant, some of the systems are seriously "off the rails" and people are racing around to find ways to put humpty dumpty back together again.  Might I suggest integrally?  What do you guys say about that State of the World Forum on climate change in November?  Integral, nicht wahr?  I spell this "opportunity."

  Thus, while the vote is still out, and while I personally abhor the Iraq war, I also see that from a certain perspective, it has also created an opportunity for us to grow both as individuals as well as a world community  As Nietzsche said, "It takes a certain amount of chaos to create a dancing star."  So, I will use that pain, that chaos created by the war and the economy to help further my inner development and to try create my own inner star.  I just hope that others will be able to see this as an opportunity to do the same, rather than as a reason to become even more ethnocentric.  Let's go out and beat those bushes, uh, I mean drums, and use this as a great opportunity for integral culture change.  This is a time of great danger and yet opportunity, so let's get off our butts and make the best of it.

Yours,

mb

PS: Anyone: please feel free to elaborate on my quadrant perspectives.  I think I need to read "Integral Spirituality" a couple of more times and then perhaps I can do justice to these type of analyses.

I'm not sure that I can do this entire thread justice. I'd like to thank Steve for starting this thread - processing questions around the validity of our foreign policy decisions is, I believe, a very important and needed discourse amongst the integral community. I've also appreciated Barbi's contributions to the thread. Reminding us of what an integral approach actually entails. I've noticed on other occasions when foreign policy was being discussed on the Integral Life boards that many of the responses and opinions expressed were either orange, blue or outright chauvinistic. So I really appreciate Barbi's call to remind ourselves that simply presuming to be on the cutting edge of human perspectives is certainly not enough. We all need to be diligent enough in our critiques and responses to aid each other in growing beyond what's become familiar.

There's been enough said about the failures of the war on terror and the obvious conflicting sentiments one might have regarding the outcome of the Iraq war so I won't spend too much time on that. The first thing that came up for me when I encountered this thread was a need to step out of any tendency to get caught up in a dialog around the relative value of ending Saddam's rule and how it was acheived and remind myself (ourselves) of America's history of supporting "friendly" dictators only to have the situation go sour on us. I probably don't need to remind anyone on this thread that we supported the Shah in Iran (the CIA actually participated in overthrowing Iran's first democratically elected government and re-installing  the Shah in the 1950's). The next thing that came up for me is that I am reminded of a portion of a presentation on integral politics on this website that posited the shadow as an element of discourse that is typically missing in first tier political discourse. And boy is it missing! We let that shadow pretty much run a good portion of our foreign policy responses for 8 years. But the shadow does not begin or end with the Bush administration. It won't magically go away with Obama's administration either.

So perhaps a better question would be - are we willing (as integral thinkers, as a nation...) to take responsibility for our shadows individually and collectively? Without integrating the shadow aspect personally and historically how can we really approach a question like "was the Iraq war a failure." It's been pointed out that the war on terror has actually empowered organizations like Al-Qaeda. Not too long ago I listened to a panel of experts discussing the war on terror on NPR. Some on the panel were actually ex-CIA / intelligence officials. All agreed that the war on terror was pretty much a failure. The thing that struck me the most about their perspective was the way in which they measured the success/failure of the war on terror. That being that the consensus amongst this panel of experts was that we had failed because there was no way that America (with its current - read Bush - foreign policy and strategic priorities) can convince a educated, moderate Arab that we our trustworthy. Quite a striking analysis when you think about it.

In short the question may be - how do we not sweep the Iraq war under the same historical rug that we always sweep America's shadow when it comes our use of force in the service of what we believe to be our interests? That's a question we can't answer by simply weighing the relative short range benefits of the war having put a fledgling (albeit extremely fragile) democracy in place. There are obviously much deeper wounds to heal from having unilaterally interfered (once again) in the history and social/political fabric of the middle-east. Needless to say the Arab world is not impressed with the rug under which we sweep our questionable motives.