In 2007 I finally got around to reading The Quiet American and then devoted a newspaper column to the similarities between Graham Greene's prescient view of Vietnam and our then-ongoing misadventures in Iraq.

Now we're up to the part of the story where Fowler, the jaded Brit, sees the next disaster coming: 

"We go and invade the country; the local tribes support us: we are victorious: but like you Americans we weren't colonialists in those days. Oh no, we made peace with the king and we handed him back his province and left our allies to be crucified and sawn in two...We shall do the same thing here. Encourage them and leave them with a little equipment...

It was so much more fun when we were being greeted as liberators. 

Comments

[NitWitCharmer]

Will the next president be left with a better Iraq or a worse Iraq than the Iraq Obama was gifted?

When Bush exited office he left Obama a peaceful democratic ally and a multitude of choices of what best to do going forward in Iraq. That multitude of choices were the result of good foreign policy.

Today Obama has no good choices. That is the result of a poor foreign policy in regard to Iraq.

What is apparent to even the most casual observer is that it is Obama who lacks a coherent and positive exit strategy in Iraq... not Bush.

Going forward...

We first need to understand the connection between, premature full military withdrawal, the chaos in Iraq today and poor Democrat foreign policy in regard to Iraq that has lead us to a point where even Democrats admit there are "no good solutions".

If there is any solution it is to vote Democrats out of office for pursuing a foreign policy that distills to "peace for me but not for thee is the only peace that matters." Clearly that is not the case. While America withdraws from Iraq and indeed throughout the world chaos has fills our vacuum.

The world is not better off, we are not safer as a nation, and Democrats are at fault.

The fact is that despite the Democrat notion that America is evil, America is a force for good in the world without which chaos follows.

[Andrew Brod]

No one's going to pay attention if you insist on using "Democrat" as an adjective.

[NitWitCharmer]

;)

[Ed Cone]

I disagree with Nitwit's analysis of the situation in Iraq, but he/she also is missing Greene's larger point: These adventures are bound to go wrong. You can't go charging into complex situations, ignore the complexities, and not break things. It doesn't matter whether the leader of the moment is a Republican or Democrat, or French.

[Chip Berry]

To know what happens next read Frank Snepp's Decent Interval.

[Thomas]

“Out of the huge sprawl of its first delirium, the nation was beginning to articulate the engines of war - engines to mill and print out hatred and falsehood, engines to pump up glory, engines to manacle and crush opposition, engines to drill and regiment men.”

Excerpt From: Wolfe, Thomas. “Look Homeward, Angel.”

Read this recently and found it appropriate to the current situation. Again.

[NitWitCharmer]

"These adventures are bound to go wrong."

Not only historians, but the nations of Japan and Germany would disagree.

As would, for that matter, the majority of nations that were crafted by the British Empire. Canada, Singapore, Hong Kong (city-state? Chinese whatever...), Australia, United States, India, South Africa, etc.

Is Thomas channeling Hartzman today?

[Ed Cone]

Yeah, the native populations of colonized lands fared incredibly well and look back on those times with great fondness. Win-win!

[NitWitCharmer]

Each are recognized as better off than their non-colonized neighbors, though I would agree that the non-colonized neighbors fared better than those that were colonized by European nations other than England.

[Foreclosure attorney]

If only they'd known they were better off and stopped fighting the benevolent Brits. I knew we shouldn't have had that dumb revolution.

[Ed Cone]

The Pequot, the Cherokee, and countless others (including the Iraqis) might quibble with Nitwit about the benefits of interaction with the British and their US successors.

Anyway, for the many people who aren't Nitwit or Dick Cheney, what a sad mess we helped create, and worse because it was not just foreseeable but foreseen.

[NitWitCharmer]

I wasn't commenting about the desire for self governance, Foreclosure Attorney.

I was commenting about something you should recognize as valuable, the concepts of Rule of Law, property rights and later functional consensus based governance. Britain got these right, passed them on to their colonies and their colonies benefited.

How do nations that were once French colonies measure up against those that were once British? Throw the Spanish and Dutch colonies in there as well. None matched the success of British colonies. Heck one British colony went on to successfully build nations as well.

The US. No, we didn't have colonies but we had Germany and Japan, both of which we built, both of which have succeeded, both of which are democratic, and both of which are Allies.

Sadly, if today's Democrats, who no longer believe America is a force for good, had been in power after WWII Germany and Japan could well have followed the path Democrats have directed Iraq toward.

The sad truth is that Democrats no longer believe in America. There is a word for that... unAmerican.

Again I ask, will the next president be left with a better Iraq or a worse Iraq than the Iraq Obama was gifted?

The answer is a worse Iraq and that is the result of the unAmericansim that finds a home in the Democrat heart. The simple fact is that the hard work in Iraq was done by Bush, all you guys had to do was support democracy and liberty in a foreign land ... but you couldn't. It's no longer within you.

[Jim Buie]

Geez, what ahistorical hyper-partisan nonsense by Nitwit Charmer. Do we need to remind him that Democrat Truman was president from 1945-53, and there was a largely bipartisan foreign policy ("Politics stops at the waters edge") from 1953 until the Vietnam conflict divided the nation in the mid to late 1960s? Reducing complex American foreign policy decisions to partisan choices between Democrats and Republicans demonstrates a really shallow faith in simplistic solutions.

[NitWitCharmer]

Jim:

Do we need to remind him that Democrat Truman was president from 1945-53, and there was a largely bipartisan foreign policy ("Politics stops at the waters edge") from 1953 until the Vietnam conflict divided the nation in the mid to late 1960s?

No, I don't need that reminder. As I said:

"Sadly, if today's Democrats, who no longer believe America is a force for good, had been in power after WWII Germany and Japan could well have followed the path Democrats have directed Iraq toward."

We are talking a different sets of Democrats. One set that had faith in liberty and another more modern but less enlightened set that does not.

As to Vietnam, Vietnam was the first war Democrats lost for America but successfully deflected blame toward America as a whole.

Today we see that again. Obama is losing Iraq but Democrats are saying America can't impose its will on another nation. Ed said:

"These adventures are bound to go wrong."

The reality is that bringing liberty to another nation is only seen as an imposition by Democrats.

And the real question is why? Why have Democrats lost their faith in American liberty?

[NitWitCharmer]

As to my comment about unAmerican Democrats Rasmussen notes that Democrats are at this point 58% unAmerican.

Fifty-eight percent (58%) of Democrats think the president should take action alone if Congress does not approve his proposals.

Americans prefer our Constitutional Republic.  Democrats prefer change, something different, something unAmerican.