Washington Monthly - Neocons: Iraq Wasn't About Democracy Promotion

[leveymg]

Oh, really?

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/
Kevin Drum - Political Animal 7:11pm PermaLINK

DEMOCRACY IN THE MIDDLE EAST....Was democracy promotion a substantial motivation for the Iraq war? Nicholas Lehmann asked two Bush administration hawks this question a few weeks before the war started. First, here's Doug Feith:

I asked Feith whether the United States, if it goes to war, would be doing so partly because it wants to change the Middle East as a whole. "Perhaps I should put it this way," he said. "Would anybody be thinking about using military power in Iraq in order to do a political experiment in Iraq in the hope that it would have positive political spillover effects throughout the region? The answer is no. That's not the kind of thing that leads a country like the United States to commit the kind of military forces that we're committing to this effort....There's no way. What we would be using military power for...would be the goals the President has talked about, particularly the elimination of the chemical and biological weapons, and preventing Iraq from getting nuclear weapons."

He paused for a moment. "Now. Once you contemplate using military force for that purpose, and you're thinking about what do you do afterward, that's when you can think that if we do things right, and if we help the Iraqis, and if the Iraqis show an ability to create a humane representative government for themselves—will that have beneficial spillover effects on the politics of the whole region? The answer, I think, is yes."

That seems clear enough. Democracy might be a nice side effect, but it's certainly not a goal of the war. Here's Stephen Cambone on the same subject:

EDITED BY ADMIN: COPYRIGHT

<snip>

POSTSCRIPT: Thanks to Jonathan Miller for pointing out Feith's recent attempt to revise the record on this score.

The Road to Hell, as Shaw said, applies oh so well to Feith's attempt to grasp the Big Picture: ". . .if we do things right, and if we help the Iraqis, and if the Iraqis show an ability to create a humane representative government for themselves—will that have beneficial spillover effects on the politics of the whole region?"
:evilgrin: :bounce:

[mcctatas]

1. I bet this will be all over the headlines now that they are on record...

:sarcasm: Gee, I wonder if they have yet another fall back justification if people find out the "spreading democracy" pitch was a big fat lie too. If these bastards weren't so dangerous, their continued lies would be absurd

[leveymg]

2. Their reasoning doesn't even have to make sense.

No matter how hard the smarter neocons in the media, like Nick Lehmann, try to pretend otherwise.

Even in their criticism of Iraq, the establishment liberals and moderate conservatives, such as those at Washington Monthly and TNR, can still be seen struggling to make this something noble and meaningful. If only to convince themselves that they haven't been wasting their time with corrective lessons.

Of course, none of them ever really made sense. It just seemed to work in their favor for a while until the whole thing fell out under their feet.

:bounce: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :grr:

[rodeodance]

3. gosh i hate these people sometimess!! it just goes on and on!!

[Moderator]

4. Per DU article posting guidelines & fair-use copyright rules--

Please post *no more* than four paragraphs, with a link back to the original article.

Thank you,
DU Moderator

[Eloriel]

5. Sigh. Here's the permalink

sometimes people read these threads later on, ya know? If you just link to the main page, they'll not be able to find the original:

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_05/006233.php

[Boo Boo]

6. They were obviously being cagey

in their original remarks. They are denying what lots of people already knew, which is that they were going into Iraq to topple the first domino as part of a long-held plan. WMD, as Wolfowitz stated post-invasion was just something that everybody could agree on---which is itself a disingenuous statement. WMD was the only thing that was going to get the American public to back the war, and, fact is, they never really did back it.

I'm still waiting for the article that says, "These men are all serial liars, from the top on down."

BTW, when I spell checked this post, it suggested the following for "Wolfowitz": Halfwits, Halfwit, Halfwit's.

:7