Another Day, Another Debate, A Better Occupation?

Just emerged from a debate at the Copenhagen Business School with Dr Timothy Lynch, co-author of After Bush on "US Foreign Policy is Good for the World".

The two hours before more than 100 staff and students didn't change much in my position, and I think it's safe to say that it didn't shift Dr Lynch. It did highlight, however, both the efforts of the Bush Administration over the last eight years and the questions over what changes an Obama Administration might make.

I hope that it might have shaken up assumptions amongst at least a few in attendance, especially the thought that American power always has to be at the centre of our considerations about intervention and engagement. I say with particular respect to Dr Lynch's following comment about the US invasion of Iraq.

Dr Lynch admitted that the American intervention had not gone well. The problem, however, was not that it did too much but that it did too little. The US should have gone in with more troops and more force, planning for a prolonged occupation and turning Iraq for some time into a "51st state". Thus the lesson --- which I presume applies to Iran and Syria --- is not that the American Government should reflect on the Bushian regime change experiment but that it should try again in a bigger and better fashion.

I'm happy to be corrected if this paraphrase is wrong. As it stands, I find it a disturbingly eloquent critique of how future US foreign policy could be "good for the world".

Comments

[Dave]

Dr Lynch admitted that the American intervention had not gone well. The problem, however, was not that it did too much but that it did too little. The US should have gone in with more troops and more force, planning for a prolonged occupation and turning Iraq for some time into a “51st state”. Thus the lesson — which I presume applies to Iran and Syria — is not that the American Government should reflect on the Bushian regime change experiment but that it should try again in a bigger and better fashion.

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Allowing Iraq's military to fall apart (especially top brass) was perhaps another mistake. Far fewer personnel would have been lost to the insurgency.

I think another generation may have to pass before the American public is ready again to back another intervention with the goal of occupying a country -- save for a sudden and remarkable event that calls for a radical geostrategic shift, of course. Like something on the scale of a challenge by a state actor against the Eurasian power balance. No country in Europe and Asia has that capability now, but anything can happen in 20 years - as we saw in the last century. In the case of the Middle East, it would have to be something that could amount to a MAJOR strategic threat against US interests there. The US has always been about preserving and maintaining regional power balances and using junior partners to achieve that goal. But maybe I'm wrong....

[Dave]

By the way, the media is buzzing about the possibility of an Israeli airstrike on Iran, even though the likelihood of an airstrike is even LESS likely now than it was just a few months ago! The interim Government has backed off in the last few days with a wait and see attitude. If anything, the sabre rattling is probably coming from top brass in the IDF. Even Intrade is on that bandwagon +.3 -- http://www.intrade.com/