Reality Bites

Over the last few months the Bush administration has experienced a fairly rapid unraveling of whatever support existed among the general public (other than the diehard fans) for continuing the occupation in Iraq. The debate continues, for sure, regarding how or when to pull the troop levels down, but the underlying message is pretty clear, "We're about done here".

Watching this unraveling, something occured to me. If the administration had honestly articulated their ambitious foreign policy goals for the Middle East, rather than the fear mongering and pickled intelligence, how would things be different today? I think it's rather telling that the administration decided that the public is either too stupid or the policy agenda too wacky to subject to a public debate.

Yes, of course it would have been a risky move to get into such a debate. The public might have indeed rejected the idea. However, when politicians want to sell people on something they are often pretty good at it. I believe that a convincing case could be made for the Project for New American Century's ideology for pushing American power and influence into the Middle East for the purpose of "remaking the region". But again, it's risky and scaring the shit out of people must have seemed more certain to produce the desired level of political support for invading Iraq.

The funny thing is this: The route that the administration took in selling the invasion to the public created a false agenda, toppling Hussein and preventing proliferation of his mythical WMD. Once that rationale evaporated, the public's appetite for this process began to slip away.
There was no particular sense of purpose other than trying to get a bunch of people with deep-seated grudges against eachother to get their shit together so we can get the hell out.
And the sense that we have fucked this thing up from day one of the occupation just seems to hover over the whole mess.

If the administration had actually taken the country into Iraq with the expectation of a long-term plan to change the character of that region in order to push reform and (hopefully) reduce the region's tendency toward instability and violence, I think that the public's tolerance for a long term commitment would be very different today.

Personally, I think that the PNAC ideology is terribly flawed and naive. But I also didn't think the public would buy the WMD scam either. My point is that the administration, as much as they'd like to blame lefties or the press or Hollywood for the public's loss of stomach for the occupation, they can take most of the blame for themselves. They didn't prepare the public for this type of commitment in Iraq, which naturally makes me wonder if they were even prepared for it themselves. I think the public is wondering too.