Here’s an attitude America might try on the Iraqis:
“You were ruled by a vicious dictator who killed a lot of you, terrified all of you, led you into a senseless decades-long war with Iran, and stole your country blind. Whatever our motives, we Americans spent a lot of money and a lot of American lives to give you back your country. Now that you have your country back, if all you can do is kill each other over sectarian differences, and kill Americans, that’s your own stupidity. We aren’t going to rescue you twice. It’s up to you now……..”
Great nations are never going to get thanked for rescuing other nations from the consequences of their own mistakes. Look at France – we pulled their chestnuts out of the fire not once but twice in the last century, and in a “postmodern” European Union they still rely on American power to quell their fears about a resurgent reunited Germany. And yet they are hardly a dependable friend these days.
That doesn’t mean we ought not to use our power sometimes to help other nations dig themselves out of bad situations, but it does mean that we can’t expect to be thanked much for it, and we ought to do the job and then get out of the way and let them carry on, for better or worse, on their own. In the case of Iraq, it is not clear to me that their culture is capable of anything we would recognize as a democratic government, no matter how much longer we stay there or how many more American lives we sacrifice to the cause.
We’ve done them a big favor, whether they can admit it or not. Now it’s time to get out as quickly and gracefully as we can manage. Staying longer isn’t going to help either them or us.
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