Making up history to make one’s case

After long-simmering sectarian tensions exploded in Iraq a few weeks ago, critics from the right and left have had field day taking their shots at the Obama administration’s Iraq policy, or lack thereof.

Recognising that the situation is fraught with dangers, I appreciate this debate, wishing only that we could have had the same intense exchange of views 11 years ago, which might have prompted more caution when caution was needed.

What I do not appreciate is the criticism coming from those who based their case on a reality invented to suit their purposes.

A case in point is the commentary written by former George W. Bush aide, Eliot Abrams, which appeared earlier last week in Politico.

Criticism is one thing, but making up history is something quite different — and that is exactly what Abram’s did.

In a piece titled “The man who broke the Middle East”, he begins with the truly outlandish claim that “the Middle East that Obama inherited in 2009 was largely at peace”.

Iraq, Abrams continues, had been stabilised; Iran was contained; and US relations with our regional allies “were very good”. 

This near-idyllic situation, Abrams argues, was squandered by Obama because of his “hubris” and his failure to understand the role of American power as the key factor that can promote stability, and “defend our allies our friends and our interests”. 

In creating this fictional history, Abrams ignores the fact that the stage set by his administration was in reality quite different from the one he imagines.

In 2009, Iraq’s was a faux peace. Lives had been shattered by the war, as had the social fabric of the country. Years of ethnic/sectarian cleansing had taken a toll. One-fifth of Iraq’s population was either refugee or internally displaced.

The US had imposed a Lebanon-like sectarian apportionment model on Iraqi politics, but inter-communal relations were too deeply strained. Iraq had been fractured, with the US responsible for having broken the country, as well as the party who was now trying, in vain, to hold it together.

To Abrams, Iraq may have appeared calm in 2009, but the appearance was deceiving.

If Iraq was teetering from the damage done during the Bush era, so too was the position of the US. By unilaterally engaging in two failed wars designed to project American power and secure American dominance, the Bush administration accomplished exactly the opposite.

The wars strained the capacity of our volunteer military. The costs in lives and treasure are still being tabulated with hundreds of thousands of returning veterans suffering from both physical and psychological wounds of war.

The recent scandal that rocked our Veteran’s Administration and revelations that we are losing over 20 veterans a day to suicide are testimony to the damage done. 

The wars and our behaviour in them also had a devastating impact on our credibility, our values and our standing in the world.

Far from having “good relations” everywhere, our polls show that during the Bush administration, attitudes towards the US were at an all-time low and foreign leaders who relied on US support did so at great risk, given their public’s growing hostility to Bush and the US itself.

Instead of securing American hegemony, our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan weakened us while emboldening regional powers like Iran and Turkey, and others like Russia and China. 

In making the delusional claim that the Middle East was at peace in 2009, Abrams also conveniently ignores the December 2008-January 2009 war Israel launched on Gaza.

It was this devastating conflict that welcomed Obama to Washington.  

During Bush’s tenure, when Abrams was in charge of the Israeli-Palestinian portfolio, Washington made a miserable mess of the Israeli-Palestinian arena. It ignored the Mitchell Report and repeatedly disregarded the efforts of its own peace envoys.

It insisted on the elections that brought Hamas to power and then, after the Hamas victory, set out to destroy that movement.

It backed Ariel Sharon’s every move, becoming enabler of and cheerleader for Israeli bad behaviour: its settlement expansion; its unilateral evacuation and then blockade of Gaza; and its wars in Lebanon in 2006 and in Gaza in 2006 and 2008/2009. 

The toll taken by eight years of Bush administration policies left the US reviled across much of the Arab world.

And so, it was in an effort to heal the deep wounds that the Bush crowd had inflicted on the US-Arab relationship that Obama came to Cairo in 2009.

Abrams calls Obama’s outreach “hubris”. But the president’s “new beginning” initiative, based as it was on mutual understanding, shared responsibility and partnership, was actually exactly “what the doctor had ordered”.

Looking back over the past five years, it is possible to note how in its conduct of Middle East policy, the Obama administration was stymied by conservatives as it sought to make needed change; missed opportunities to exercise leadership when it might have made a difference; under-valued the importance of consulting with friends and allies, at home and abroad; often appeared to be meandering, lacking a clear direction. 

All this criticism is fair and worthy of debate. What Abrams did, however, is not fair, it is downright strange.