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February 13, 2012
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Mark Clayton: How did Anonymous hackers eavesdrop on FBI and Scotland Yard?
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Reza Kahlili : Ex-CIA spy in Iran's Revolutionary Guard: What Obama doesn't grasp about striking deals with Tehran
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January 30, 2012
Paul Richter and Ramin Mostaghim: Misreading Teheran's limits -- deadly and economically devastating as they may be -- is a risk administration, Europe seem willing to take
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Jeannine Stein: Mental illness struck one in five U.S. adults in 2010: Report
January 25, 2012
Richard Simon: House passes two bills endorsing the use of religious symbols at military memorials
Fred Weir: Putin: Multiethnic Russia cannot survive as a US-style 'melting pot'; must find its own way
Susan Johnston: 5 Sneaky Coupon Strategies Consumers Should Watch Out For
January 24, 2012
Carol Clark: The price of your soul: How your brain decides whether to 'sell out'
Caroline B. Glick: America lost most in 'Arab Spring'. Sadly, many voters still don't grasp the extent
Warren Richey: Drug criminal scores win in GPS ruling from conservative-leaning high court
Erika Bolstad: Black conservatives gather to talk about gaining strength
January 23, 2012
Melissa Dribben: Jewish voters to play a key role in Florida's Republican primary
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Ali Safi: U.S. envoy gives Taliban terms for peace talks
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Frank J. Gaffney Jr.: No-kidding red lines: U.S. response to an Iranian nuke may be bluster, but Israel's won't be
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January 13, 2012
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January 12, 2012
Warren Richey: Landmark Supreme Court ruling a 'resounding win' for religious groups
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John Fauber : Statins found to raise diabetes risk in postmenopausal women
Katy Hopkins : Consider This Before You Pay for an Online Degree
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January 11, 2012
Shari Roan: Millions of atrial fibrillation sufferers at risk for devastating, but preventable, stroke
Tom Hussain: Pakistan -- recipient of more than $21 billion in civilian and military aid -- speeds pursuit of Iranian pipeline, defying US
David G. Savage: High court signals it won't be loosening TV's 'indecency' rules
Stephen Ceasar: Oklahoma's Islamic law amendment can't go into effect, court rules
January 10, 2012
Reza Kahlili: From an ex-CIA spy: US must exploit new split in Iran's Revolutionary Guard
Karen Kaplan: Study: Nicotine replacement products ineffective when used in real-life situations
January 9, 2012
Michael Doyle: Put through legal hell over dream home, couple fought back hard --- all the way to Supreme Court
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Jewish World Review
Nov. 19, 2007
/ 9 Kislev 5768
Looking at Iraq in macrotime
By
Michael Barone
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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
When my father returned from service as an Army doctor in Korea in 1953, he brought back slides of the photos he'd shot, showing a war-torn country of incredible poverty. We would have laughed if you had told us that Americans would one day buy Korean cars. But 50-some years later, South Korea has the 13th-largest economy in the world, and you see Hyundais and Kias everywhere in America. Looking at things in microtime frames is not always a reliable guide to the macrotime-frame future.
"
So it may turn out to be with Iraq. We have been looking at Iraq in microtime frames or, for many who oppose the war, frozen in the time frame of late 2006. A better picture of the microtime frame is that we have achieved considerable success this year. "The trend toward better security is indisputable," writes the Associated Press. U.S. military and civilian deaths have declined sharply. Anbar province is pacified, Iraqis are streaming back to Baghdad, and al Qaeda in Iraq is on the run. Time's Joe Klein, a critic of the administration, admits the gains and advises Democrats not to try to cut off funds. Conservative columnist Tony Blankley claims "a very real expectation that next year the world may see a genuine, old-fashioned victory in the Iraq war."
American media are presenting less reporting from Iraq, partly because some in the media believe that good news in Iraq is not news. Some Democratic congressional leaders still maintain that the surge strategy has made no difference, and they seek a vote on troop withdrawal. But Democratic presidential candidates, more closely attuned perhaps to changes in events and opinion, are talking less about withdrawing from Iraq and more about what we should do (or should not do) about Iran.
Hopeful signs. Let's look, however, not just at the microtime frame but the macrotime frame. Yes, violence could re-escalate, as Klein predicts. But within sight is a far more hopeful trajectory. In the long run of history, our involvement in Iraq is starting to look less like a descent into a hopeless quagmire and a more unstable Middle East. Remember that in early 2005 the successful initial invasion and the specter of a possibly democratic Iraq prompted Libya's Muammar Qadhafi to give up his weapons of mass destruction and Syria to withdraw troops in the face of the "cedar revolution" in Lebanon. The increasing violence in Iraq in late 2005 and all of 2006 was accompanied by the Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip, the increasing menace of Iran, Syria's continued bullying of Lebanon, and other dire developments.
There was similar back-and-forth in Korea: Communists nearly driving the United States off the peninsula, then the successful Inchon landing and push to the Yalu River boundary with China, then the Chinese counteroffensive that resulted in a stalemate roughly along the 38th parallel. Each of those developments suggested a very different future trajectory; the one that turned out to be lasting was the maintenance of a non-Communist South Korea that over several decades became first prosperous and then democratic. That example gave impetus to similar developments in east Asia and even China, which adopted a system of authoritarian government and market economics reminiscent of 1970s South Korea. Harry Truman was regarded as a failed president, with job ratings below George W. Bush's. But the long-term verdict on his Korea policy is much more positive.
An Iraq that is reasonably stable, fairly democratic, more prosperous and productive than the Middle Eastern standard: This seems to be at least one possible trajectory from the success of the surge. That would be a considerable achievement, with positive reverberations for decades to come. In time the back-and-forth between victory, then rout, then acceptable but incomplete success that we saw in Korea the microtime frames that seemed so important at the time was mostly forgotten. And the qualified but substantial progress achieved in the macrotime frame, in Korea and in the dangerous region around it, dominated our view. We have now some basis to hope that something similar happens in Iraq and the dangerous region around it. We are still far from the "broad, sunlit uplands" that Winston Churchill pointed to in the distance after disaster was narrowly averted at Dunkirk. But we seem to be getting closer.
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