by Ron Suskind
Ron Suskind's book has been making some waves in the past few months on the talk show circuit and in op-ed pieces. The focus has been on the book's various scandalous revelations, ranging from deliberate targeting of Al Jazeera offices in Baghdad to the CIA's unofficial choice of "Edgar" as the codename for Vice President Cheney--Edgar as in Edgar Bergen. Presumably, President Bush would then be Charlie McCarthy.
Whatever. These items, taken on their own, are just red meat for the various partisan dogs on either side of the fence. The real service that Suskind provides is in his exposing of the defining doctrine of the Bush presidency and placing the responsibility/blame for this doctrine squarely at the feet of the VP. Here's Suskind's description:
Even if there's just a 1 percent chance of the unimaginable coming due, act as if it is a certainty. It's not about 'our analysis,' as Cheney said. It's about 'our response.' … Justified or not, fact-based or not, 'our response' is what matters. As to 'evidence,' the bar was set so low that the word itself almost didn't apply.
Iraq is obviously what we're talking about here. And honestly, as a doctrine, this may have some valid application for actions such as, oh I don't know, disaster relief efforts maybe, but as the basis for large-scale military aggression?
So okay, it's all Cheney's fault (Rumsfeld's too, to no one's surprise), so but what about the President? The way Suskind describes it, he's not to blame, having been too well-insulated from the real world concerns such as military strategy or intelligence briefings.
What about the CIA? Well. The source for Suskind's book had to be someone from within the CIA. George Tenet in particular, and the agency in general, is portrayed, at worst, as patsies to White House ambitions, or at best, as the heroes on the front lines of this new era's conflict. There's no doubt that the rules have changed and that the agency is in worse shape than it was when Tenet left, but Suskind lets the CIA off the hook for various errors (missteps, lack of judgement, unpreparednness, etc.) both before and after 9-11.
The August 10 issue of the NY Review of Books had three separate articles that fill in the gaps in Suskind's analysis quite nicely. One outlined various visions for a new direction in US diplomatic affairs. Another (unfortunately, not freely available online) traces the recent ascendancy of Shi'ite Islam and the historical conflict within Islam between the Shia and Sunni camps. The last (and most illuminating after having read the One Percent Doctrine), is an article by Peter W. Galbraith that outlines wide and various examples of--"missteps" is too polite a word--incompetence by US military and intelligence in Iraq, especially in the leadership of Secretary of Defense Dick Rumsfeld.
The most damning section of the article shows how clearly the administration's hubris, empowered by national will in the wake of 9-11 and driven by neo-conservative idealism, not only failed to deliver on the promises of those leading the charge, but also made an already bad situation worse for American national interests. The classic maxim of "know thine enemy" was forgotten:
Saddam could not imagine that the United States would see an advantage in replacing him with a pro-Iranian, Shiite-dominated regime. Knowing very little about American politics, he could not grasp the ideological fervor of the Pentagon neo-conservatives who believed Iraq's democratic transformation would revolutionize the Middle East. Rumsfeld and the neo-conservatives could not imagine that Iraqis would not embrace liberation and pro-Western democracy and they assumed that both the invasion and occupation to follow would be easy. For the American generals, to challenge the petty tyrant on the Potomac could have ended their careers; for their Iraqi counterparts, taking on the tyrant on the Tigris could have ended their lives.
The worst part is, the worst part may be yet to come.
