Chris Hedges on the Untergang option in Iraq

"Untergang option" (collapse option) is my own phrase, not his. It's a possibility that's been hanging out there for a while, though the politicians on either side of the war debate don't want to touch it. It only a possibility, and not the likeliest one. But, however probably, here's Chris Hedges' description from Beyond Disaster Truthdig.com 08/06/07.

The war in Iraq is about to get worse—much worse. The Democrats’ decision to let the war run its course, while they frantically wash their hands of responsibility, means that it will sputter and stagger forward until the mission collapses. This will be sudden. The security of the Green Zone, our imperial city, will be increasingly breached. Command and control will disintegrate. And we will back out of Iraq humiliated and defeated. But this will not be the end of the conflict. It will, in fact, signal a phase of the war far deadlier and more dangerous to American interests.

Hedges seems to be a Green Party fan or something similar, so he's inclined to give the Democratic Party as much blame as the authoritarian Republicans for the Iraq War. And I don't think that is realistic or fair.

But however blame is allocated domestically - and you can be sure the Republicans will try to lay 100%+ of the blame on the Democrats - there could be an Untergang Option outcome such as Hedges describes.

Hedges also makes a good point on the ever-popular excuse that the problem was mismanagement. He makes it clear that he's aware of the mismanagement aspect. But he's points out:

There are probably about 10,000 Arabists in the United States — people who have lived for prolonged periods in the Middle East and speak Arabic. At the inception of the war you could not have rounded up more than about a dozen who thought this was a good idea. And I include all the Arabists in the State Department, the Pentagon and the intelligence community. Anyone who had spent significant time in Iraq knew this would not work. The war was not doomed because Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz did not do sufficient planning for the occupation. The war was doomed, period. It never had a chance. And even a cursory knowledge of Iraqi history and politics made this apparent. (my emphasis)

But can't anybody keep straight the difference between preemptive war and preventive war? Even Hedges, who should know better, writes: "There are still many in the U.S. who cling to the doctrine of pre-emptive war, a doctrine that the post-World War II Nuremberg laws define as a criminal 'war of aggression.'"

Uh, no. This is a real and important distinction. A preventive war is a criminal war of aggression under international law. That's a war waged to forestall some claimed future threat that is not imminent.

A preemptive war is one waged to prevent a military threat that is imminent. Preemptive war is not a war of aggression in the meaning of international law.

It's bad enough that the Cheney-Bush administration just makes up its own definitions for legal terms to avoid responsibility for violating the law, e.g., the definition that anything the administration orders done is not "torture". Can't war critics at least get the difference down between preemptive and preventive wars? They are not the same thing. And it's a difference that matters.

Tags: chris hedges, iraq war