George Gedda of the Associated Press has an interview with James Dobbins, '"a former State Department official involved in five of six nation-building exercises over the past 11 years."
[Dobbins says that] the United States should be doing better in Iraq after all this experience.
''We don't seem to have learned much,'' says Dobbins, who served as U.S. special envoy in operations around the world.
Dobbins, who has been working for the Rand think tank since his retirement from government last year, said in a recent interview the most successful operations, especially from the standpoint of postwar casualties, have been Bosnia and Kosovo.
In Bosnia, he says, the ratio of security forces to the population was 18 soldiers for each 1,000 inhabitants. In Kosovo, it was 20 per thousand. In Iraq, it is only seven.
In the two Balkan regions, he notes, there hasn't been a single postwar U.S. combat death. In Iraq, as of Monday, the figure was 32 American soldiers killed in hostile action since Bush declared major combat operations ended on May 1.
''If you go in with heavier force, you sustain fewer casualties and you inflict fewer casualties,'' says Dobbins, who believes the relatively small coalition troop commitment in Iraq has emboldened anti-U.S. militants to resort to violent tactics.
''Nothing happens without good security,'' [Dobbins] observes. ''International investors have to feel free to travel the countryside. Otherwise they won't invest.''
...
Dobbins says American patience in Iraq is essential, claiming that ''no nation-building operation has succeeded in less than seven years'' .
Dobbins believes the United States has to begin taking nation building seriously because these operations probably will be a permanent fixture of U.S. foreign policy.
He says the problem is systemic because neither the State nor Defense departments regards nation building as a part of its central purpose.
Seven years is a long time. And that's with more troops.
I'm torn.
I'm sympathetic to optimistic statements like Leah's—"It's just possible that the Iraqi people may save the Bush administration from the worst consequences of its own arrogance and incompetence" by quickly building their own institutions. In fact, the American ability to combine generosity and realpolitik, as in the Marshall Plan, is one of our national strengths.
But it still makes me crazy. As Zen master Gregg Allman sings: Ain't but one way out baby / Lord I just can't go out the door. Bremer, the occupation "administrator" says this about our (finally devised) exit strategy: Iraqis hold the key to the occupation timetable.
OK. When the Iraqis draft a constitution and have elections, we're outta there. It does seem odd that an administration that accused Democrats of treason for wanting international backing for the war would keep spending American lives until the Iraqis tell us to stop, but let that pass.
Is the timetable a cynical ploy for "declaring victory and getting out"? (So raise our window baby, I can ease out soft and slow.) If Iraq were Afghanistan, probably so. But Afghanistan doesn't have any oil revenues. Is the occupation an imperial ploy to maintain the American presence in the Mideast, with a new ally (let's not say "puppet regime" yet) much more beholden to us than Saudi Arabia? More likely.
Regardless, the Iraqi council says 18 months to two years is the timetable for writing a Constitution. So are we there two years? Or seven, as Gedda would have it? Meanwhile, the new Iraqi government is seeking a presence at the UN, so we might end up controlling a second vote there. And we all know how the Bush administration likes those extra votes...
In any case, it's this country I care about. My bottom line is here, not Iraq. Kerry has the right of it: "We shouldn't be opening firehouses in Baghdad while closing them in Brooklyn." Not just because the firefighters are first responders against the resurgent AQ, but because Americans have needs that the administration is ignoring, and seems prepared to go on ignoring indefinitely. First Afghanistan. We're still there. Now Iraq. What next? Syria? Allman's lyrics—If I get by this time I won't be trapped no more—sound pretty good when you think that the "New American Century" doesn't seem to be doing a lot for most Americans.
Lord, I'm foolish to be here in the first place.... But here we are. I'm still torn.
Your thoughts?
NOTE: The Allman Brothers lyrics are a lot like Sonny Boy Williamson's. But they changed them, OK?
UPDATE: HaloScan says the bug in URL href value in HTML <a> tags is fixed. Readers?
UPDATE: Leah wishes to say that nothing Tom Freidman publishes is even remotely similar to her positions on anything.