Implications of the Fifth Year
by Jorge Vargas
Five years ago, I believed that I would be writing in anger on March 19, 2008 about the crimes of a United States leader who lied to his entire nation regarding the pretenses for launching an eternally illegal invasion.
I was absolutely wrong.
Yes, the war remains illegal. Yes, it was launched under exceedingly false pretenses. Yes, those misleading individuals should not simply be allowed to walk away with innocent blood on their hands.
But invasion of Iraq did something else, as well - something very good for this world. Iraq demonstrated that the United States can not fight two small wars simultaneously. The invasion of Iraq, and the occupation of Afghanistan, demonstrated that the United States may have great economic power and may have great nuclear weaponry, but it lacks genuine conventional strength - or at least the knowledge to effectively apply that strength in the battlefield.
Furthermore, Iraq - and, to an extent, Afghanistan - demonstrated the fact that though the United States and Europe refer to themselves as one inseparable West, they are indeed two separate and, in fact, competing entities. After all, why not sponsor the US in Iraq if you are France or Germany?
Because you know that, if such an action is successful, your individual nation will be relegated to a second tier position, whereas you have more bargaining power if the US is humiliated and weakened after years of hard - and essentially fruitless - fighting.
What else has Iraq proven?
Iraq gives evidence that democratization imposed from without is destined to failure. Why? Because nation-states that are authoritarian in character are usually so for a set of path-dependent, socio-economic reasons that can not simply be changed and replaced by 200,000 armed US citizens and supporting Britons, with token soldiers from other nations. That is about as accurate as saying that New York City's recent economic slow-down and New York State's gubernatorial problems can be solved by sending in 3,000 New Jersey State Troopers.
But more importantly than weakening the would-be Hegemon and delegitimizing the democratization-from-without scheme, this conflict in Iraq has shown the true colors of the 'freedom-sponsoring' United States of America. The world has now clearly seen what some regions already knew: The apparent hypocrisy of some - though not all - US politicians when spewing out 'liberal,' 'democratic' rhetoric. Torture, sequestering, rendition, rape, inaction. All of those words are now all too often utilized to describe the US military and the US civilian commanders in Iraq post-2003. Those same words have been utilized against the authoritarian regimes that once ruled over Spain, Argentina, Chile, and dozens of other 'Third World,' 'uncivilized' nations.
Thus, five years after the US tanks went rolling in to fight for the benefit of other people - how kind! - the whole world can finally say to the US: Welcome to the club!
And so, now that the US clearly can not - and that does not mean that it ever could, since this is merely an issue of perception and not reality - make claims to be humanity's great saviour and liberty's magnanimous champion; now that there are no more false pretenses; now that all of the cards are visibly on the table; now that there can be no excuse for self-righteousness; now, United States of America, we can talk.
Now, when no one can be perceived as being able to claim superiority over anyone else (though some notably still try to do so), the world can have a legitimate dialogue with the would-be Hegemon.
To liberty, equality, fraternity, and honesty; may they prevail!
