The U.S. is on a "Mission Impossible" in Iraq, says foreign policy expert and Ambassador (ret.) Peter Galbraith. He has documented American incompetence, ignorance and arrogance leading up to the invasion of Iraq and throughout the American occupation.

Regardless of who is president, America will withdraw from Iraq in 2009, he says, but it should happen in 2006 (he favors leaving a small force in Kurdistan.) Why? Because America is less safe and less secure that it was before it invaded Iraq. Genuine security threats exist elsewhere and Iraq is a costly diversion. That's before one takes into account the incalculable cost in human suffering, lives and the staggering financial costs.

The choice America now faces, says this 23 year veteran foreign policy expert, is clear. An endless war in pursuit of President Bush's fantasy of a stable, unified and democratic country. Or deal with reality. The fact is, Iraq has already broken up, Amb. Galbraith shows.  In spite of neo-conservative wishful thinking, this is not 1787 Philadelphia. Instead, creating the Iraqi Constitution was like Dayton (he was there,) when the peace treaty that ended the Bosnia war was drafted, a three-way negotiation in which the different sides wanted to protect their interests, and basically did, he says.

Why have the Iraqi people not been allowed to go forward with their own Iraqi solution, codified by them in their Constitution -- Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds each with their own territory and clearly defined sovereignty? Denial, Amb. Galbraith says. The Bush Administration refuses to admit it was wrong on Bush's signature issue.

The first victim of propaganda is the propagandist, Amb. Galbraith reminds us. Leading up to the invasion and afterward, the Administration systematically excluded foreign policy professionals who spoke Arabic or had worked in post-conflict situations. The qualifications of people recruited to run the occupation of Iraq ended with their embrace of extreme neo-conservative ideology they shared with the Administration. The results were catastrophic.

Occupy a country, Amb. Galbraith points out, and you're legally responsible for law and order, to fulfill all functions of the government you erased, obliged to preserve that countries assets: cultural heritage, bank funds, government ministries. Even if you don't believe in international law, there were deeply practical reasons why it was in America's interest to protect these facilities -- occupation depends on goodwill, support or at least acceptance, especially when you are a foreign occupying force. The United States failed spectacularly to do any of the above and continues to do so, failures which Amb. Galbraith relentlessly documents.

What has the Bush Administration accomplished?  The previously unimaginable. At the time Bush introduced his infamously inaccurate "Axis of Evil" rhetoric, Iran and Iraq were the two most bitter enemies in the world, Amb. Galbraith recalls. Today, Iran's closest ally in the world is Baghdad. The unthinkable has become a true axis -- Teheran and Baghdad.

How can Americans get their foreign policy back on track? Start with professionalism, says Peter Galbraith. And deal with the world as it is, not wishful thinking.

 

[This Program was recorded August 2, 2006, in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.]