Kagan

From Marc Lynch’s summary of a US Institute for Peace panel he attended last week.:

Finally, Kim Kagan shocked me with a comment made forcefully, twice, once towards the end of her prepared remarks and again at the opening of her closing remarks: the future of Iraq depends primarily on American decisions, not Iraqi decisions. I found this extraordinarily revealing: for her it really is all about us. This infantilizes Iraqis – and [. . .] demands nothing of them, since it is American decisions and will which matter and not theirs. Such a world-view, characteristic of so much neoconservative foreign policy thinking, explains a great deal. How could one possibly contemplate drawing down American forces, after all, if American actions are the only actions that matter, American power the only power which matters, American decisions the only decisions which matter? Why would it matter what Maliki says, or what Iraqi politicians or public opinion polls say, if what really matters is only ultimately us?

Because, as Kagan has argued before, that’s all that’s ever mattered:

At the end of the day, the United States is not in Iraq for the benefit of the Iraqis. American forces are not fighting to allow Iraqi leaders to make hard choices. The U.S. is engaged in Iraq in pursuit of its own interests in fighting terrorism and resisting Iranian destabilization and hegemony. Reconciliation agreements within the Iraqi parliament are part of what is required to secure those interests over the long term, but they are not now and never have been the reason for the presence of American combat forces in Iraq.

I assume this is probably the sort of remark that Kagan actually made at the panel, though I’d be interested to see the transcript. It’s not even worth commenting on Kagan’s sleight-of-hand there — arguing that the US is in Iraq to “fight terrorism” and resist Iran when, as everyone knows, the war has served as a compost box for terrorism while abetting, through the profound incompetence of its planners, the expansion of Iranian influence in the region.

The more immediately relevant point is that it shows why some of the war’s apologists are able to insist that their unconditional vision for the US in Iraq amounts to unconditional support for the Iraqi government and its people. It’s breathtakingly simple, I suppose, to support a potentially endless mission in Iraq when you can’t imagine that your decision to leave might have anything to do with the wishes of your hosts. Under those circumstances, I would guess it’s possible to imagine that everything amounts to consent if not enthusiastic gratitude.