Hope Remains as Violence Fails in Iraq and Beyond (Page 2 of 2)

December 13, 2006
By: Ralph Hutchison

The use of political and diplomatic tools to resolve disputes is not magic. It’s real power, proven time and again in real-world politics. May not work smoothly every time, certainly takes a lot of time and patience to work, but it seems the wise old men and women believe it can work.

I don’t know if it will sell. It may be that the audience storms out demanding its money back when Act III plays out. Because using political and diplomatic tools requires negotiation. No one wins anything unless everyone wins something. So we will have to give up some things, and they won’t be easy.

Oil, for one thing. Our vision of a stable, U.S.-interest-serving Middle East for another. Maybe toughest of all to give up is our long-held belief, dominant in our cultural life, that the United States of America can do anything—no challenge is beyond our capacity and power.

Our objectives, our vision, even our beliefs have run into the truth of the real world. Call it Act III: Reality Check.

It remains to be seen if any of the recommendations of the Baker/Hamilton Commission will be adopted by President Stay-the-Course (His loyal fan base should change those little stickers on their cars to W with little letters below: STUBBORN.)

If the presidential resistance to reality can be overcome, and if some of the recommendations are tried, it remains to be seen if they will work. It may be that our actions and policies have made it impossible for the U.S. to have any significant role other than turning things over to a U.N. Commission, getting out, and paying to clean up the mess we’ve made (Read: reparations).

But what Baker and Hamilton have concluded is hopeful at least to the degree that it acknowledges the future of Iraq is hopeful only insofar as nonviolent efforts are embraced.

In the meantime, what about the troops? The troops are why most people in this country, I think, are anxious to have some resolution. There are lots of reasons for every person to care about what happens in Iraq, but none are quite as close to home as our sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers who are over there in harm’s way.

Some of them will not be coming home alive. They will die, joining nearly 3,000 others. They will die while the latest plans are being debated; they will die while the plans are being implemented; they will die while troops are being slowly withdrawn; they will die until the last helicopter airlifts the last U.S. personnel from the roof of a building in the Green Zone.

Will they have died in vain?

It looks like if they died for oil, or for democracy, or for freedom for the Iraqi people, or to make our country more secure, or to stabilize the Middle East, then history might shake its head sadly and say, “Yes, they did.” Along with more than 100,000 Iraqis, don’t forget.

But what if their deaths have a different meaning, no less tragic, but a bit more noble?

Back in 2001 and 2002, I was asked several times to speak about the war fervor in the country; invariably someone asked the question that we heard over and over on the street: What else can we do?

My response was usually, “You know, the time to stop this war was not last week, it was 10 or 15 or 20 years ago.” Few wars are thrust upon us overnight. Even when we are attacked, the attacks grow out of conditions that have taken years, maybe generations, to reach that point. If the peace movement is always trying to stop the current war, it will rarely win, and when it does it will be too late. The peace movement needs to jump ahead. Maybe months, maybe 20 or 30 years—those are the wars we can stop.

Iran, North Korea, China, India—future “enemies,” for they will all challenge our global dominance for different reasons and in different ways.

If the men and women who have died in Iraq—our troops, countless contractors and mercenary soldiers, coalition forces, Iraqi soldiers, security forces, and civilians—if they have taught us that violence is not a solution, then they have not died in vain. Their deaths may not have had the meaning they thought, but their sacrifice has meaning that is profound and that holds at its very core that which they most prized: our long-term security.

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