- Jerry, to George, in "The Opposite"
"In recent times US grand strategy has been guided by a new kind of doctrine, named after not its author but its exemplar: the Costanza doctrine.
This doctrine, which had its heyday in 2002-2004 but remains influential, recalls the classic episode of the TV comedy Seinfeld, “The Opposite”, in which George Costanza temporarily improves his fortunes by rejecting all the principles according to which he has lived his life and doing the opposite of what his training indicates he should do. As Jerry tells him: “If every instinct you have is wrong, then the opposite would have to be right.”
Emboldened, he tries a counter-intuitive pick-up line on an attractive woman: “My name is George. I’m unemployed and I live with my parents.” At the end of their date, when she invites him up to her apartment, he demurs, cautioning that they do not know each other well enough. “Who are you, George Costanza?” the lady asks. Replies George: “I’m the opposite of every guy you’ve ever met.”
The Iraq policy pursued by the Bush administration satisfies the Costanza criterion: it is the opposite of every foreign policy the world has ever met.
The Costanza doctrine is most closely associated with President George W. Bush and his first-term confidants: the wild-eyed neo-cons and the dead-eyed ultra-cons. But there is a wider group, which includes most presidential candidates and many of Washington’s foreign policy elite, who are not fully paid-up subscribers to the doctrine but went along with it nonetheless. Allied governments in London, Madrid and Canberra also signed up.
In “The Opposite”, George breaches the most fundamental laws in his universe – for example, the age-old principle that “bald men with no jobs and no money, who live with their parents, don’t approach strange women”.
- America’s ‘Seinfeld’ strategy in Iraq
2 comments:
With all due respect, I find the linked Financial Times editorial to be farcical in the extreme. Let us recall that we have the UK to blame for the existence of the state of Iraq due to the Sykes-Picot agreement and the League of Nations mandate which handed Britain responsibility for the region known now as Iraq. The borders of the country were formed from "three former Ottoman vilayets (regions): Mosul, Baghdad, and Basra."(per Wikipedia). This completely disregarded the ethnic and religious makeup of the new hodgepodge state.
Further "During the British mandate, the country was ruled by British colonial administrators who used the British armed forces to put down rebellions against the government. They selected the Hashemite king, Faisal, who had been forced out of Syria by the French, to be their client ruler. Also, the government and ministries' officers were likewise appointed by the British authorities. They were selected from the Sunni Arab elite in the region."(also from Wikipedia)
Finally, "Iraq was granted independence in 1932 by the urging of King Faisal, though the British retained military bases and transit rights for their forces in the country. King Ghazi of Iraq ruled as a figurehead after King Faisal died in 1933, while Iraq suffered from military coups (dictatorships) until he died in 1939. Iraq was invaded by the United Kingdom in 1941, for fears that the government of Rashid Ali might cut oil supplies to Western nations and because of his strong leanings to Nazi Germany. A military occupation followed after the restoration of the Hashemite monarchy, and the occupation ended on October 26, 1947."(Wikipedia)
So Britain manipulated Iraq for its own purposes for many years and left the country a mess. So really, we should be asking Britain to clean up the mess in Iraq now.
To follow up on my previous comment I want to address some of the specific points made in the editorial.
"First, military and diplomatic resources are finite and should be directed towards your greatest priority." The Taliban regime in Afghanistan has been destroyed and a democratically elected government now exists. That top priority was taken care of. Now, Osama bin Laden is likely hiding in Pakistan, which presents a thorny problem for the US. However, how many successful terrorist attacks have taken place in the US since the US initiated its attack on the Taliban? None.
Next, Saddam Hussein's Iraq had invaded Iran, Kuwait, and was likely to have invaded Saudi Arabia had the US not rushed forces to the region in 1990. The status quo prior to the US invasion of Iraq with no-fly zones and the oil for food program was always intended to be a temporary measure. Ending the no-fly zones and full withdrawal from the Iraq region would have allowed Hussein to rebuild his regime and no doubt plot further imperialist activity.
Now we know that France and entities in the UN were subverting the oil for food program in collaboration with Saddam Hussein for profit; which explains why the French opposed action in Iraq. Other Western European countries opposed action because of their military weakness and envy and jealousy of the US.
The intimidatory powers of the US military have never been higher. The reason that al-Qaeda and the insurgencies in Iraq engage in guerilla tactics is that they know that in open combat they would be obliterated. The US show of force in Iraq resulted in the eviction of Syrian forces from Lebanon and free elections there, as well as elections in Iraq and Afghanistan.
There is no question that the US sought support for the action in Iraq but due to the corruption, spinelessness, and simple antipathy toward the US of most countries in the world; that support was not forthcoming.
Forming a multi-ethnic democracy is a difficult, long-term project. Thirteen years elapsed between the ratification of the US's Articles of Confederation and their replacement with the Constitution. The US is certainly not attempting to impose a democracy by force of arms in Iraq. It is attempting to suppress anti-democratic groups to allow the freely elected government of Iraq to succeed.
The US should pull its troops from Iraq soon, and let the Iraqis resolve their own problems. But they have a chance to form a modern democracy, which was not true before the US invasion.
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