Juan Cole in Charlottesville
I should have written something here before about the visit Juan Cole made to Charlottesville last week. He stayed with us, and he gave a couple of talks at UVA. Then in the evening Friday--this was on the eve of our departure for Beirut-- he, Bill, about five other folks, and I went out to dinner together (Al Dente, on the Charlottesville downtown mall).Toward the end of the dinner, Juan and I had a lengthy face-to-face reprise of the debate we had in the blogosphere in the summer of 2003. Essentially over whether the invasion of Iraq ever could have been a worthwhile thing for the US government to do. Juan's criticism of the Bushies' actions in Iraq has always been that they completely mishandled the post-invasion occupation (but that if they had run the occupation more effectively, the attempt at regime change could have been proven worthwhile.) Mine has been that the invasion itself was an unjustifiable act of violence... (And also that they've mishandled the occupation;but what else could one expect?)
We neither of us persuaded the other. I wish I could remember more of what we both said. I do recall touching on the nature of evil, the roots of violence, the unpredictability of violence, etc etc. He talked about the heinous nature of the Saddam regime, etc etc... Shoot! Next time we should take a tape-recorder.
Or drink less wine.
Helena - I was a latecomer to table for your exchange with Cole, there were so many things between you two at once it was hard to keep track (and my wine glass wasn't nearly as full as the rest of you). If you couldn't persuade each other, neither of you could persuade me as to whether the invasion and occupation of Iraq is a mistake or a crime. However, in the spirit of that dinnertime wrangle I'd like to provoke you to say something - now or later - about the divergent perspectives of Iraq area specialists on whether the invasion was a good thing.
As you know, many of our leftist colleagues in or from Britain who are most familiar with Iraq approved of the invasion and leant aid and support to it. This is a marked contrast to their counterparts in or from America, who mostly did not.
We both know many people of the former group, who were (are?) part of CADRI. Although I am a poster child for the as yet unwritten book, "All I Ever Needed to Know About Iraq I Learned from Hanna Batatu," I respect the scholarship of these leftist/progressive academics even as I, like you, puzzle over their advocacy of this insane war and occupation.
I do not want to believe that such cosmopolitan folk lost their heads favoring the invasion simply because so many of their friends literally lost theirs to the Saddam regime, but no other explanation sits well with me. I'm hoping you have an answer that could be better framed through a sociology of knowledge explanation than the pop psychology I have saddled myself with.
Best wishes for a productive stay in Beirut and a safe return to Charlottesville.
jmg
Before the war I met some Iraqis who were unsure what they thought about an invasion. For me the clincher in opposing it was the people behind it. Can anyone imagine that Wolfowitz, Pearl, feith, and the others would ever do anything good for Iraq? These people are Likudniks who have made lifetime careers out of being anti-Arab. It is like having David Duke taking over an African country. Especially after the invasion of Afghanistan it should have been clear an invasion of Iraq would be a disaster. The U.S. has a miserable track record intervening in other countries.
I think the basic problem is that U.S. politicians have no connections or do not care about people in other countries. Nobody in these countries votes in U.S. elections and our politicians have little understanding of their problems and issues. These days they have enough trouble dealing with our own domestic issues.