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Jewish World Review Dec. 5, 2006 / 14 Kislev, 5767 The surrealism of Iraq By Niall Ferguson http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | In Kurt Vonnegut'S "Slaughterhouse-Five," the hero has a hallucination — or, perhaps, a vision. A veteran of the strategic bombing of Germany, he turns on his television to be confronted by the uncanny spectacle of history played in reverse. American planes fly backward over Germany, sucking the bombs upward and miraculously extinguishing the flames sweeping through Dresden. The bombers land in England, where the bombs are unloaded and sent back to the United States to be dismantled. The explosives are returned to the ground. The air crews go back to high school. I wonder if a similar vision has flickered tantalizingly through the mind of the Iraq Study Group's James A. Baker III: a vision of the Iraq war in reverse. American soldiers, some dead, some maimed, would pick themselves up from the dust of Mesopotamia. Iraqi insurgents would suck the rocket-propelled grenades out of the American Humvees and allow them to reverse all the way back to their bases. Saddam Hussein would be freed from jail, then taken to a hole in the ground where his beard would withdraw back into his chin. After a while, all the Americans would gather in Baghdad and cheer as a statue of Hussein was put back on a plinth. Symbolically, a Stars and Stripes flag would be used to unveil it. As a parting act of philanthropy, U.S. planes would suck dangerous explosives out of Iraqi power stations, ridding the country of the only weapons of mass destruction that were ever there. Unfortunately, time's arrow travels in only one direction, though its precise arc can never be predicted. We are where we are, and there is no going back. So next week, the Iraq Study Group will present President Bush with some recommendations designed to move the United States and Iraq forward to a happier future. It seems there will be three main proposals. First, there should be a "gradual pullback" of the 15 U.S. combat brigades in Iraq. (Where they should gradually pull back to is unclear. It could, in fact, be to existing bases in Iraq.) Second, the number of U.S. troops engaged in training the Iraqi security forces should be increased. Third, and most important, the U.S. should seek directly to involve Iran and Syria in the effort to stabilize not just Iraq but other Middle Eastern crisis spots. All this appears, at first sight, like a welcome return to realism after the excesses of neoconservative idealism. But realistic solutions need realistic people to implement them. The trouble is that the three key figures in this particular story are increasingly surrealistic in both word and deed. Take Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki. According to a recent report by U.S. national security advisor Stephen Hadley, Maliki is consciously condoning "a campaign to consolidate Shia power in Baghdad." The evidence? "Repeated reports from our commanders … of … intervention by the prime minister's office to stop military action against Shia targets and to encourage them against Sunni ones, removal of Iraq's most effective commanders on a sectarian basis and efforts to ensure Shia majorities in all ministries … combined with the escalation of [Muqtada Sadr's Al Mahdi army] killings." Pressed to clarify his view of Sadr during his joint news conference Thursday with President Bush in Amman, Jordan, Maliki unwittingly confirmed Hadley's analysis by describing the Shiite militia leader and his followers as "just one component that participate in the parliament or in the government." To me, the Iraqi prime minister does not sound like the answer to the problem of escalating sectarian conflict. He is part of that problem. Even more surrealistic, however, was the man standing alongside him at that news conference. At Wednesday's NATO summit in Riga, Latvia, Bush had already applied his favorite doctrine of preemption to the Iraq Study Group by emphatically ruling out "pulling the [American] troops off the battlefield before the mission is complete." So much for gradual pullback, the bipartisan group's No. 1 recommendation. On Thursday, Bush struck again. "This business about graceful exit," he told reporters, "just simply has no realism to it at all." Yes, to hell with realism. As for talking to the Iranians (another study group priority). to hell with that too. "Iraqis are plenty capable of running their own business," the president declared, "and they don't need foreign interference from neighbors that will be destabilizing the country." Just in case Baker missed that, the president threatened Tehran with "isolation" if it does not abandon its nuclear program. Only one man in the world can outdo Bush when he is in this kind of Dali-esque form — Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Connoisseurs of his surrealist style were given a treat last week in the form of a letter from Ahmadinejad "To the American People." Apparently co-written by Borat, this missive went beyond the usual U.S. denunciations by blaming everything on "the Zionists … [who] have imposed themselves on a substantial portion of the banking, financial, cultural and media sectors." Yes, folks, Hitler was right all along: The Jews run America. When confronted with such master practitioners of the politics of surrealism, it's hard to know how far back you'd have to go to sort this whole mess out. To find a credible Iraqi prime minister, I'd say you'd need to rewind the tape to 2004, when the opportunity was missed to crush Sadr's Mahdi army. To get to the last credible American president, you'd need to get to 2000. and give the election to Gore. But to find an Iranian leader who wasn't a dangerous fanatic? All the way back to 1979, before the revolution, I fear. Yes, it's been a pretty long road to this slaughterhouse. But, as Vonnegut says, so it goes. Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here. BUY THE BOOKS Click HERE to purchase it at a discount. (Sales help fund JWR.). Click HERE to purchase it at a discount. (Sales help fund JWR.). Niall Ferguson is a professor of history at Harvard University. He is the author of "Empire" (Basic Books, 2003) and "Colossus" (Penguin, 2004). Comment by clicking here. 11/29/06:Some civil wars never end 11/20/06: Will GOP get last laugh? 10/25/06: America's brittle empire 10/17/06: Failing to stop North Korea from going nuclear may have been the last straw for the onetime guardian of world order 10/03/06: Why Churchill opposed torture 09/27/06: Insanity on a Global Scale 09/19/06: The GOP will hang on 09/13/06: Long Live Royal Bloodlines! 09/05/06: Red-state Republicans and blue-faced liberals are starting to agree: Green is the way 08/29/06: What if the London Bombers Succeeded? 08/15/06: Testing the Limits of the U.N.: Who seriously expects Kofi Annan to stop Al Qaeda terror attacks? 08/08/06: The coming tsunami of trash 07/18/06: Forget the '60s and ‘Make Love, Not War.’ Today's world is facing a Summer of Rage 07/11/06: When will China pull the plug on North Korea? 06/20/06: Hedge funds vs. central bankers: Will inflation, deflation or recession win in the coming months? 06/13/06: Britain's economy is just like America's — minus the entrepreneurs and growth 06/06/06: The X-Men have taken over Washington 05/30/06: Quit protesting, profs! 05/23/06: World markets' wild ride: Economic volatility is back with a vengeance 05/16/06: The Cold Wars are coming 05/09/06: Many commentators are missing dangerous political shift 05/02/06: Put some sugar in your tank 04/25/06: Hu and the dog that didn't bark 04/18/06: Should Americans be less optimistic? 04/11/06: Globalization's second death? 04/04/06: So many ‘special’ friends 03/28/06: Let's get it right about what has gone wrong 03/21/06: Congress is trying to give the world a globotomy 03/14/06: Lame ducks can still bite back 03/07/06: A 19th Century critique of a 21st Century president 02/28/06: The crash of civilizations 02/21/06: Not the president, but close 02/14/06: Want historic trouble? Look south 02/07/06: Greenspan advising Britain? It's housing bubbles, deficits and potential meltdowns all over again 01/31/06: Missing the Cold War 01/24/06: It's a sick, Thick World 01/17/06: Tomorrow's world war today 01/03/06: Scotland, it's over, but keep the accents 12/20/05: History, democracy and Iraq 12/20/05: History, democracy and Iraq 11/22/05: Ghost of Napoleon haunts Tony Blair 11/22/05: Can it happen in Britain too? 11/15/05: Red plus blue equals purple 11/10/05: The fires of disintegration 11/01/05: Triumph of an über-wonk © 2006, Los Angeles Times Distributed by Los Angeles Times Syndicate

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