Can President Bush take Friedman's advice to, "... eat crow (and) apologize for his mistakes ..."? Can the "... Bush team ... finally screw up the courage to admit its failures and dramatically change course ... "?
Restoring Our Honor
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN / OP-ED COLUMNIST / NY Times
Published: May 6, 2004
We are in danger of losing something much more important than
just the war in Iraq. We are in danger of losing America as an instrument
of moral authority and inspiration in the world. I have never known a time
in
my life when America and its president were more hated around the world
than today. I was just in Japan, and even young Japanese dislike us. It's
no wonder
that so many Americans are obsessed with the finale of the sitcom "Friends" right
now. They're the only friends we have, and even they're leaving.
This administration needs to undertake a total overhaul of its Iraq policy;
otherwise, it is courting a total disaster for us all.
That overhaul needs to begin with President Bush firing Secretary
of Defense Donald Rumsfeld — today, not tomorrow or next month, today.
What happened in Abu Ghraib prison was, at best, a fundamental breakdown
in the chain of
command under Mr. Rumsfeld's authority, or, at worst, part of a deliberate
policy somewhere in the military-intelligence command of sexually humiliating
prisoners to soften them up for interrogation, a policy that ran amok.
Either way, the secretary of defense is ultimately responsible, and if we are
going to rebuild our credibility as instruments of humanitarian values, the
rule of law and democratization, in Iraq or elsewhere, Mr. Bush must hold his
own defense secretary accountable. Words matter, but deeds matter more. If
the Pentagon leadership ran any U.S. company with the kind of abysmal planning
in this war, it would have been fired by shareholders months ago.
I know that tough interrogations are vital in a war against a merciless
enemy, but outright torture, or this sexual-humiliation-for-entertainment,
is abhorrent.
I also know the sort of abuse that went on in Abu Ghraib prison goes on in
prisons all over the Arab world every day, as it did under Saddam — without
the Arab League or Al Jazeera ever saying a word about it. I know they are
shameful hypocrites, but I want my country to behave better — not only
because it is America, but also because the war on terrorism is a war of
ideas, and to have any chance of winning we must maintain the credibility
of our ideas.
We were hit on 9/11 by people who believed hateful ideas — ideas too
often endorsed by some of their own spiritual leaders and educators back home.
We cannot win a war of ideas against such people by ourselves. Only Arabs and
Muslims can. What we could do — and this was the only legitimate rationale
for this war — was try to help Iraqis create a progressive context
in the heart of the Arab-Muslim world where that war of ideas could be fought
out.
But it is hard to partner with someone when you become so radioactive no one
wants to stand next to you. We have to restore some sense of partnership with
the world if we are going to successfully partner with Iraqis.
Mr. Bush needs to invite to Camp David the five permanent members
of the U.N. Security Council, the heads of both NATO and the U.N., and the
leaders
of Egypt,
Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Syria. There, he needs to eat crow, apologize for
his mistakes and make clear that he is turning a new page. Second, he needs
to explain that we are losing in Iraq, and if we continue to lose the U.S.
public will eventually demand that we quit Iraq, and it will then become
Afghanistan-on-steroids, which will threaten everyone. Third, he needs to
say he will be guided by the
U.N. in forming the new caretaker government in Baghdad. And fourth, he needs
to explain that he is ready to listen to everyone's ideas about how to expand
our force in Iraq, and have it work under a new U.N. mandate, so it will
have the legitimacy it needs to crush any uprisings against the interim Iraqi
government
and oversee elections — and then leave when appropriate. And he needs
to urge them all to join in.
Let's not lose sight of something — as bad as things look in Iraq, it
is not yet lost, for one big reason: America's aspirations for Iraq and those
of the Iraqi silent majority, particularly Shiites and Kurds, are still aligned.
We both want Iraqi self-rule and then free elections. That overlap of interests,
however clouded, can still salvage something decent from this war — if
the Bush team can finally screw up the courage to admit its failures and
dramatically change course.
Yes, the hour is late, but as long as there's a glimmer of hope that
this Bush team will do the right thing, we must insist on it, because America's
role
in the world is too precious — to America and to the rest of the world — to
be squandered like this.
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company