The Old Switcheroo

In 2001, in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, there was near universal agreement as to who "the Enemy" was. We were attacked by the al Qaeda terrorist network at the direction of its leader, Osama bin Laden. Logically, therefore, we responded by invading Afghanistan, where Osama bin Laden and his fellow jihadists had been operating under the protection and support of the Taliban regime. Those were the salad days of the War on Terror, when everyone understood the basic plot, when the word "terrorist" was only used to describe actual terrorists, and when it felt, at least for a moment, like we were making some real progress.

But then the going got tough. We successfully toppled the Taliban, but Bin Laden himself slipped through our grasp. There was a lot of work left to do--rebuilding Afghanistan, working with the Pakistanis to find Bin Laden, uncovering terrorist cells around the world, improving our homeland security--but none of it was sexy and all of it would take time and patience. It didn't take long for the Bush administration to grow bored.

So, quicker than you can say "switcheroo," the Bush administration changed the entire focus of the War on Terror. Saddam Hussein quickly replaced Osama bin Laden as Public Enemy #1. Suddenly, the biggest threat to our country was not the terrorist network we had been fighting, but the dictator of Iraq, a country that had no operational relationship with al Qaeda. We'll never know exactly why the Bush administration decided to invade Iraq, but I suspect that part of it was just a desire to do something big, something sexy. We'd already finished the "exciting" part of the campaign in Afghanistan, and all that remained was the long, arduous task of putting that broken country back together. I suspect that for many in the Bush administration, Iraq represented a fresh challenge, a new enemy, a chance for the type of unambiguous victory that had eluded them in Afghanistan.

But then the going once again got tough. We successfully removed Saddam Hussein from power, but the bloody insurgency and sectarian strife that followed have proven to be an immense challenge. After three years of occupation, our troops are just barely managing to keep the country from descending into a full scale civil war. With an election looming and the Iraq War less popular than ever, President Bush and the GOP have grown bored with talking about Iraq, Iraq, Iraq. They long for a fresh challenge, a new enemy.

Enter Iran stage right. The Bush administration and its surrogates are once again attempting to pull a 'switcheroo'. Iran is the new Maximum Enemy, Ahmadinejad the new face of evil. Indeed, we've been told by all "serious" people lately that it is 1938 all over again and Ahmadinejad is the new Hitler.

But this latest pivot is different than the first. When Saddam Hussein suddenly replaced Osama bin Laden as Public Enemy #1, it was a bit jarring and difficult to understand, but at least it didn't call into question the wisdom of everything we had been doing up until that point. But as Mark Kleiman points out, pivoting from a focus on Iraq to a focus on Iran does exactly that:

If in fact Iran is the Maximum Enemy, wasn't the invasion
of Iraq obviously (at least in retrospect) a huge mistake?
After all, it (predictably):

1. Strengthened the lunatic anti-American party in Iran and
weakened what had been very substantial pro-U.S. sentiment
there;

2. Eliminated Iran's most potent regional adversary;

3. Gave Iran substantial power in Iraq through its influence
over the Shi'a there;

4. Made U.S. forces in Iraq virtual hostages to the threat
that Iranian-influenced Shi'a leaders could call for jihad
against the foreign occupiers.

To that list I would add that the invasion of Iraq has greatly diminished our national credibility and mystique and greatly limited our military options for dealing with Iran. So now we face a much stronger Iran, we have no credible military options, and we bring far less to the table diplomatically.

If we're going to use the 1938 analogy, then we just invaded France and replaced it with a pro-German Vichy government.

But I've never been a big fan of historical analogies. As Fareed Zakaria recently put it, "Washington has a long habit of painting its enemies 10 feet tall--and crazy." That's certainly true, particularly of this administration. But we could all benefit from Zakaria's advice to step back and take a deep breath. I think he gets it about right when says:

One man who is greatly enjoying being the subject of this
outsize portraiture is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He has gone
from being an obscure and not-so-powerful politician--Iran
is a theocracy, remember, so the mullahs are ultimately in
control--to a central player in the Middle East simply by
goading the United States and watching Washington take
the bait. By turning him into enemy No. 1, by reacting to
every outlandish statement he makes, the Bush administration
has given him far more attention than he deserves. And so
now he writes letters to Bush, offers to debate him and
prances about in the global spotlight provided by American
attention.

Ahmadinejad strikes me as less a messianic madman and
more a radical populist, an Iranian Huey Long. He has
outflanked the mullahs on the right on nuclear policy, pushing
for a more confrontationist approach toward Washington. He
has outflanked them on the left on women's rights, arguing
against some of the prohibitions women face. (He wants them
to be able to attend soccer matches.) Almost every week he
announces a new program to "help the poor." He uses the
nuclear issue because it gives him a great nationalist symbol.
For a regime with little to show after a quarter century in
power--Iranian standards of living have actually declined
since the revolution--nuclear power is a national
accomplishment.

Portraying Ahmadinejad as the next Hitler serves no purpose except to distract the electorate from more pressing concerns, such as the deteriorating situation in Iraq. The Bush administration is once again trying to change the subject. Let's hope it doesn't work this time.