That Wacky, Wacky Fouad Ajami Posted by Michael Cohen

There was so much wackiness in Fouad Ajami's op-ed in the WSJ yesterday I was simply too overwhelmed to give it a fair and thorough "whack" job, but there was one line that needs to be highlighted. When explaining the shifting rationale for the war in Iraq Ajami makes the dubious argument that "the aims of practically every war always shift with the course of combat, and with historical circumstances." What's his example to prove this point, the Civil War.

Need we recall that the abolition of slavery had not been an "original" war aim, and that the Emancipation Proclamation was, by Lincoln's own admission, a product of circumstances? A war for the Union had become a victory for abolitionism.

This is breathtakingly misleading. Yes, abolition was not necessarily an original war aim; and yes circumstances changed - but slavery most certainly was the impetus for the war in the first place. Read Lincoln's Second Inaugural Mr. Ajami.  And if you read histories of the time it is fairly clear that abolition was in fact a crucial war aim for many Northeners, including Lincoln. Abolition was most certainly on the table, if not professed openly by Lincoln in the days and weeks leading up to the war (for obvious political reasons). This changed "circumstance" is 180 degrees different from say going to war over weapons of mass destruction and then making a five-year occupation about building democracy.

While I suppose one could defend Ajami by noting that he's an Arab historian and doesn't know much about American history he also writes this:

We don't need to overwork the stereotype that Arabs understand and respond to the logic of force, but this is a region sensitive to the wind, and to the will of outside powers. Before America struck into Iraq, a mere 18 months after 9/11, there had been glee in the Arab world, a sense that America had gotten its comeuppance. There were regimes hunkering down, feigning friendship with America while aiding and abetting the forces of terror.

Glee? Like the glee in Tehran when thousands came out to rally in support of the US after September 11th? Or the fact that the Iranian regime put out feelers to the US government about improving relations in 2003? As for those regimes aiding and abetting the forces of terror, would that have included the country that we invaded and occupied, namely Iraq?

Comments

[Slmc]

I get your point, but for clarity it should be noted that Iranians aren't Arabs.

[Zathras]

Also, it should be noted that Ajami is basically right about the Civil War. Abolition was certainly a cause dear to many Northerners, and Lincoln has always been very clear about objecting to its spread, but it was not a war objective of the Lincoln administration until the fall of 1862.

Now, as historical analogies go, this one is pretty dumb. Flagrant incompetence in the Bush administration's statecraft, on multiple levels, in the 2002-03 period and afterward is not mitigated or excused by observations about the varied courses of other wars, fought at other times about other issues. That this particular analogy is put at the service of the Bush administration's transcendently fatuous argument that lack of freedom and democracy in the Arab countries is primarily a product of past American foreign policy only adds aesthetic insult to logical injury.