5 Years Later: Mission Not Accomplished

Seriously though, if you appreciate nothing else about George Bush, you have to admit that the Chimp in Chief would be an endlessly amusing moron if only he weren't real.

The Coen brothers couldn't have written a more darkly comic script, and Winston Groom couldn't have created a more Gumpish President. But sadly, the last 8 years aren't a work of fiction and we can't consign them to a dark room and the flicker of a projector.

No this comedy of errors is all too real, and the Gump presidency has been a flesh and (Iraqi and American) blood mash-up of just about everything that could go wrong with American foreign policy.

It was 5 years ago that a flight-suited, crotch-enhanced, Bushie-Boy landed triumphantly on the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln and proudly proclaimed "Mission Accomplished" (Maybe not in those exact words but that's a matter of petty semantic quibbling).


So what has changed in the last 5 years? Turns out exporting a self-serving flavor of "democracy" with less than solid planning and honest intentions is a real bitch. As a freedom loving American girl I'd love to see freedom grow and supplant despotism in every repressed corner of the world, but an American Administration should be circumspect in its evaluation of attempting to forcibly deliver it. Owen Harries over at National Interest Online captured the complexity of and dangers inherent in the whole proposition of attempting to shape a "New World Order" pretty well in the following 2005 Opinion piece:

“Exporting Democracy”—and Getting It Wrong: Some Thoughts

Owen Harries

Americans of all political persuasions believe profoundly that it is their right and duty-indeed their destiny-to promote freedom and democracy in the world. It is a noble and powerful impulse, one not casually to be ridiculed or dismissed. But acting on it-if one is concerned about being effective and not merely feeling virtuous-is a complicated and delicate business with many dangers. Success requires that this impulse be balanced against, and where necessary circumscribed by, other interests that the United States must necessarily pursue, more mundane ones like security, order and prosperity. For these represent not merely legitimate competing claims but the preconditions for a lasting extension of democracy.

Success requires, too, an awareness of the intractability of a world that does not exist merely in order to satisfy American expectations-a world that, for the most part, cannot satisfy those expectations in the foreseeable future. While determination and purposefulness are important ingredients in any effective policy, the attempt to force history in the direction of democracy by an exercise of will is likely to produce more unintended than intended consequences. The successful promotion of democracy calls for restraint and patience, a sense of limits and an appreciation of the wisdom of indirection, a profound understanding of the particularity of circumstances ... . As Carlyle once put it, "I don't pretend to understand the Universe-it's a great deal bigger than I am ... People ought to be modester." Indeed.

Thankfully, this is an election year and we have the opportunity to usher in a new, more intelligent, World-friendly President. Then we can leave our lament largely behind and all look back at unCurious George's half-wit strategery and chuckle at the unreality of it all.

Vote, and vote smart people. Say no to 4 more years of the McSame.

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