Professor Quiggin's Crooked History
STILL livid that Moqtada al-Sadr sued for peace and didn't push on to create a Bush-humiliating disaster, John Quiggin has posted a second 'analysis' of what went wrong. Writing at the far-left Crooked Timber, Quiggin includes all the old trope bananas he knows will make the CT simians go ga-ga: Bush and Blair "utterly discredited", "Halliburton", "Blackwater." He even claims to know more about military history than John McCain. War is McCain's "alleged area of expertise." Keen to restore full employment in 1997, Quiggin advocated Keynesianism with a twist but complained the newly elected Coalition had rejected his and John Langmore's Work for All because their ideology "is one of small government and free markets." Silly old them. So why would Quiggin, whose alleged area of expertise is economics, slam McCain's credentials - given the latter's own doubts about Bush Administration policy following the easy defeat of Saddam Hussein's evil regime?
First, of course, McCain is a Republican and therefore wrong. Because he is. Second, McCain quite reasonably assessed al-Sadr's precipitous capitulation when faced with a determined onslaught as an admission of either outright defeat or at least the acknowledgement that defeat was imminent, perhaps without the possibility of discussing terms at all. "Very rarely do I see the winning side declare a ceasefire," McCain observed dryly. This Quiggin cannot accept because his catastrophist narrative of Iraq demands there be no victories of any kind - except for the enemy. The title of his original post - "Peace Offers Are For Losers" - was a sarcastic take on the "pro-war" blogosphere's McCain- like argument that the face-saving demands in al-Sadr's truce reeked of defeat, not victory. For his Angry Left readers at Crooked Timber, however, this title was abbreviated to the even more dishonest "Peace Is For Losers." In the same way, he then verbals history itself.
The thread of polemical cotton supporting the Professor's thesis on conflict in history is more Edwin Starr than Carl von Clausvitz: war, what's it good for? Absolutely nothin'! The motivation is to 'prove' that Iraq - a "war of choice" - can have but one outcome: failure. The slogan "war of choice" is a favourite amongst Iraq War critics. John Kerry uses it a lot - almost as a personal theme. Earlier this month he spoke of resources diverted from Afghanistan "to fight a war of choice in Iraq." Apparently he believes the war in Afghanistan is not a war of choice but a necessary war to stop Afghan tribesman from invading the United States, Australia, Canada, Great Britain and Europe. Now all right-minded people agree war should be avoided. But Quiggin's Starr theory owes far more to an expediently partisan calculation of material costs and benefits than it does to any kind of objective moral worldview. As such, it is useless for analysing war in general._____________________________________________________ _________________________________________________
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The two examples Quiggin offers of how war - uninterrupted by the Sadr-like wisdom of triumphantly giving up - is a pointlessly circular route to the status quo ante bellum are both of no analogous value to the battle in Basra. Nor is it clear he appreciates the ironies, for him, inhering in the examples. The very fact that the French "pressed on" after 1792 with a decades-long war of reckless conquest shows the European monarchies were right to be worried about the turn taken by the Revolution. Their contemplation of defensive pre-emption was justified. The French pre-empted their pre-emption by declaring war on Austria in April, 1792. Interestingly, Quiggin implies the French pre-emption was "defensive." In the Korean War, it's true the final result was the territorial status quo ante. But the failings of the US do not diminish the fact that the general war aim of demolishing the massive gains won by the North Koreans in 1950 was achieved.
It only gets worse. The Professor argues, contra John McCain - who knows less, recollect, than he does about matters military - that "it's easy to point to cases, like the Indo-Pakistan War of 1971 where the winning side declared a unilateral ceasefire." Remember, his purpose here is to repudiate the notion - posited by unnamed bloggers - that Moqtada al-Sadr's ceasefire was the act of a loser. But the Indians did not declare a straight-out unilateral ceasefire at all. On 14 December 1971 A. A. K. Niazi asked US officials to convey to the Indians his intention, effectively, to surrender. Like al-Sadr, on the following day he published his various conditions for calling it quits. On the 16th, Pakistani forces in East Pakistan did indeed surrender. The day after that the Indians announced a "unilateral" ceasefire. Loser Niazi, then, was the figure more closely analogous to Moqtada al-Sadr in 1971. Not - as Professor Quiggin ludicrously implies - Indira Gandhi.
Niazi too liked to maintain he wasn't really surrendering. Moreover, the Indians probably insisted on the formalities of an arrangement on their own terms only to avoid a repetition of the disastrous UN-Soviet brokered Indo-Pakistan ceasefire of 1965. The only credible part of Quiggin's reference to this war were the words "it's easy to point to cases..." Yes, it is - especially if that's all you're doing. The same day Quiggin launched this veritable Titanic of analytical wreckage, the Associated Press reported that "Iraq's major Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish parties have closed ranks to force anti-American cleric Muqtada al- Sadr to disband his Mahdi Army militia or leave politics ..." Similar story with Al Qaeda, according to terrorism expert, Gilles Kepel. "Al Qaeda? It is in decline." And who are many Iraqis praying for in the 2008 US election? Ignorant-of-India John McCain. Apart from these things - which is to say, everything - Quiggin's argument stands.
First, of course, McCain is a Republican and therefore wrong. Because he is. Second, McCain quite reasonably assessed al-Sadr's precipitous capitulation when faced with a determined onslaught as an admission of either outright defeat or at least the acknowledgement that defeat was imminent, perhaps without the possibility of discussing terms at all. "Very rarely do I see the winning side declare a ceasefire," McCain observed dryly. This Quiggin cannot accept because his catastrophist narrative of Iraq demands there be no victories of any kind - except for the enemy. The title of his original post - "Peace Offers Are For Losers" - was a sarcastic take on the "pro-war" blogosphere's McCain- like argument that the face-saving demands in al-Sadr's truce reeked of defeat, not victory. For his Angry Left readers at Crooked Timber, however, this title was abbreviated to the even more dishonest "Peace Is For Losers." In the same way, he then verbals history itself.
The thread of polemical cotton supporting the Professor's thesis on conflict in history is more Edwin Starr than Carl von Clausvitz: war, what's it good for? Absolutely nothin'! The motivation is to 'prove' that Iraq - a "war of choice" - can have but one outcome: failure. The slogan "war of choice" is a favourite amongst Iraq War critics. John Kerry uses it a lot - almost as a personal theme. Earlier this month he spoke of resources diverted from Afghanistan "to fight a war of choice in Iraq." Apparently he believes the war in Afghanistan is not a war of choice but a necessary war to stop Afghan tribesman from invading the United States, Australia, Canada, Great Britain and Europe. Now all right-minded people agree war should be avoided. But Quiggin's Starr theory owes far more to an expediently partisan calculation of material costs and benefits than it does to any kind of objective moral worldview. As such, it is useless for analysing war in general.
The two examples Quiggin offers of how war - uninterrupted by the Sadr-like wisdom of triumphantly giving up - is a pointlessly circular route to the status quo ante bellum are both of no analogous value to the battle in Basra. Nor is it clear he appreciates the ironies, for him, inhering in the examples. The very fact that the French "pressed on" after 1792 with a decades-long war of reckless conquest shows the European monarchies were right to be worried about the turn taken by the Revolution. Their contemplation of defensive pre-emption was justified. The French pre-empted their pre-emption by declaring war on Austria in April, 1792. Interestingly, Quiggin implies the French pre-emption was "defensive." In the Korean War, it's true the final result was the territorial status quo ante. But the failings of the US do not diminish the fact that the general war aim of demolishing the massive gains won by the North Koreans in 1950 was achieved.
It only gets worse. The Professor argues, contra John McCain - who knows less, recollect, than he does about matters military - that "it's easy to point to cases, like the Indo-Pakistan War of 1971 where the winning side declared a unilateral ceasefire." Remember, his purpose here is to repudiate the notion - posited by unnamed bloggers - that Moqtada al-Sadr's ceasefire was the act of a loser. But the Indians did not declare a straight-out unilateral ceasefire at all. On 14 December 1971 A. A. K. Niazi asked US officials to convey to the Indians his intention, effectively, to surrender. Like al-Sadr, on the following day he published his various conditions for calling it quits. On the 16th, Pakistani forces in East Pakistan did indeed surrender. The day after that the Indians announced a "unilateral" ceasefire. Loser Niazi, then, was the figure more closely analogous to Moqtada al-Sadr in 1971. Not - as Professor Quiggin ludicrously implies - Indira Gandhi.
Niazi too liked to maintain he wasn't really surrendering. Moreover, the Indians probably insisted on the formalities of an arrangement on their own terms only to avoid a repetition of the disastrous UN-Soviet brokered Indo-Pakistan ceasefire of 1965. The only credible part of Quiggin's reference to this war were the words "it's easy to point to cases..." Yes, it is - especially if that's all you're doing. The same day Quiggin launched this veritable Titanic of analytical wreckage, the Associated Press reported that "Iraq's major Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish parties have closed ranks to force anti-American cleric Muqtada al- Sadr to disband his Mahdi Army militia or leave politics ..." Similar story with Al Qaeda, according to terrorism expert, Gilles Kepel. "Al Qaeda? It is in decline." And who are many Iraqis praying for in the 2008 US election? Ignorant-of-India John McCain. Apart from these things - which is to say, everything - Quiggin's argument stands.
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