The Problem with the Iraqi Army

Chris Roach has an interesting post on why the Iraqi army does not appear to be good at fighting.

I think that in this statement he makes the most important point:

First, policymakers at the highest levels do not understand their own country, why its soldiers fight, and how these two factors relate to one another. Our decisionmakers have said we're a democracy, that this means elections decide things (within certain limits), and that this cosntant change in our political policy is the genius of our system. In fact, I think it's fair to say that our life is much more than a mere democracy, and that our soldiers and countrymen conceive of the nation as a set of concrete traditions and experiences, including the individual experiences of living in America, making choices, and living within certain expectations.

That is a very important point that should particularly resonate with paloeconservatives and paleolibertarians. In short, it is saying that a country, a nation, is not the same thing as the state associated with that nation. Too often ,people think of the U.S. as being defined by the U.S. Governemnt, or of any nation-state as being defined by the state part rather than the nation part.

Of course, this is part of the reason why many people question whether or not Iraq can be kept together; there is some doubt as to whether the people under the Iraqi state are actually a cohesive nation; that is, do they have any ties that bind them all together and that simultaneously define them from those outside Iraq? In short, other than being under the same government, does the term Iraqi have any meaning, and if so, what?

Chris makes another good point:

And it's an empty vessel because mistaken neoconservative policymakers wrongly assumed that the US was an empty vessel, the so-called creedal nation, when in fact U.S. society manifests a coherent way of life for individuals and society that they deem it worth fighting for. In other words, the US as a nation-state actually means something to its military.

So the neocons can't nation-build effectively because they don't understand the copncept of nation, apart from being under the same government. They don't understand how to make Iraq like America (or alternately, why Iraq isn't America) because they don't understand America. They assunme that we are merely a set of political protocols; and that you simply transplant said protocols into another country and you get America! They apparently believe that that is what happened in Japan and Germany after World War II.

This is why I tend to trust realists more than starry-eyed idealists; and why I am a conservative rather than a liberal. Because I think that we need to understand who we were and who we are in order to truly understand what we can be. Because I don't think that we can make something so just because it would be nice. Because I believe in common sense.

That is all.