PressEthic

In Sept 22nd issue of the New York Times, one of its editorials titled, The Afghan Difference, talks about the progress that the US led forces could achieve while there is little hope in Iraq for this kind of progress.

In one of the paragraphs, it says:

International intervention can, with skill and luck, revive a battered and prostrate nation. But it cannot easily create one where the population has no real history of, or desire for, willing coexistence and cooperation.

This is a reasonable argument but I would remove the word “luck” if I were the writer. In Afghanistan, it was the skillful American leadership only, not with luck, that could understand the country’s culture and could plan a sustainable political strategy which resulted in the consecutive successes in that country including their recent elections.

But few months after the fall of Saddam in Iraq, the US appointed an administrator, Paul Bremer, who was not as skillful as the US administrators in Afghanistan like Zalmay Khalilzad.

The biggest mistake Mr. Bremer did was dissolving the Iraqi army. Most of the previous Iraqi army generals, who are all military experts, joined the insurgents from outside Iraq. These Iraqi military people could have been used against the insurgency itself. They are all military people and they are accustomed to obeying orders.

In brief, it is not a matter of luck to make a plan or somebody succeeds especially in politics and military, it is a matter of right strategic decision making. That is what the New York Times editorial writer should have taken into consideration.