Rick: It would indeed be a great thing, to lift up Iraq to a merely Tunisian

level of political civility.

But, even assuming it is possible, why should we bother? A chaotic,

road-warrior culture in Iraq would be just fine, so far as I can see. In

what respect would it not be fine? (Fine for **us**, I mean. It would of

course be hard on the Iraqis, but that is not America’s problem.) Because

“chaos breeds terrorism”? What environment does NOT breed terrorism? The

9/11 hijackers were mainly products of Saudi Arabia, one of the least

chaotic societies that ever existed. 1960s Belfast was not the least bit

chaotic, but it produced a crop of terrorists that plague it to this day.

Hamburg, Madrid, Paris, have all turned out plenty of terrorists. The

Japanese “Red Brigades” were some of the most vicious terrorists of modern

times. Is Japan “chaotic”?

Chaos is no enemy of ours. The five-year war in the Democratic Republic of Congo has claimed three million lives, and has sunk a vast region into unspeakable

chaos. Where are the Congolese terrorists? What’s that you say –

Afghanistan? The problem with Afghanistan was not that “chaos was breeding

terror” but that we didn’t bother to do anything about it when we should

have done.

We are fighting a war on terror. The goal of that war, as surely everyone

really knows, is to prevent atom bombs going off in US cities. Since no

terrorist group by itself will be able to erect the infrastructure needed to

make nuclear weapons, the real peril is not actually the terrorists — who

will always be with us, though of course we should kill them when we can –

but terrorist-friendly states with the kind of serious physical assets and

political organization that will get them to nuke status. The solution is

to go into those states, smash up their assets, and destroy their political

organization — which is what we did in Iraq. If this leaves “chaos”

behind, I just don’t see that as a problem. You can’t make an atom bomb out

of “chaos.”

The management of barbarians is not that difficult. You keep them scattered

and disorganized — “chaotic,” in fact! — while watching their developments

carefully to make sure no threat is building. The danger only comes when,

absorbed in your own affairs, you take your eye off the ball and let bad

things develop in the barbarian hinterland. The history of China

illustrates this many times over.

If the barbarians were to switch to a civilized style of life–which has sometimes happened in history–hey, that’s great! But it can’t be depended upon, and is not essential

to US national interests. And I really don’t believe we know how to bring

it about.