Alan McPherson: Iraq and the Politics of Withdrawal ... Lessons from U.S. Occupations in Latin America
[Mr. McPherson is an associate professor of history at Howard University and the author of Yankee No! Anti-Americanism in U.S.-Latin American Relations (2003).]
... What is Iraq now was Latin America then, a time and place where the force of the United States as an invading power was considered at least as powerful as it is today.
Whether in Haiti or elsewhere, Americans back then believed that they were top dog — and, after invading, could fix up a place like that rather quickly. Little did they know then… Little do we know now…
In particular, the long occupations — Haiti (1915-1934), the Dominican Republic (1916-1924) and Nicaragua (1912-1933) — demonstrated amply a basic miscalculation on the part of the United States.
Then as now, U.S. policymakers believed that politicians under occupation were a highly pliable force — to be used on behalf of the good intentions of the intervening United States to remake that country — and extinguish all evil from its soil.
Alas, politicians — even when under occupation (and therefore seemingly powerless) — remained politicians. No matter how deprived, abused, exhausted or otherwise starved for stability ordinary people were
under occupation, Haitian, Dominican and Nicaraguan politicians were of another breed.
All too often, they proved willing to go on fighting with each other, to be uncompromising with either the U.S. Marines or the State Department — and to play the infamous “waiting game” until the troops left and the destructive politics of old could return.
And were those politics ever destructive. The Marines landed in all three countries in part to keep away dreaded European gunboats, but they stayed to try to right a far more fearsome wrong: internecine — or, as we say today of Iraq, sectarian — politics....
The fatal flaw of these occupations is alive again in Iraq. Despite Ambassador Crocker’s recent mutterings, the United States is again building up an apparatus of repression — without paying due respect to the political culture of Iraq.
Too much centralization is taking place, leaving scant room for the natural evolution of indigenous political institutions....
Read entire article at Globalist
... What is Iraq now was Latin America then, a time and place where the force of the United States as an invading power was considered at least as powerful as it is today.
Whether in Haiti or elsewhere, Americans back then believed that they were top dog — and, after invading, could fix up a place like that rather quickly. Little did they know then… Little do we know now…
In particular, the long occupations — Haiti (1915-1934), the Dominican Republic (1916-1924) and Nicaragua (1912-1933) — demonstrated amply a basic miscalculation on the part of the United States.
Then as now, U.S. policymakers believed that politicians under occupation were a highly pliable force — to be used on behalf of the good intentions of the intervening United States to remake that country — and extinguish all evil from its soil.
Alas, politicians — even when under occupation (and therefore seemingly powerless) — remained politicians. No matter how deprived, abused, exhausted or otherwise starved for stability ordinary people were
under occupation, Haitian, Dominican and Nicaraguan politicians were of another breed.
All too often, they proved willing to go on fighting with each other, to be uncompromising with either the U.S. Marines or the State Department — and to play the infamous “waiting game” until the troops left and the destructive politics of old could return.
And were those politics ever destructive. The Marines landed in all three countries in part to keep away dreaded European gunboats, but they stayed to try to right a far more fearsome wrong: internecine — or, as we say today of Iraq, sectarian — politics....
The fatal flaw of these occupations is alive again in Iraq. Despite Ambassador Crocker’s recent mutterings, the United States is again building up an apparatus of repression — without paying due respect to the political culture of Iraq.
Too much centralization is taking place, leaving scant room for the natural evolution of indigenous political institutions....