A.G. Gancarski
The United States invested many years, billions of dollars, and the best years of many military members and lives of many others in its actions in Iraq.
But the only military veteran in the presidential race says just a couple of days on the ground should have taught policymakers that the country would never be a Western-style democracy.
Citing the George W. Bush canard that the country had “weapons of mass destruction that didn’t necessarily materialize,” Ron DeSantis noted the mission evolved to a perceived need for “a democracy in Iraq.”
“So these are people that were thinking, you know, you can overthrow somebody and impose an American style democracy in the Middle East. I can tell you when you’re on the ground there for like 48 hours, you realize that was not in the cards,” DeSantis said Friday in Prosperity, South Carolina.
DeSantis was in Iraq in 2007, as Foreign Affairs notes, serving as a legal advisor amid a final surge of troops by the Bush administration, which invested political capital in its first term in what DeSantis vividly depicts as a failed effort now.
“What’s ended up happening is, you know, we were there for a long time. You now have the Iraqi government is basically a client of the Iranians,” the Governor said.
DeSantis went on to make the case that cultural differences meant that democracy couldn’t be exported in the way American leaders contended during the U.S. hyperpower era after the end of the Cold War with the Soviet Union.
“They don’t think of freedom the same way we do. In that part of the world, they view freedom as submitting to Islamic law, Sharia law. That’s what they think freedom is. So they want a government to impose Islamic law on society and that’s their goal. Well, that’s not obviously what we would want,” DeSantis said.
He added that American leaders “had a lot of hubris in thinking what we could accomplish,” arguing that the United States “can’t socially engineer foreign societies.”
10 comments
TJC
December 1, 2023 at 4:02 pm
Once again, DeSantis asserts that he is the World’s Foremost Authority On Anything. Using his keen hindsight, he shows us that the effort to introduce democracy to Iraq was a failure.
What a bore of a windbag.
And what a racist, too: he totally ignores the thousands of Muslim citizens of Iraq and Iran who have at great risk to their lives promoted and demonstrated for democracy. But the World’s Foremost Authority On Anything knows them better than they know themselves, because it turns out “…they view freedom as submitting to Islamic law, Sharia law.”
The man doesn’t even know recent history, and yet he only needed two days in Iraq to decide the people there were less human than those of us in the west.
Julia
December 1, 2023 at 5:28 pm
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rick whitaker
December 1, 2023 at 6:16 pm
tjc, you called desantis a bore, windbag, and a racist. is that ” names and insults ” when you do it, or only when i do it? i agree with everything you said in your post, including the name calling and insults. good comment.
Dont Say FLA
December 1, 2023 at 5:23 pm
Who was Rhonda’s bigger influencer from watching 48 Hours when they were in Iraq? Nick Nolte, Eddie Murphy, or, oh, never mind. It was this one: Annette O’Toole is clearly Rhonda’s biggest influence and is why Rhonda’s such a tool.
Sraels màin enemy My Take
December 1, 2023 at 5:39 pm
The neocons who got us to invade Isreal’s most powerfuĺ enemy never envisioned a rèal democracy. Instead an American viceroy fòr many years, a US military colony, and a transfer to private enterprise, meaning stealing the national oil industry. Then sometine down the line a puppet . That local ayatollah forced a vote and got rid of the viceroy yeare before the US envisioned.
My Take
December 1, 2023 at 5:44 pm
Have the GOPer dregs fouñd Saddam’s WMD yet?
MH/Duuuval
December 1, 2023 at 10:47 pm
“Dead-enders,” a phrase introduced by Rumsfeld for Iraqi resistance, also could apply to anyone still looking for WMD. “Stovepiping” of intelligence also a term of interest for students of the subject. Bottom line: They lied to us, AGAIN.
Meanwhile, what specifically was Dee up to in Iraq? If the surge was underway, was he involved in target selection? Or. his specialty interrogation?
MH/Duuuval
December 2, 2023 at 11:09 am
Thanks to AG for the link to Foreign Policy’s article on Dee’s military service in Iraq.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/11/09/ron-desantis-gop-debate-2024-election-iraq-war-experience-military-service/
My Take
December 1, 2023 at 5:48 pm
DeSScamus’s nonsense does make tactical sense when you consider the target audience: people who might vote for him.
Redneck bigots and general morons.
rick whitaker
December 2, 2023 at 10:49 am
i was in the navy. my commanding officer, captain of the ship, was a reservist. he wasn’t too competent, but the xo was. i can’t imagine desantis being in charge of anything. luckily, he wasn’t even born yet when i served during the vietnam war. man overboard might have been the call if he was being desantis enough. i still can’t figure out why florida elected him governor.
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