THE IRAQ CRUCIBLE

 Artículo de Jim Hoagland  en “The Washington Post” del 8-5-05.

Por su interés y relevancia, he seleccionado el artículo que sigue para incluirlo en este sitio web. (L. B.-B.)

American forces in Iraq run a race to transform the Middle East before the Middle East transforms them. The moral character of the American fighting force and by extension the American nation will be shaped in some measure by the struggle there.

History argues that the odds are stacked heavily against the U.S. effort in a region known for succumbing to invading forces, only to corrupt, undermine and expel the occupiers over time. But history only records outcomes. It does not determine them. That is left to destiny and to character.

About 1 million U.S. service personnel have rotated in and out of Afghanistan and Iraq since Sept. 11, 2001, by the Pentagon's count. Measuring the difference they have made there is hard, especially in the middle of a new surge of terrorist attacks in both countries. It is even harder to measure the difference that brushing up against Arab, Kurdish and Afghan cultures while in uniform will make to the U.S. grunts, jarheads, swabbies, flyboys and flygirls who serve there. But it is vital to try.

Many in my generation gained at least some of their firsthand knowledge and impressions of foreign cultures and lands through military service in Europe or Asia during the Cold War -- and vice versa. While Yanks were learning some rudimentary German in a community night school or a neighborhood bar, Germans learned a little more about Americans from their presence there. Time (and the Soviet threat) worked to smooth out cultural clashes in Europe and Japan.

But American attitudes toward foreign lands and U.S. involvement abroad are being forged in the very different and less-forgiving crucible christened the Greater Middle East by President Bush. Maintaining the integrity and effectiveness of the U.S. military presence in most of Iraq will be far more difficult than it was in Europe and Japan.

This will be particularly true if there is no willingness by this country's political and military leaders to accept command responsibility for mistakes made and even for crimes committed by the expeditionary forces. The mistrial in the case of Abu Ghraib guard Lynndie England was not the only reminder last week of a pattern of higher-ups dancing away from problems they helped create while others pay a price.

Another was the opening of a criminal inquiry into the disappearance of $7.2 million of U.S. reconstruction aid. Those funds, plus $89.4 million in aid that was improperly accounted for, were the subject of a report by the special inspector general for Iraq's reconstruction. Pentagon audits have also uncovered questionable contracts and misuse of funds that may involve additional hundreds of millions of dollars.

Wars and their aftermaths bring extreme pressures and opportunities that engage both the most noble and atrocious of human instincts. The Iraq campaign is no different. And like past conflicts, it captures the contemporary currents of the societies that it brings into brutal contact.

Thus the all-American crimes and depredations at the Abu Ghraib prison featured exhibitionism and other sexual perversions that were facilitated by digital technology and a thirst for celebrity of a notorious, if limited, kind. Even the rejection of Lynndie England's attempt to plead guilty could be characterized as happening "only in (litigious) America."

But the failure of the White House and Pentagon to fix any responsibility at senior levels for the chaotic conditions and pressures that allowed or encouraged prisoner abuse, other misbehavior and theft in Iraq creates its own problems. Only by observing high moral standards in its own conduct and accountability can the administration justify demands on troops abroad to do the same.

The Bush White House suggests at times that the noble objectives of its effort to keep "freedom on the march" in the Middle East should absolve it of any questioning about its means or mistakes there. That is the undertone of many official briefings.

But that approach errs as badly as do critics who maintain that every American action in Iraq today is immoral or tainted because of Bush's "lies" or his support for Israel. The vast majority of Americans in Iraq today perform vital duties in dangerous circumstances to help Iraq's citizens escape the clutches of power-mad predators.

Those Americans function in an environment in which time is not on the side of a foreign force. They must not only aspire to leave Baghdad but hurry to do so by turning over full power to Iraqis, who ultimately must resolve their country's problems themselves.