Cato hosted a discussion of The Kennan Diaries today. Editor Frank Costigliola read the following entry, from June 1944, which George Kennan wrote during a three-day stop in Baghdad, on his way to Moscow. I can’t help but hear echoes of Colin Powell’s infamous pottery barn warning, and other cautionary notes that went unheeded in the weeks and months before the invasion of Iraq in 2003. And, as further evidence that we haven’t learned the right lessons from Iraq, there are still those wishing that we had never left Iraq, or that we should go back in. They might ponder these words from a man who knew little about Iraq, but who knew his own country all too well.
[The Iraqi] people has now come just enough into contact with Western life so that its upper class has a thirst for many things which can be obtained only in the West. Suspicious and resentful of the British, they would be glad to obtain these things from us…
If we give them these things, we can perhaps enjoy a momentary favor on the part of those interested in receiving them. But to the extent that we give them,…we acquire, whether we wish it or not, responsibility for the actions of the Iraqis. If they then begin to do things which are not in our interests, which affect the world situation in ways unfavorable to our security,…we then have ourselves at least in part to blame, and it is up to us to take the appropriate measures.
Are we willing to bear this responsibility? I know, and every realistic American knows, that we are not. Our Government is technically incapable of conceiving and promulgating a long-term consistent policy toward areas remote from its own territory.…
Those few Americans who remember something of the pioneer life of their own country will find it hard to view the deserts of Iraq without a pang of interest and excitement at the possibilities for reclamation and economic development. If trees once grew here, could they not grow again? If rains once fell, could they not again be attracted from the inexhaustible resources of nature? Could not climate be altered, disease eradicated?
If they are seeking an escape from reality, such Americans may even pursue these dreams and enter upon the long and stony road which could lead to their fruition. But if they are willing to recall the sad state of soil conservation in their own country, the vast amount of social improvement to be accomplished at home, and the inevitable limitations on the efficacy of our type of democracy in the field of foreign affairs–then they will restrain their excitement at the silent, expectant possibilities of the Iraqi desert, and will return, like disappointed but dutiful children, to the sad deficiencies and problems of their native land.
