Diary: Iraqenstein (Or The Bush Administration Unbound)

In a lot of the discussions regarding what we should do in Iraq these days, I hear Iraq referred to as a "patient." Lately, it's tough to find anyone who feels like our "operation" on the "patient" was successful. In fact, it's getting harder to find folks who think the "patient" will survive.

Before we decided to play doctor in the Middle East, perhaps we should have boned up on some medical terminology. The analogy between a "patient" and Iraq is tragically telling if you consider the iatrogenic repercussions of our curative procedures. An iatrogenic condition or disorder is a malady caused by the diagnosis, manner or treatment of a physician.

As the acting, unsolicited physician in this war, we deemed the nation of Iraq ill, decided to remove it's head (of state) and perform a political head transplant, replacing Saddam Hussein with a representative democracy. Unfortunately, the body seems to be rejecting the transplant and the patient is currently stumbling mindlessly hither and thither like some kind of preternatural monstrosity.

No matter how we look at it, our entire corrective approach was iatrogenic. Whether you believe we invaded Iraq to:
(1) locate, secure and retrieve WMDs,
(2) liberate Iraq from the tyrannical, genocidal regime of Saddam Hussein,
(3) eliminate the Al Quaeda terrorist camps and training areas in the country,
(4) set up a stable strategic base and maintain a stabilizing presence in the Middle East or (5) all of the above, the resultant iatrogenic conditions caused by our diagnosis and remedial care have clearly left the "patient" in worse shape than it was in before we "operated" on it.

We didn't find WMDs in Iraq, but Iran, who we empowered by removing Saddam, is on the verge of getting them. And though Saddam is gone, our invasion, subsequent occupation and growing civil war is disposing of innocent Iraqi citizens as senselessly as Saddam did, and definitely more efficiently. We charged into Iraq blustering about all the terrorist camps we'd find and eradicate; now the number of terrorists in Iraq has increased one hundred fold and the entire country is considered an excellent training ground for terrorist activities!

And our plan to set up a substantial, long-term strategic base in Iraq is now a bust because once the new wore off of our occupation, an army of folks began dying (literally) to make us leave because they don't want us there.

If our strategy and policy measures in Iraq can be characterized as "treatment," the surgeries and procedures we've subjected the patient to have left it a dysfunctional, disabled schizophrenic that requires constant nursing. Iraq was much healthier before we invaded and the war the Bush administration cooked up and executed amounts to disastrous case of political malpractice. Ultimately, then, the condition of the patient is our fault, not the patient's.

French existentialist writer Albert Camus once proclaimed that there was no such thing as evil in the universe, only ignorance. And good intentions could be as destructive as bad intentions if they were not informed.

I think about Camus' sentiment a lot lately, especially in terms of politics. I'm not sure anyone could successfully argue that the Bush administration's "operation" in Iraq was initiated with good intentions. But their imbecility in regards to regional history, cultural divisions and internal religious conflicts was staggering, and their utter ignorance of the Iraqi civilian population's potential exposure to collateral damage and subsequent susceptibility to insurgent subversion was odious and criminal and should result in presidential impeachment (Luckily, for Bush, everyone's too afraid of a Cheney presidency to even think it.).

The question, then, is what to do about the "patient" that we, as a nation-you, me and Bush-maimed and crippled. If we stay, our ill-conceived operations and treatment may result in death. If we leave, the patient faces possible self-destruction, dismemberment and, again, death.

In a pre-op conference regarding Iraq's condition, Colin Powell warned the Bush administration's "medical" staff about the potential hazards of "operating" on Iraq, but they didn't listen. And now it doesn't matter. In the process of deposing a menacing dictator, we created a dangerous monster.

Perhaps the next time we consider performing an imprudent medical procedure on an annoying third world dictatorship, we should reread Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. It contains some valuable lessons about creating monsters. And abandoning them.