Could They Really Be That Stupid?

I always try to keep in mind the saying "Never attribute to malice that which can adequately be explained by stupidity." However, when it comes to the US misadventures in the Middle East, it's been hard for me to believe that the administration could possibly be that stupid, so I've tended to look for malicious explanations.

But maybe they really are just that stupid. It seems inconceivable to me that anyone could have ever thought that invading Iraq and deposing Saddam Hussein would have resulted in a stable government friendly to US interests being installed. Before the invasion, even though it seemed clear that the administration really was going to do it, I couldn't understand what they really thought they would accomplish. Two outcomes seemed inevitable to me: a bloody civil war would erupt, and Iran's influence in the region would increase. Even if the neo-cons didn't care about the former, surely the latter was problematic for them.

I really haven't been able to come up even with malicious justifications that would seem to fit the circumstances, and this article by Seymour Hersh in the New Yorker pushes me back to the stupidity side. Evidently, the warmongers in the administration really did believe that because Iraqi Shi'ites had been so repressed and persecuted under Saddam Hussein, if the US got rid of Hussein, those Shi'ites would ally with the US rather than their co-religionists in Iran. This seems incredible to me, but I suppose that if you ignore a bunch of history and squinch your eyes just right, you can make a certain kind of sense of it. The major leap you have to make is to assume that Iraqis have a sense of national identity that is more important than their tribal or religious identity.

If you only look at the world through American glasses, and assume that everyone's experience is just like yours, I suppose you can make that leap. You'd have to assume that arbitrary boundaries imposed by external powers held together by a brutal dictator would inspire a sense of loyalty, a "my country, right or wrong" mentality, but if you're already the type to equate criticism of policy with treason to country, I suppose that's not too big a leap. You'd also have to assume that because said brutal dictator fought a bitter war with neighbor Iran, Iraqi Shi'ites woulc also hate Iran. Remember, we're talking stupidity, here.

I know no one would ever mistake President Bush for a well-read, historically-aware kind of guy, but surely, I thought, there are others in the administration who aren't as ignorant. Evidence suggests, though, that stupidity really does reign.