Back before the invasion of Iraq, in November, 2002, James Fallows asked, will Iraq become The Fifty-first State? Next time we’re on the brink of war, I’m going to make sure to read what he’s writing. A taste of that pre-war article:
But in the generation since Vietnam the mainstream U.S. military has gone in the opposite direction: toward a definition of its role in strictly martial terms. It is commonplace these days in discussions with officers to hear them describe their mission as “killing people and blowing things up.” The phrase is used deliberately to shock civilians, and also for its absolute clarity as to what a “military response” involves. If this point is understood, there can be no confusion about what the military is supposed to do when a war starts, no recriminations when it uses all necessary force, and as little risk as possible that soldiers will die “political” deaths because they’ve been constrained for symbolic or diplomatic reasons from fully defending themselves. All this is in keeping with the more familiar parts of the Powell doctrine — the insistence on political backing and overwhelming force. The goal is to protect the U.S. military from being misused.The strict segregation of military and political functions may be awkward in Iraq, however. In the short term the U.S. military would necessarily be the government of Iraq. In the absence of international allies or UN support, and the absence of an obvious Iraqi successor regime, American soldiers would have to make and administer political decisions on the fly. America’s two most successful occupations embraced the idea that military officials must play political roles. Emperor Hirohito remained the titular head of state in occupied Japan, but Douglas MacArthur, a lifelong soldier, was immersed in the detailed reconstruction of Japan’s domestic order. In occupied Germany, General Lucius D. Clay did something comparable, though less flamboyantly. Today’s Joint Chiefs of Staff would try to veto any suggestion for a MacArthur-like proconsul. U.S. military leaders in the Balkans have pushed this role onto the United Nations. Exactly who could assume it in Iraq is not clear.
In the first month, therefore, the occupiers would face a paradox: the institution best equipped to exercise power as a local government — the U.S. military — would be the one most reluctant to do so.