We failed then, as now: why Blair must summon humility if we are to understand the lessons of Iraq

The Labour movement column

By Anthony Painter / @anthonypainter

Robert McNamara, the Vietnam War Secretary of Defense, who became increasingly troubled as the US stumbled deeper into the mire, over time found a way of reconsidering the decisions that he and President Johnson had taken. In his reflections on the Vietnam War In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam he had concluded:

“We of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations who participated in the decisions on Vietnam acted according to what we thought were the principles and traditions of this nation. We made our decisions in light of those values. Yet we were wrong, terribly wrong. We owe it to future generations to explain why.”

McNamara wrote this in 1995, two decades after the end of the war that scarred an entire generation. Had those lives been lost or wrecked in vain? The harshest judgement imaginable is that perhaps they had been. The ‘best and brightest’ in the political-military establishment had – in the fog of war – made horrendous errors on an historic scale. Yet, McNamara was holding his hands up and, in part, washed himself and his nation from the stain of monumental misjudgement and error.

His intervention was not just about the past; it was – more importantly – about the future. In In Retrospect and a 2003 feature length documentary, The Fog of War, he outlined 11 lessons from the Vietnam War. Here is a selection:

Lesson 1: We misjudged then – and we have since – the geopolitical intentions of our adversaries … and we exaggerated the dangers to the United States of their actions.

Lesson 2: We viewed the people and leaders of South Vietnam in terms of our own experience … We totally misjudged the political forces within the country.

Lesson 5: We failed then – and have since – to recognize the limitations of modern, high-technology military equipment, forces, and doctrine.

Lesson 6: We failed, as well, to adapt our military tactics to the task of winning the hearts and minds of people from a totally different culture.

Lesson 7: We failed to draw Congress and the American people into a full and frank discussion and debate of the pros and cons of a large-scale military involvement … before we initiated the action.

Lesson 9: We did not recognize that neither our people nor our leaders are omniscient. Our judgement of what is in another people’s or country’s best interest should be put to the test of open discussion in international forums. We do not have the God-given right to shape every nation in our image or as we choose.

Lesson 10: We did not hold to the principle that U.S. military action … should be carried out only in conjunction with multinational forces supported fully (and not merely cosmetically) by the international community.

Lesson 11: We failed to recognize that in international affairs, as in other aspects of life, there may be problems for which there are no immediate solutions … At times, we may have to live with an imperfect, untidy world.

Feel like you’ve had the wind knocked out of you? The clichéd response would be to say that all future leaders in political and military affairs should re-visit McNamara and urgently. Some in our recent past should have done also.

The purpose of all this is not to ascribe blame; nor should that be the purpose of The Iraq Inquiry. That is a futile task. It is easy to let context slip out of discussion. It is easy to forget the game of bluff and double-bluff that was being played by Saddam Hussein with the international community. It is easy to forget just what monsters Saddam Hussein and his sons were. There were no easy decisions and the knee-jerk response is to cast about for people to blame.

And yet it is a painful experience to watch Tony Blair’s interview with Fern Britton on Sunday (still available on BBC iplayer), which explored in a degree of detail the decisions that Tony Blair took and the complex relationship of those decisions to his faith.

The Iraq War was waged on a false premise, though that was far from the consensus view of the international community at the time (the means were the main point of disagreement.) There should have been more caution and more doubt. That is a fair charge. Any attempt to justify the Iraq War in the context of the present is completely irrelevant. It is great that Iraqis will go to the polls in February 2010 (in probability). But that they will do so does not justify the decisions that were taken or the monumental loss of life that resulted from those decisions.

And of course, it is better that Saddam Hussein is no longer in power. However, the end doesn’t necessarily justify the means. We don’t need to be St Thomas Aquinas to understand that. So Tony Blair is right when he pleads: “I can’t think it would have been better with him [Saddam] and his sons in charge.” But what he doesn’t investigate is whether the process of war – and its hideous consequences – was a just means of achieving that end. Few would accept that it was.

The problem with the type of argument that Tony Blair is now making – that the legal arguments that were deployed proved to be wrong but there were other justifications that could have been articulated instead – is that it leads us into future repetition of past mistakes. That is the utility and virtue of Robert McNamara’s contribution. It gives us a set of maxims and perspective that would have enabled us to evade catastrophe – and palpably weren’t considered properly in the run-up to the Iraq War. It cautions us that when we enter conflict we must do so with humility rather than hubris.

That is now the contribution that Tony Blair could make. Hopefully, the majority can understand the complexity and difficultly of the decisions he had to make faced with the evidence and geo-political situation of the time. Equally, I hope that one day he can find a way of articulating a greater degree of consideration about events as they actually happened.

If he managed that, then he could loosen his legacy – impressive in so many other respects – from the Iraq War. People would be more inclined to listen to him once again. But more importantly, it will help to condition our minds in future situations against making the same mistakes yet again giving us a fighting chance to avoid dire consequences.

The sad alternative is to continue to reach for any justification that can be found but to do so in an ever quieter voice. There is another way. Robert McNamara’s route is a better one to follow for the former Prime Minister. It will condition us against ever repeating an Iraq-style disaster again.