Financial Times Editorial - Rumsfeld's confusion

Financial Times Editorial - Rumsfeld's confusion
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2006
Published: August 31 2006 03:00 | Last updated: August 31 2006 03:00


Donald Rumsfeld can seem peculiarly friendless. Calling for the American defence secretary's resignation is a popular sport for everyone from retired generals to political pundits. Almost the only person who seems to retain complete confidence in Mr Rumsfeld is his boss, President George W. Bush.

But Mr Rumsfeld's beleaguered position has not made him any the less pugnacious. In a speech on August 29, he attacked critics of the American war effort in Iraq for "moral and intellectual confusion", lambasted the media for spreading "myths and distortions" about the US military and argued that the west faces a "new type of fascism" in the Middle East.

It may be unfashionable to acknowledge this, but Mr Rumsfeld is making one valid and important point. There should be no moral confusion about who is responsible for the heartbreaking violence in Iraq. It is not the American army that is planting car bombs in markets. Some of the most ardent critics of the Iraq war are in danger of almost welcoming further bad news as an opportunity to say "I told you so". They should recognise that it is still overwhelmingly in the interests of those who want a freer and more peaceful Middle East that the Americans and their allies succeed in stabilising Iraq.

The trouble is that while some of Mr Rumsfeld's more ardent critics may be guilty of "moral confusion", the US defence secretary himself gives every sign of intellectual confusion. To call Iraqi insurgents and Islamist terrorists "fascists" and to accuse opponents of the war of "appeasement" may be a useful rhetorical device in the run-up to the American mid-term elections. But it also suggests that the Bush administration is still falling back on tired intellectual categories drawn from the 1930s, rather than thinking seriously and creatively about the new challenges it is facing.

Worse, the Bush administration is sowing further confusion by equating today's war with the struggle against Nazism - and then resisting any suggestion that victory may require higher taxes or more troops. Such a rhetorical mismatch inevitably feeds growing domestic cynicism and disillusionment with the war.

In the coming weeks Mr Bush is expected to make a series of speeches that will seek to rally support for the war in Iraq. He will need to go beyond Mr Rumsfeld's angry denunciation of critics of the war. Instead, the president must lay out a frank and calm analysis of what has gone wrong in Iraq and state clearly what he thinks is now required to help that tortured country to achieve stability. If that means more troops and more money, Mr Bush should say so. For without a convincing and honest analysis of the current situation, he may find that the domestic demand for a rapid American withdrawal from Iraq becomes unstoppable.