Prof. Cole

"Those who will say that the US should have left troops in Iraq do not say how that could have happened. The Iraqi parliament voted against it. There was never any prospect in 2011 of the vote going any other way. Because the US occupation of Iraq was horrible for Iraqis and they resented it. Should the Obama administration have re-invaded and treated the Iraqi parliament the way Gen. Bonaparte treated the French one?"

The rest of Prof. Cole's essay.

If my eyes and ears are not deceiving me, I don't think many Americans who say the "US should have left troops in Iraq" are real concerned with the feelings of the Iraqi parliament. They're saying the US should own the place because so many Americans died there. In other words, they haven't any more concern for the opinions of the "ragheads" today than they did 11 years ago when Bush started his dearly private and bitterly public war. They are of course wrong, but no matter; their ignorance marches on. By the same token, most of these people would not understand the reference to Gen. Bonaparte in the good professor's essay.  Though they might recognize the name, few would appreciate the reference in the context of French historicism.  These people don't even understand U.S. history--to expect them to grasp the complexities of the French Revolution and its aftermath is absurd!


TS