Fernandez recants: US not arrogant and stupid in Iraq

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State department official Alberto Fernandez now says that he misspoke in describing US Iraq operations as arrogant and stupid. In a brief statement on the state department web site, Fernandez, the head of Near East public diplomacy in the department, said that “[u]pon reading the transcript of my appearance on Al-Jazeera, I realized that I seriously misspoke by using the phrase ‘there has been arrogance and stupidity’ by the U.S. in Iraq. This represents neither my views nor those of the State Department. I apologize.”

Right. Had the interview not been conducted in Washington, Fernandez, who is said to be fluent in Arabic, might have been able to invoke the Ambien excuse, as iterated by Colin Powell during an interview with the Arabic newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat.

Question: So do you use sleeping tablets to organize yourself?

Secretary Powell: Yes. Well, I wouldn’t call them that. They’re a wonderful medication — not medication. How would you call it? They’re called ambien, which is very good. You don’t use ambien? Everybody here uses ambien.

Powell’s reference was to knocking himself out at night during a whirlwind tour of Central America. Sadly, the excuse of a medication which can cause “behavior changes, mental confusion, abnormal thinking, depression” and should be avoided when “engaging in activities requiring alertness” is denied Fernandez. So far as we know, anyway.

The recantation ruins what might have become the single most effective public diplomacy moment during the entire tenure of the Bush administration. There’s not a shred of doubt that the US has been arrogant and stupid in Iraq. The very foundation of the venture was arrogance and stupidity and true to their words, the administration have stayed the course. All over the world, people were reading about and listening to the Fernandez interview and shouting out “Hallelujah! An honest American!” What a squandered opportunity.

You don’t have to hunt around for examples of what Fernandez meant. Almost since the day current Iraqi prime minister Maliki took office, US officials have been telling him he only has weeks or months to squelch the violence ripping his country apart, apparently on the assumption that he could do so if he wanted but is simply too stubborn or perhaps enjoys the daily carnage.

That’s stupid. That’s arrogant. We went into the country, we blew it up, we made it available to foreign terrorists, we guaranteed the political and religious violence that has escalated into a civil war and now we’re telling a guy whose very survival depends upon the US fortifications and troops protecting the few square miles of Baghdad that comprise his actual sphere of influence that it’s his job to fix our handiwork and that we’ll impose penalties on his tragic, broken country if he doesn’t do so tout de suite.

“Impose penalties?” What can we possibly do to these people that we haven’t already done or aren’t in the process of doing? Nuke them?

It’s a shame Mr. Fernandez didn’t take this opportunity to resign and affirm his remarks, because everyone knows he damned well meant them. Instead, he joins a long list of Bush administration officials who dismissed the same opportunity and only broke their silence when the time they might have done some good had long passed. It’s just a shame.

Note: yesterday state department spokesman Sean McCormack said in an almost equally brief statement that according to Fernandez, his comments had been translated inaccurately. That statement is no longer operative.