Rebuilding Iraq on the cheap?
The US has had nation-building successes in the past, but greater planning, too.
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"Ultimately, it comes down to the funding in Afghanistan that wasn't spent," says Julie Sirrs, a former analyst on Afghan and Pakistani affairs for the US Defense Intelligence Agency. "Afghanistan has always been a sideshow [to Iraq] for the administration."
How neglected is the former Taliban-Al Qaeda stronghold? An $87 billion October 2003 spending bill for "Iraq and Afghanistan" reconstruction set aside only 1 percent for Afghanistan.
Late last month, NATO agreed to add 3,500 troops to the 6,500-strong peacekeeping force on the ground, although parliamentary elections have now been delayed until April 2005. But those forces are limited to Kabul; struggling Afghan officials are begging for more.
And there is a further "intangible" cost stemming from Iraq, says Ms. Sirrs. "The US unilateral effort in Iraq has turned a lot of countries away from other US priorities, including Afghanistan," she says.
While nation building has rarely succeeded on the cheap, it has been even more rarely achieved while fighting insurgents. The dangers of underestimating the magnitude of resistance - the most corrosive dynamic in Iraq, experts agree - may be drawn from Somalia.
US marines stormed the beaches of Mogadishu in December 1992 to break the grip of Somali warlords and ease a famine, in what was billed as the first humanitarian intervention after the cold war.
Instead of prevailing, the aid mission turned into an ever-widening US and UN nation-building enterprise. To avenge the deaths of UN peacekeepers by one warlord's clan, US forces took sides in Somalia's internal power struggle.
Months later, after losing 18 US Army Rangers to Somali gunmen in the fiercest firefight since the Vietnam War, the US decided to pull out. The UN left too, abandoning Somalia for good.
"[The US] didn't realize that even though Somalis were among themselves very atomized, against an outsider they often shared resentment, resistance, and suspicion," says Jonathan Stevenson, author of "Losing Mogadishu: Testing US Policy in Somalia."
"The same thing has happened in Iraq," says Mr. Stevenson, an analyst at the International Institute of Strategic Studies in London. "Just as merely providing aid and alleviating a little bit of suffering in Somalia did not establish ... the goodwill of the foreigner, neither did taking out Saddam in Iraq durably establish the goodwill of the [US] occupier."
America's inconsistent record of nation-building - a mission that Mr. Bush rejected for US troops while campaigning in 2000 - may reflect a broader global disconnect.
"There's this liberal universalist assumption that afflicts the US when it intervenes, that by starkly demonstrating the virtues of American political standards, or market democracy, people from other cultures are going to appreciate them as much as we do," says Stevenson. "This is not the case."
May 7-8, 1945: Germany surrenders.
June 5: Allies assume authority over Germany.
Aug. 15: Japan surrenders.
Sept. 1: US occupies Japan, aided by British Commonwealth forces.
April 10, 1946: Japan holds its first postwar elections.
1946 - 1947: US pours in food aid to ward off Japanese famine.
1948 - 1951: Marshall Plan aids in rebuilding Germany.
Aug. 14, 1949: Allies allow first postwar national elections in Germany.
April 1952: Japan regains sovereignty.
May 1955: Germany regains sovereignty.
Source: RAND
