Northeastern was fortunate to have Gen. John Abizaid speak on campus about the present and future problems confronting the United States in the Middle East and Central Asia. Given his experience being in charge of the Army Central Command in that region, Abizaid has the knowledge to help us understand the problems we face.

Unfortunately, as the general acknowledged during the question period, he is unwilling to say anything critical about the war in Iraq or the Bush/Cheney policies of the last six years. But we will never understand how to tackle the problems Abizaid described if we do not acknowledge the disaster that our own government has caused.

Abizaid mentioned four major problems the next president will face: defending ourselves against radical Islamic groups like Al Qaeda; limiting Iran’s power in the region; dealing with the Israel/Palestine and Arab/Israel conflicts; decreasing United States dependence on Middle East oil.

What he did not say was that the actions of the Bush/Cheney administration have made every one of these major problems significantly worse and more difficult to deal with.

Regarding the threat of radical Islamic groups, it is common knowledge that the war in Iraq – a war “we” chose to initiate – has been the best recruiting device Al Qaeda could have wished for, drawing many new people into the movement. Regarding Iran, experts agree that by weakening Iran’s foes – Saddam Hussein and the Taliban – we created a power vacuum that Iran has already stepped into. The Shiite government we support has close ties with Iran’s Shiite regime.

For several years, the Bush/Cheney approach to the Israel/Palestine conflict was to ignore it. In that period, things worsened significantly. Moreover, our government’s rejection of any dealings with Israel’s foes has made progress even more difficult to achieve. Finally, regarding oil, rather than decreasing our dependence on the Middle East, the Bush/Cheney administration has had no interest in diminishing energy consumption. We still have cheaper gasoline and less efficient cars than people in other parts of the world.

Abizaid’s survey never mentioned these policy failures and their disastrous results for our country.

Nonetheless, it was possible to detect differences between the general’s views and our government’s policies. Abizaid made clear that he regards war- against Iran, for example – as a last resort. By contrast, the Bush/Cheney government was eager for a war with Iraq and may still be eager for war with Iran. The general also stressed the importance of non-military strategies, saying that instead of a policy that is 80 percent military and 20 percent diplomatic, economic, etc., we should reverse ourselves and move to 80 percent diplomatic, economic, etc. and 20 percent military. However, Bush and Cheney, assumed that we could achieve whatever we wanted with our military.

Overall, the general gave the impression that other people are responsible for all the problems in the region. We will never make progress, however, until we see the extent to which our government’s policies have played an inflammatory role in this part of the world. The war in Iraq has empowered our enemies and weakened us militarily and diplomatically. It has also led to Iraqi deaths estimated between 60,000 and 600,000, along with hundreds of thousands of Iraqis displaced from their homes. In addition, roughly 3,800 U.S. troops have been killed and many more seriously wounded and disabled.

Meanwhile, Bush and Cheney, while lecturing Democrats for fiscal irresponsibility, have poured billions of dollars into the war. With no end of the war in sight, this spending will cripple our ability to deal with domestic problems for decades to come.

These are things a retired general should feel a duty to say in public.

– Stephen Nathanson is a philosophy professor.