Breaking and Building

As usual, Thomas Friedman is worth a read. His basic thesis is that the Bush administration has proven good at breaking things (which is not costrued as always a negative), but the jury is still out on our ability regarding fixing things:

When it comes to breaking things they are very, very good — whether it is the ABM treaty, the Kyoto accord, Afghanistan, Iraq or the old way of Arab-Israeli peacemaking. The Bush people believe in power and are not afraid to wield the wrecking ball. But how good are they with a hammer and a nail? How good are they at the detail work of building real alternatives — to Kyoto, Saddam or the Arab-Israel peace process? This is still the most important unanswered question about this administration. Can it reap the harvest of the principles it has sown?

While I take exception to the Kyoto argument--that treaty was never going to be ratified by the Senate (indeed, it had been rejected), not to mention that despite much lip-service, it seems as though many European countries really weren't all that interested in actually implementing the thing.

Still, I have been concerned about some of the post-war rebuilding in Iraq (especially in terms of planning), and therefore I would argue that Friedman has a point here:

The Rumsfeld doctrine of small-force, high-tech armies may be great for winning wars, but you need the Powell doctrine for winning the peace: a massive, overwhelming investment of soldiers, police and aid. We should be flooding Iraq with people and money right now. Start big and then build down — not the other way around. Ditto on the politics side. In destroying the Iraqi Army and Baath Party, we have destroyed the (warped) pillars of Iraqi secular nationalism. We need to start replacing them, quickly, with alternative, progressive pillars of Iraqi secular nationalism; otherwise, Shiite religious nationalism will fill the void.