People love to show how intellectual they are nowadays by drawing historical parallels between the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and other seemingly similar past events. Thus, Iraq is Vietnam; no, wait, Iraq is the Tripoli Wars; no, wait, Iraq is the Gulf War gone bad…
No, wait, says Christopher Dickey, Iraq and Afghanistan should be British colonialism. I’ll say that again, so it’s clear: Dickey is advocating the revival of British colonial practices in the Middle East.
His argument is that the British made efforts to understand the local population, which led to a stable society in the places they ruled. The basis for his argument? A fictional character in Rudyard Kipling’s “Kim” who seemed like he was a good viceroy in India.
I’m not sure where this idea came from, but it’s bad history. I hope with all my heart that the US does not do what Dickey suggests, because it would be a terrible idea. Here’s why:
If we base our research on facts rather than a 19th-century novel, it is clear the British colonialism was a ruthlessly horrible political, social and economic force. The Brits drew borders with little regard for ethnic populations, so in the post-colonial period we ended up with conflict zones like Israel/Palestine, India/Pakistan and, yes, Iraq–where three ethnic groups now need to try to form a government because someone drew a big polygon around them a while ago.
Nor were the Brits particularly good at managing these ethnic conflicts once they arose. Millions of people died because of interethnic violence in India and Pakistan, and those battles have also kept rolling in Israel, Iraq and other places where the Brits set up their enlightened colonial administrations.
They also didn’t care about the local population much. British colonists in Africa put many locals under harsh conditions to mine for diamonds, and similar economic exploits happened in India and China. The American colonists of the 17th and 18th centuries put forth a great effort to kill off the indigenous population. In fact, many of the social and economic ills present in today’s post-British colonial societies are a direct result of that colonization.
The British were brutal imperialists. They cared neither for the welfare nor for the advancement of the people they were colonizing. While some “enlightened” Brits in the 19th century spoke of the “White man’s burden,” to civilize and Christianize the backwards locals,  this was by no means the main purpose of colonization. The Brits colonized the world to extract economic resources and gain naval strongholds across the globe, not to altruistically serve the natives. And even if the primary goal were to have been “civilization,” would that have justified the colonial program? Since when is it a British right to take over a territory and impose western cultural and social standards there?
Please, US, do not do this. Do not treat Iraq and Afghanistan as colonies. And furthermore, instead of spending your time trying to analogize historical situations, why don’t we try to understand what’s going on now on its own terms? Historical analogies are important insofar as they help us figure out what’s going on, but they only work up to a point. Iraq isn’t Tripoli; Iraq is Iraq. We need to understand, in the end, that each diplomatic and military situation is unique, and that each deserves a unique solution–and definitely not one based in a history of violence and persecution.
