This is reunion weekend at Harvard Business School, and I am here for my 35th. Since I only feel 35 years old so I can't figure out how this could be my 35th reunion. But since many of us have graying hair I guess it must be true.
Today is one of those incredibly beautiful New England fall days with temperatures in the mid- 60s and sunny blue skies filled with white cumulus clouds. People are already headed to the train station and airport to return home to various parts of the world.
So for the first time in days I had a chance to read an article in the September HBS Alumni Bulletin which had arrived in my post office box earlier this week. One article that caught my attention immediately was a one-on-one interview with Ali Allawi, former minister of defense and finance in post-Saddam Iraq. He is an HBS graduate from the class of 1971. Although I did not know him, we overlapped by one year as I graduated in 1972.....three years before President George Bush (MBA '75) and six years after Coalition Provisional Authority administrator Paul Bremmer (MBA '66).
Ali Allawi left London for three years (2003-2006) to live in Baghdad, and to serve in the Iraqi government before returning to London. He was on the front line of the war zone, and as a Shia from a prominent family he is a man whose opinions should be considered in setting our future policy in Iraq. I would strongly suggest that you read his recent interview in full.
In 1968 I worked in Washington, D.C. for a freshman congressman by the name of George H. W. Bush. He went on to become one of our finest presidents in the area of foreign policy. Over the last four decades I have stayed in touch with him, and consider him a friend. He is honest, intelligent, experienced, decent, well-traveled and best of all a good listener. He is one of my heroes.
For that reason I have hesitated to say anything in public about the policies of his son who is now serving as our president. No father wants to read or hear anything negative about his son even if it concerns only national defense policies. However, as Americans it is our right and duty to express our opinions openly about issues that affect the security of our own families. So I have reluctantly decided to add my voice to the discussion of what is taking place in Iraq.
During 2001 I told many of my friends that I thought President Bush would declare war on Iraq. Not only because we were told Iraq might have weapons of mass destruction, but because the regime of Saddam Hussein had unsuccessfully tried to have his father assassinated years before. Texans remember those types of things, and they don't take kindly to such actions. I don't necessarily think it was a conscious thought by the president, but I do believe that to some degree it influenced his final decision.
When President Bush took us to war on March 20, 2003 I supported him in that action. But when it was discovered that there were no weapons of mass destruction, I believed that we should exit as soon as practicable for our stated reason for entering Iraq had been negated. However, that was not to be the case, and today we are bogged down in what appears to be an untenable situation.
When we hear such statements as "if we don't fight them there, then we will have to fight them here" I wonder what these politicians are thinking. We can't possibly fight all the terrorists in all the countries where they exist because we don't have the money or manpower to do so. Our army is already stretched to the breaking point. We need to prioritize, and Iraq should no longer be at the top of the list. Whether we stay or pull out, there will be bloodshed. But by staying longer we are only postponing the inevitable at the cost of more young American lives and injuries. It is time for the Iraqi people to decide on their own future. We should find a way to extricate ourselves from their country by the end of 2008. It is time to refocus on bin Laden and the people behind the 9/11 attack.
It takes leadership in business and politics to decide when to exit from an unsuccessful venture or war. One of the things that we learned at HBS was to pull the plug on an unprofitable venture in order to protect the corporation. A surgeon will cut off a limb in order to protect the body from disease. And a commander-in-chief should pull out of a war that cannot be won in order to protect a nation. This war is crippling our ability to face far more serious enemies, draining our treasury and burdening our children with ever more debt, and hurting our image and influence among countries in the free world who want to be our friends.
Richard Nixon was a Republican who made his career as an anti-communist and as a hawk, but he had the courage to end the Vietnam War. No one doubts George Bush's credentials as a fighter of terrorism. And no one is in a better position to reduce our armed forces in Iraq than this president. But it will take courage and leadership to change course. It will also require President Bush to invite more people into his inner circle to tell him things he might not want to hear. None of us are perfect, and we all make mistakes. But the American people are a very forgiving people.