Withdrawing from Iraq

Glenn Reynolds draws attention this morning to two articles on the folly of withdrawing from Iraq before the Iraqi government has established control there. The first article in the Washington Post consists of interviews with American soldiers in Iraq who recognize the disaster that would follow such a U. S. withdrawal:

With a potentially historic U.S. midterm election on Tuesday and the war in Iraq a major issue at the polls, many soldiers said the United States should not abandon its effort here. Such a move, enlisted soldiers and officers said, would set Iraq on a path to civil war, give new life to the insurgency and create the possibility of a failed state after nearly four years of fighting to implant democracy.

“Take us out of that vacuum — and it’s on the edge now — and boom, it would become a free-for-all,” said Lt. Col. Mark Suich, who commands the 1st Squadron, 89th Cavalry Regiment just south of Baghdad. “It would be a raw contention for power. That would be the bloodiest piece of this war.”

and

“Pulling out now would be as bad or worse than going forward with no changes,” Modlin said. “Sectarian violence would be rampant, democracy would cease to exist, and the rule of law would be decimated. It’s not ‘stay the course,’ and it’s not ‘cut and run’ or other political catchphrases. There are people’s lives here. There are so many different dynamics that go on here that a simple solution just isn’t possible.”

and

“It’s still fragile enough now that if the coalition were to leave, it would embolden the insurgents. A lot of people have put their trust and faith in us to see it to the end. It would be an extreme betrayal for us to leave.”

Lots more.

The other article is an article in the International Herald Tribune consisting mostly of a statement from Iraqi president Jalal Talabani rejecting the idea of a near-term U. S. withdrawal:

“We need time,” Talabani told a conference in Paris before meeting President Jacques Chirac. “I believe two to three years could be enough to build up our forces before we can say bye-bye and thanks to our friends.”

Last week, Iraq’s deputy prime minister, Barham Salih, urged the United States and Britain not to “cut and run.”

The problem with this, of course, is that the time requirements for allowing the Iraqi government to assert control over its own country won’t jibe with the fixed timeline of the American election cycle.

It isn’t only U. S. soldiers and Iraqi politicians who are rejecting the facile solutions to the problems in Iraq that are being offered. In a question and answer session following an address to the NCUSAR last week Saudi Ambassador to the United States Pr. Turki criticized the idea of partitioning Iraq:

Iraq is an issue of primary concern to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and I’ve continued to say since I’ve come here that since America came into Iraq uninvited, it should not leave Iraq uninvited. And by that I mean that the Iraqi people and the Iraqi government should engage with the United States in how and where and the wherewithal of the kind of relationship they will have with each other when American forces withdraw from Iraq.

We have never held back on any ideas as far – not just Iraq but any issue of concern to us in the area with our American counterparts. On the issue of Iraq, before, during and after the military invasion took place, we shared our views with your officials clearly and above board and publicly because we don’t think there is anything to hide here. It is a vital interest to you as well as to us that Iraq remains a unified country.

Those who call for a partition of Iraq are calling for a three-fold increase in the problems rather than a unified Iraq provides for all of us. And although I heard earlier from my good friend and colleague in terms of a study on Iraq that he made –Mr. Nawaf Obaid – on the inevitability, in his view, of the partition of Iraq, or the civil war – some of you will say erupting and others will say that it is already there in Iraq.

My view on that issue is that it is practically impossible for Iraq to be divided on sectarian lines, or even on ethnic lines. There is just too much intermingling of Iraqis with each other in every part of Iraq.

He continues on at some length. I’ve been given to understand that there was considerable consensus among those attending that near-term U. S. withdrawal from Iraq would be a thoroughgoing disaster.

Such a withdrawal would encourage insurgents not only in Iraq but potentially throughout the region and convince U. S. allies and prospective allies that the U. S. cannot be trusted.

I don’t see how a partial withdrawal of American forces in the absence of substantially greater peace in Iraq than exists there now can be politically justified—such a withdrawal will inevitably be followed by complete withdrawal regardless of the conditions on the ground.

I also don’t see how, in the light of present rhetoric, that material support would be continued for Iraq once we’d withdrawn our forces.

Relevant recent posts:

U. S.-Middle East merchandise trade, 2005
The cacophony on Iraq
Ensuring U. S. interests after Iraq