Two Stories

This post is a response to a question asked by pennywit, a blogger whose opinion I respect and whose blog I miss (it would certainly have a place on my blogroll if it were still active). In the comments to this post at Dean’s World, pennywit asked:

So please, Eteraz, Schuler, anybody else, even you, Dean. Tell me. What are your thoughts? When would you withdraw America’s presence from Iraq? Under what circumstances would you support a president’s decision to withdraw from Iraq? I’m all ears.

[…]

So let’s hear it. Tell me a story. Tell me two stories, one of defeat, one of victory. A tale of weal, a tale of woe. But do me a favor, and keep it out of the realm of fantasy. If the New York Times knows nothing, then show me that you know better. Tell me the best ways to bring America’s troops home. Tell me, in your infinite wisdom, what you would do.

Unfortunately, I don’t have infinite wisdom to offer. I’ve longed for wisdom for nearly as long as I remember—since I read the story of Solomon in a book of Bible stories. As I grow older I find it receding ever farther beyond my grasp.

I find it extremely difficult to answer pennywit’s question without doing something I genuinely don’t want to do: defending the Bush Administration or appearing to do so. If I’d had my way we wouldn’t have invaded Iraq at all. I don’t pretend, as some on both the Left and the Right do, that my position is somehow taking the moral high ground. Saddam Hussein was absolutely awful. There’s no defense for his crimes against the Iraqi people and I recognize that, had I gotten my way on this issue, he would have kept right on committing them.

About six months ago I tried convening what I thought of as a blogging colloquium in which I attempted to assemble a panel of people with a lot more expertise than I have to consider the options for dealing with the situation in Iraq. The consensus seemed to come down to the notion that withdrawing from Iraq before things are a lot more stable there than they are now would be very imprudent. And that’s about where I stand.

I don’t regard withdrawal from Iraq as an objective. I think that promoting America’s interests are the singular objective and, consequently, I would support withdrawing our troops from Iraq if I were convinced that withdrawing them promoted America’s interests more than leaving them there did.

I don’t think that’s true at this point. I see no way, without leaving a sizeable troop presence in Iraq, that we can prevent all of the horror stories Natan Sharansky catalogued in his recent op-ed in the Washington Post from coming to pass. I don’t find the assurances of those who favor immediate withdrawal credible. To me they summarize handily as “Well, surely things won’t be that bad”. What I’d like to see from those who favor an immediate withdrawal is an acceptance of the worst case scenario and some concrete proposals for how, given an immediate U. S. withdrawal, it could be ameliorated. The burden of proof, as in all discourse, lies with those proposing change.

I’m not a great deal better at imagining stories of victory. I think that in all likelihood in the presence of a large U. S. troop presence in Iraq things would be very, very bad for a very long time. I think the limit on our ability to secure anything resembling a victory is an ability to deny victory to anybody else, essentially, a stalemate. Not the sort of thing of which triumphal marches or victory celebrations are made.

I can imagine the Iraqi people getting fed up with the lousy government they elected and putting a better one in power. I can also imagine a re-run of the situation in the Palestinian territories. While I’d hope that the former would happen, I simply don’t have the knowledge to be confident that it will.

In conclusion, I’d like to observe that in the foregoing I haven’t disparaged anybody’s opinion. Why do we feel the need these days to disparage rather than just to disagree? I’m putting these thoughts forward in the conviction that I’ll be disparaged for being a warmonger, a tool of the Bush Administration, an idiot or worse. I really don’t care to talk about this subject any more.

16 comments… add one
  • Dave, I would never disparage you or your opinion.

    But it’s no mystery why the question has become contentious: it was politicized right from the start, and by one side predominantly. Every person who has raised questions about the wisdom of this war, or about the way it has been conducted, has been savagely attacked by the administration and its supporters.

    Every deviation from 100% support of not only this administration but of its strategy and tactics has been attacked as either treason or imbecility.

    Now, yes, the opposition has sunk to the same gutter level, and I don’t excuse that. But let’s go back to 2003 and remember that for the most part those raising objections did so with very little name-calling or vitriol. Of course there are exceptions. But the tone was set early on by an administration that has no interest in voices other than its echo, and that used this war for pure partisan advantage when it could. Their goal was never bipartisan support: it was partisan domination.

    As for the way this will play out the script was written four years ago when the administration refused to reconsider its strategy in the face of insufficient means. The surge will inevitably be followed by a slump: that’s just the math. The enemy knows the surge will be followed by a slump. The enemy knows it has only to wait out the surge and then mount its own surge when we slump.

    The only way to avoid a surge/slump was for the Iraqi government to rush energetically into the breach, take advantage of the time we were buying them, and reach political accommodation. The Iraqi parliament rarely manages a quorum, let alone the sort of determined action that might have allowed this surge to succeed.

    So one way or the other, we’re going to slump. And it now seems unlikely that any force will be able to make up the deficit.

    Americans require hope. They won’t maintain a committment tht amounts to “Let’s hang around indefinitely and see whether we can slow down — not stop — a civil war.”

    The reason there’s no good answer is that the administration has made a good answer impossible. Their supporters have actively assisted in the job of rendering the situation impossible and done so for cynical political advantage.

  • I concur.

    I do feel however that until some latter day Einstein (or a Nobel?) figures out a relatively cheap and immediately available petroleum replacement, the only answer will be our continued presence in the region in some capacity or other. Iraq is pretty much the best strategic position for keeping a lid on things, so it might as well be there.

  • (But not with Michael.)

  • Even though you said your post wouldn’t satisfy anybody, I’m satisfied!
    This is an issue I’ve tried to stay away from, but I’ve had questions lately.
    So THX for the explanation!

  • Michael,

    I’m inherently suspicious when people continually bring up 2003 and the origins of the war when the discussion turns to the future of US involvement in Iraq. The origins and controversy surrounding the invasion are no longer relevant since the invasion happened we are there now. The question is what to do next and how best to preserve US strategic interests?

    In the present, in the here-and-now, neither side is much interested in a cogent debate on the subject and in the present, here-and-now, both sides excoriate even moderate disagreement with the mantra repeated by the left and right. As I said here in an earlier thread, I’ve been called a “surrender monkey” and “war-mongering Bush apologist” for writing basically the same thing in different fora.

    You might be right that there is “no good answer” left, but it’s impossible to have a meaningful debate to determine potentialities (much less analyze them) in the current politicized environment. Even if you’re right and all answers are bad, some will still be less-bad than others.

  • Andy:

    I brought up 2003 in response to Dave’s question: Why do we feel the need these days to disparage rather than just to disagree? I was offering an answer: people disparage rather than just disagree because that’s the tone that was set at the beginning and because every attempt by people like myself to question strategy has been met with scurillous attacks. If one beats a dog one shouldn’t be surprised when the dog turns mean.

    Debate about the future of Iraq is all-but irrelevant in the short term. Mr. Bush will do as he wishes. I doubt Congress can stop him. I suspect very strongly that what Mr. Bush intends is to dump this on the next president so that he can avoid taking responsibility for his own incompetence and his party can pull a who-lost-China drill somewhere down the road.

    The real question I suppose is what the next president can do. By January of 2009, at which point this war will have lasted as long as our involvement in WW1 and WW2 combined, the next president, whoever it is, from whatever party, will almost certainly pull out very quickly. Americans won’t tolerate casualties that are disconnected from a realistic plan for success — let alone casualties taken in a war in which no one at these point can even define what success might be. The next president will have to try and make a clean slate, blame his predecessor, and move on.

    I cannot imagine a president on his inauguration in 2009 announcing that we will proceed to our eighth year of war. Can you?

  • Seventh year, not eighth.

    This is why I don’t help my kids with their math homework.

  • Michael,

    I don’t know what you’ve personally said in the past, but the vast majority of rhetoric on the left has not been to “question the strategy,” as you put it, or put forth alternatives, but has instead focused on the origins of the war (the “Bush lied, people died” meme) and general criticism of its conduct without much of anything in the way of constructive criticism.

    I say that not to excuse Bush and his supporters, who have, in many cases, labeled any criticism as unpatriotic, “against” the troops, etc. However, your basic argument boils down to “they did it first” and in my view that is a poor excuse to justify bad conduct – no more appropriate on the schoolyard than among our political class.

    And I completely disagree that debate is irrelevant in the short term. Bush will leave office in less than 18 months – we cannot afford to wait until the last minute to have a policy debate. Additionally, the lack of credible and cogent policy alternatives gives Bush the political room to continue to do as he pleases. If there was real policy debate that produced a consensus alternative, then Congressional opponents might actually get the political support necessary to force change. The plan put forth by the Democrats in their attempts to attach it to a supplemental was not even well understood by the anti-Bush left, many of whom did not realize it would still leave tens-of-thousands of US forces in Iraq. In short, stating debate is “irrelevant” enables the policy you claim to oppose.

    I hear the assertion that Bush intends to “dump” Iraq on the next President frequently. Such assertions are conveniently unprovable and missing from them is that Bush would also “dump” Afghanistan on the next President. Sometimes policy problems do not conveniently begin and end within US election cycles.

    I cannot imagine a president on his inauguration in 2009 announcing that we will proceed to our eighth year of war. Can you?

    That really depends on who gets elected and what policy they promised to implement during the campaign. Personally I don’t believe there will be an immediate, total withdraw in 2009, but we’ll have to wait and see what the American electorate chooses. My personal view is that a complete disengagement from Iraq would be unwise for a number of reasons I’d be happy to detail. After all, the future of Iraq is really the conversation I’d prefer to have.

  • I don’t know what you’ve personally said in the past, but the vast majority of rhetoric on the left has not been to “question the strategy,” as you put it, or put forth alternatives, but has instead focused on the origins of the war (the “Bush lied, people died” meme) and general criticism of its conduct without much of anything in the way of constructive criticism.

    I supported the war but was worried by the conduct of the invasion with its aversion to killing large numbers of enemy, and appalled by the occupation with its disregard for establishing control on the ground as a starting point. So of course I wasn’t on the left. I’ve been a “big footprint,” anti-Rummy, McCain-ish critic.

    The reason I said that a debate is irrelevant in the short term is that Bush will not be swayed by reason and the Congress is too blunt an instrument to do more than cut off funds. So you and I and Dave can chat amiably about what clever things could or should be done in the next 18 months but it won’t matter much, will it?

    In terms of setting agendas for the next president I think the political realities are such that no Democrat can get elected without coming down on the side of relatively quick and complete withdrawal. And with the war polling at about 25% I’m not sure the GOP candidate will be much different by the time we reached the general election.

    In order for some strategic order to be imposed there would need to be a way for various sides to reach agreement, and even more importantly there would need to be a way to sell it to the American people. Can you imagine Mr. Bush stepping up to the podium flanked by Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid and delivering a speech calling for a new strategy that would in effect be an admission of failure? Can you imagine that Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama would rush to accept a compromise that deprived them of the war issue?

    We don’t really have the option of staying in Iraq long term in my opinion. The American people won’t accept casualties for no purpose. (Nor will they accept Americans standing idly by while ethnic cleansing is carried on just outside the gates of US bases.) There’s no one with the standing to change the electorate’s mind on this. They’ll demand withdrawal, and as Mitch McConnell pointed out, public opinion is not irrelevant in a democracy.

    What we can do is keep bases in Kuwait and use those to hit Al Qaeda elements in Iraq. We can pressure neighboring governments to stay out of any Iraqi civil war, but I doubt we’ll succeed at that. We may be able to keep bases in Kurdistan, but that’s assuming the Kurds get a grip on their home-grown terrorists — a big if.

    We’re about an inch away from a complete, panicky withdrawal. The president has no credibility at all. The GOP has to cut him loose in order to survive the next election. The Democrats would have to be insane (or saints) to help Mr. Bush out. So, no, we probably don’t have a lot of options to debate. The time to avert this car wreck was back when lots of people were screaming that we weren’t taking the war seriously and being derided as fools and traitors for our troubles.

    Now? Too late.

  • Well, I’m too tired to write atm, so

    http://h-net.msu.edu/cgi-bin/logbrowse.pl?trx=vx&list=H-Diplo&month=0707&week=a&msg=OJR4%2bswaJoWe8gtgAKnSnQ&user=&pw=

    . I don’t agree with everything in it, but it sums up my feelings nicely.

  • Yikes! Sorry about the ugly link – it appears to work though.

  • You’re behind the curve, Andy. I linked to that post this morning noting that it basically tracks with my opinion.

  • Behind the curve – story of my life Dave!

  • I hear ya. I identify strongly with a line from the old Cheers program:

    “Hi, Norm! How’s life in the fast lane?”

    “Haven’t even found the “on” ramp, Sam.

  • Fletcher Christian Link

    jan:

    Thanks for bringing the reason for American intervention in Iraq into prominence. It’s oil. Not particularly because Iraq supplies the West much oil – it doesn’t – but because Saddam’s presence was destabilising. Of course, the present chaos is even worse, but that leads to a discussion of the tactics and strategy that should have been used – and that’s been discussed to death.

    Many other places in the world have regimes even worse than Saddam’s. Sudan, Zimbabwe and North Korea come to mind, along with the military dictatorship in Myanmar. But it has been either not important enough or too dangerous to intervene in any of those places. As an example, intervening in North Korea would almost inevitably bring in China – and America would lose, short of a nuclear exchange.

    So, because oil is important, because Saddam’s Iraq didn’t have any powerful friends and because the Republicans needed to get re-elected, Iraq gets the American hammer – wielded with gross imcompetence, but never mind. After all, Bush got re-elected, so who cares about the half-trillion dollars and the three thousand American and half-million Iraqi lives, right?

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