Kevin Drum comes as close as anyone to rising to the challenge I’ve been putting out for some time, that is, to consider the consequences of a U. S. withdrawal from Iraq squarely:
I think it’s worthwhile for proponents of withdrawal to be honest about the likely aftermath of pulling out: an intensified civil war that will take the lives of tens of thousands and end in the installation, at least in the short-term, of an Iran-friendly theocracy. This is obviously not a happy outcome, but neither is it the catastrophe the Chaos Hawks peddle. The alternative is to babysit the civil war with American troops, spilling blood and treasure along the way, without truly affecting the course of events in any substantial measure.
I wish he’d take the next step. Is there some level of carnage in Iraq that would be unacceptable to him? And how can we prevent that from taking place without being there?
He’s already taken that next step. You just missed it. He’s saying, correctly I believe, that the “intensified civil war that will take the lives of tens of thousands and end in the installation, at least in the short-term, of an Iran-friendly theocracy” will happen no matter how long we stay. As soon as we leave, it will begin, and spending more of our own blood and money on the ‘Iraq Welfare Project’, as I’ve come to call it, is asinine.
Mate, there is no way you’re going to prevent carnage in Iraq. The only choice is whether it happens fast or does the weak American style coffee, drip, drip drip action.
It is entirely magical to think that an American presence serves any particular purpose other than to serve your own collective inflated sense of power and self worth.
The melt-down in Irag began a run-away process that will obey domestic concerns – that is civil war concerns – around c. end 2004. Ever since then you’ve simply be living in a state of denial. Your “control rods” – your troops – were always insufficient, and once Iraq’s civil society went critical, i.e. once the run-away chain reaction to civil war was on its way, it was always too late.
In short, your question is idiotic. The US fucked Iraq into a cocked hat and there’s nothing to be done now except get out of the way and start working on rescuing your badly damaged reputation and image – for competence.
Lounsbury gets it right but uses language that is inappropriate.
I would put it this way: Asking what level of carnage would be “unacceptable” misses the point by about 8,000 miles, or whatever the distance between Baghdad and Washington is. Furthermore, you posit that as the primary question that needs answering, and there are many questions.
Here’s my primary question, which in turn answers yours:
What difference will it make if another 1,000 American lives and another 20,000 Iraqi lives are shed in the service of plucking defeat from the jaws of disaster?
Looked at this way, I don’t think it will make one iota of difference if a major drawdown of American forces commences at midnight tonight or at midnight on January 21, 2009 when George Bush leaves office, so why not much sooner than later?
So why not much sooner than later?
I’ve been having a similar discussion over at http://www.intel-dump.com and is paraphrased below:
What I and others have concluded is that the strategic objectives as outlined by the administration are not achievable: “[The] strategic goal of a free Iraq that is democratic, that can govern itself, defend itself and sustain itself, and be a strong ally in this war against radicals and extremists who would do us harm.”
Instead of criticizing the objective itself and offering an alternative, most seem more content to debate minutiae and the perceived political leanings of military officers and others. ISTM that any course of action in Iraq should serve some larger strategic objective. I’m quite frankly increasingly concerned that so few even acknowledge this larger context exists, much less defend their favored antidote in terms of strategic, as opposed to domestic partisan, utility. So instead of any cogent and reasoned analysis of what the US should do at this point, most spin their wheels on largely pointless arguments about whom is more partisan, whom is carrying water for whatever political enemy, etc. This kind of stupid infighting not only allows the current policy to continue unabated (since the arguments against it are inherently weak, being rooted in partisan calculations and not in terms of US strategic interests), but risks compounding mistakes already made by adopting policies that, while well-intentioned, may prove to be worse.
My view is that for the short-medium term our goal should be preventing further regional destabilization by mitigating as best as possible the negative effects of our ill-conceived and executed adventure in Iraq. This will involve, IMO, a COA that is neither the status quo, nor a total withdrawal, but a continuing military presence with a different set of operational objectives. Military forces, after all, are a tool of policy and not a policy in and of itself. It should be noted that some of our “success” in Iraq, particularly Anbar, is actually contrary to the Bush policy objectives. Anbar is relatively peaceful but is no more under central government control than it was six months ago. One might argue that Anbar points to a different path and that such success might better serve a goal of stability, containment and mitigation. As a tribal society, working at the local level by enabling tribal leaders is arguably better than the top-down “national” approached we’ve so far failed at. Building “national” institutions is no easy task when most people’s loyalty lies elsewhere and has for centuries.
Additionally, US military presence in Iraq is not a zero-sum game nor can it be boiled down the simplistic “support the war / against the war” memes that dominate the debate. One can, I think, fairly believe that military force can provide utility in Iraq provided it supports a cogent strategic goal, and at the same time be opposed to the current “war” (which is really quite different at this point than the one we embarked on in the spring of 2003). Such distinctions are lost on the absolutists in this debate.
Over the long term, I am currently leaning toward a managed partition, but think the US cannot, and should not, carry out partition alone. This represents an opportunity for the diplomacy, and UN and regional engagement so many have been screaming for. Another option is to withdrawal from most of Iraq (the populated areas at least) except for Kurdistan and perhaps the west along the lines of Brooking’s analysis of containment (http://www.brookings.edu/fp/saban/analysis/jan2007iraq_civilwar.htm). The idea here is to let the Iraqi’s figure it out for themselves while keeping the ringside bystanders from joining the fray as well as preventing the fight from spilling out of the ring.
I freely admit that my ideas are neither original nor without fault, but I honestly believe they are superior – or, rather, less bad – the the current Bush objectives or the withdrawal for withdrawal’s sake that so many on the left advocate. It seems that many prominent Presidential Candidates agree that Iraq isn’t an either-or proposition and are trying to steer a middle course.