Plan B

While I was preparing this week’s Carnival of the Liberated, I re-read Abu Khaleel of Iraqi Letter to America’s post, Iraq: Seeking Solutions – Plan B. I think it’s well worth reading and I wanted to comment on it at greater length than I felt was appropriate for the Carnival. Here’s what he’s about:

We have a problem. We need solutions. Only people living in a fantasy world do not realize that. The coming elections in Iraq will not solve this problem, whatever the outcome. The reason is simple: Elections have to be believed by the majority of people to have any legitimacy. The coming elections are not. As simple as that!

The present situation is likely to deteriorate. The present course will only lead to more Iraqi and American blood being needlessly shed. In this post I hope that we can examine an alternative course of action.

Here’s his Plan B:

1. US maintains present course and status for a month but will only act in self defense and to preserve the peace and will not go after “insurgents” or carry out random searches and arrests, etc. during that month.
2. US announces and implements an immediate freeze on the building of permanent military bases in Iraq. If there is no such intention (!) they can publicly and categorically state their policy in this regard.
3. The US goes to the UN to help establish, within 2-4 weeks, a “International Council for Iraq” (ICI). Two alternatives are possible:
   • A council of 15 members each nominated by a UN Security Council member state and approved by a majority of the other members.
   • A council of 5 members of internationally respected figures nominated by the UN General Assembly and approved by the UN Security Council.
   • This council is to act as the supreme authority for running the country in the interim period of 6 months.
4. The US reiterates its intention to withdraw completely from Iraq at the request of the ICI or a democratically elected government.
5. Work out a UN Security Council resolution to “guarantee” the continuity of democracy in Iraq, under chapter 7 of the UN Charter (which authorizes the use of force). This is to guarantee that no military coup or other means of force are used to overthrow the newly born democracy of Iraq for a number of years. Iraq is already an international problem in many respects.
6. Place the Multi-national forces now in Iraq as well as the Iraqi army, police, etc. under the political authority of the ICI.
7. The ICI is given an international mandate for six months to establish a democratic government in Iraq, without any conditions on its conduct apart from the objectives mentioned above and normal financial auditing.
8. Let this “council of the wise” find its own solution without interference or pressure. I would only like to add that all its deliberations and activities should be made public.

I think Abu Khaleel is a very sharp guy and I typically like a lot of what he has to say. So I don’t intend to fisk his plan. As they say in the math textbooks, I’ll leave that for the interested student. But I do have some observations.

The invasion of Iraq, the removal of Saddam Hussein, and the attempt to establish democracy in Iraq is our Plan B. We abandoned our long-standing Hamiltonian Plan A on dealing with the Middle East before noon on September 11, 2001. This was the realist plan that Brent Scowcroft among others continues to foster. Been there. Done that. Ain’t goin’ back there anymore.

Plan B is GWB’s Wilsonian plan for remaking the Middle East and, as we learned in his second inaugural address, the world. The success of Plan B is not assured. It will receive its next great test at the end of this week. If in the succeeding weeks and months it proves to be a failure, I don’t anticipate our re-trying it under UN auspices (as Abu Khaleel suggests) or returning to Plan A. I think I know my countrymen well enough to believe that our distrust of the UN is sufficient that Abu Khaleel’s Plan B is a non-starter. And I believe that 9/11 taught us that economic realism is too slender a twig for a re-trial of that.

No, if the grand plan for democratization is seen to be a failure, I think it’s far more likely that we’ll go to Plan C which will be founded on one of the other historic strains of American foreign policy: the Jeffersonian or the Jacksonian. The Jeffersonian (isolationist) response will leave the rest of the world to stew in its own juices. And I won’t outline what a full Jacksonian response would be. All I’ll say is, Abu Khaleel my friend, you wouldn’t like us when we’re angry.

UPDATE: Submitted to the Beltway Traffic Jam.