The New York Times editorial page and Richard Holbrooke in a Washington post op-ed have both weighed in on Iraq in a similar vein. The Times’s plan consists of the following points:
- fire Donald Rumsfeld
- formally reject the idea of permanent bases in Iraq
- use positive and negative incentives to encourage reconciliation talks
- stabilize Baghdad
- engage with Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia to avoid disaster
Former U. N. ambassador Holbrooke, too, is beating the withdrawal drum. He advocates adopting realistic goals, redeploying our forces, and focussing on a search for a political settlement, while rejecting fixed timetables. He also puts in an oar for strengthened regional autonomy. Except among the Kurds there appears to be very little enthusiasm for this last among Iraqis.
I’m completely in favor of searching for a political solution and trying to engage the neighbors in discussion on the issue. I continue to fail to see how withdrawing from Iraq strengthens our hand in achieving either of these objectives.
One of the things that I think is missing both from the Times editorial and Mr. Holbrooke’s op-ed is that I don’t think we’re the only problem in Iraq (not that we’re not a problem there) and that our presence there is nearly the only card we have.
Both the Times plan and Mr. Holbrooke’s are what Robert Kaplan referred to in the article I linked yesterday as “bets”. You feel lucky, punk?
At this point everything’s a bet.