November 15, 2006

Careful, Democrats: There’s No Easy Iraq Solution

 

It seems clear that, one way or another, the American military presence in Iraq will soon begin to wind down. It will be too late for the Americans, Iraqis and others who have been killed or injured, the irreparable harm to the physical and social infrastructure of Iraqi society and the remaining damage that will occur while the powers-that-be figure out the end of the game. Democrats will, of course, be a major factor in encouraging and shaping our exit strategy, but they must not be caught in a trap of responsibility for the additional damage that will inevitably be a part of this scenario.

 

President Bush has stated that if we leave Iraq “before the job is done” – “cut and run” in Rovian parlance – Iraq may be left in civil war, a primary catalyst of terrorism and a destabilizing force in the region. Ironically, this may be the administration’s most accurate prediction of the whole Iraq fiasco. It’s hard to imagine not leaving a big mess behind when our troops finally leave - for a time even a worse situation than now exists - while the remaining power vacuum gets sorted out.

 

Not having considered a realistic exit strategy from the war, the administration may now be considering more carefully an exit strategy from its failed policy. Attempting to pin the post-American departure fallout on the Democrats seems a leading contender. I can envision the “Democrats lost Iraq” bumper stickers already at the printers, the administration’s responsibility for the entire situation notwithstanding. The basic problem is that there may be no really viable exit.

 

The current focus on Vietnamization – oops, I mean “getting the Iraqis to step up so we can step down” makes a better sound bite than policy. The notion is that if the Iraqi army and police receive enough training from us, they will be able to control their country - as if we were the keepers of the military holy grail for that part of the world or Iraqis are missing a gene that allows them to shoot straight, organize military strategy or exercise discipline without our help.

 

It’s interesting that the Iraqis fighting for the other side seem to be doing all these things quite effectively against us. Their snipers are quite accurate. Their military strategy seems to be working well, serious technical disadvantages notwithstanding. And it takes a pretty strong sense of discipline to subvert the major institutions of a country, as they are doing. Perhaps we ought to hire the “insurgents” to train us.

 

For me, it’s about commitment, and it seems the Iraqi army and police commitment to the government’s cause is weak by comparison. They may just fear the other side more (with good reason), or understand that they will still be there once we are gone, as we inevitably will be sooner or later. For whatever reason, this is beginning to seem more our fight than theirs.

 

Turning the country into three semi-autonomous regions may have some potential, but revives images of Lord Balfour and Winston Churchill drawing the maps of the post-colonial world. Also, this approach might involve working around the government that we have mid-wived and in whose name we are supposedly fighting this war. In addition, the integrated demographics in Baghdad and other parts of the country make this approach practically untenable. The violent history and oil could take ethnic cleansing to a new level.

 

Speaking with countries that might exercise influence, especially Syria and Iran, has seemed a good idea for some time, though it’s hard to imagine this administration doing it, or paying the high price that will be demanded for bailing us out of our morass. This adventure has put us exactly where those countries have wanted us, in ways they could never have done on their own.  It is anathema to an administration that had to create an outside commission even to float the idea. If I were the Iranians or the Syrians, I’d wait for the Democrats.

 

The bottom line is that there are no easy solutions to this horrible quagmire. The Democrats need to avoid moving in too quickly to embrace any specific options, giddy as they may be with their new sense of power and the attention that goes with it. They need to push hard for change, and help to choose among the untenable options that are a result of this ideologically conceived, deceptively promoted and incompetently implemented Iraq adventure.

 

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