I’ve been turning this over in my mind like a rotten piece of candy I can’t spit out. There is simply no good solution to Iraq, is there? There is no path we can choose, no policy we can pursue, no ideas we can embrace that will prevent Iraq from turning into an anti-US state and breeding more terrorists.
Here are the three scenarios, as I see them:
[ul]
[li]We leave now. This is where I stood for a while. I didn’t like the war to begin with. I didn’t support the conflict and I though that the only way to minimize damage, both to the region and ourselves, was to leave as quickly as possible and let everything heal over.[/li]
But if we do that, we’ll give carte blanche to the extremists to sieze control and create a government that not only makes Saddam’s regime look like a garden party, but will help create the next generation of terrorists out of the people we just bombed and invaded. If Iran (not the liberalized Iran, but an Iran purged of any dissent and ready to take on the Great Satan) doesn’t outright invade the disorganized and ruined mess and establish itself as the dominant power in the Middle East, someone even worse will.
[li]We let Iraq fall apart along its natural fault lines. This sounds like a fairly good option: The Sunnis, Shi’ites, and Kurds all get their own country, and we try to maintain good ties with all three. Turkey might even be prevailed upon to donate land to Kurdistan as a precondition to its EU acceptance.[/li]
It is, of course, completely unworkable. If we do this, the fighting in the region will be non-stop. It will be worse than India versus Pakistan, if only because the amount of land in question is so small. And the other powers in the region will use it in their own political actions, not to mention as a training ground for fanatics they intend to use against You Guessed It.
[li]We try to create a functional government. This is what we’re (apparently) trying to do now. We have installed a full interim government with an interim president and an interim prime minister, not to mention an interim constitution. We hope, and it’s nothing more than a vagrant optimism with no external means of support, that elections will bring a legitimate government to power sometime early next year.[/li]
This is flatly impossible. No government we have installed will ever escape the taint of being a toady to the West, and no government elected by the people will pacify the people with guns and bombs. And there will always be people with guns and bombs in Iraq, supplied by people with large bank accounts and a hunger for power. And, of course, the Iraqi Resistance Army will make a prime recruitment front for the people who are intended to bring the fight to You Know Who.
[/ul]So, am I wrong on any count? Is there a good, honorable exit strategy for the US?
You forgot to mention Iran having excessive influence over any future Iraqi government or factions… Its much worse than you mentioned.
Splitting Iraq will be good for Iran… and certainly there would be no peace. I think Turkey would rather take over Northern Iraq than relinquish territory.
If the US managed some kind of dialogue with Iran and neighboring Arabs… there could be a de facto peace and stability. Maybe. Now I don’t imagine people trusting Bush … do you ? So expect a dishonorable exit… eventually.
Turkey has for years refused to recognise the rights of the Kurds for a separate state, either in northern Turkey or Iraq, so I don’t think splitting the country would work.
I agree with Derleth I was originally against the war, but no we’re in we have to see it through to the end.
That said I don’t actually see a good end in sight, even if we are successful in creating an elected government I think within a few years islamist extremists will topple it and create a bigger danger to world peace than Saddam.
There is no way for this to happen. It would be spitting in the faces of everyone who lost anyone to this war, and the international response would be anywhere from utter outrage and a severing of ties to an increase of terrorism, once the people who planned to take over a Saddam-less Iraq realize that the US just crushed their dreams.
I was afraid of that. I know there must have been Iranians dancing and shouting when Saddam was toppled, and that Iran’s fragile liberalization will probably fall apart when the government decides to take over a hostile and resisting ex-nation. If it hasn’t fallen apart already.
If we were able to influence Iran’s behavior meaningfully, we could use Iran to help stabilize Iraq. But given Iran’s newfound nuclear pretensions, I don’t think we’ll have any say over what they do except in the most negative ways.
And, of course, if we invade Iran we’re completely fucked.
No, I thought not. It was a nice idea, kind of, and I knew Turkey wants into the EU. But if racism comes into play, I don’t think any economic benefits the EU will bring will be able to pull Turkey out of the Middle East and into Europe.
I sincerely hope there will be an end for both the sakes of US and British forces and the population of Iraq. Unfortunately I suspect that it will drag out into a messy conflict that will take years as we have to continually prop up the ailing government in the face of insurgents and terrorist groups.
Even if we are successful in defeating the insurgents quickly I think that the distrust of the west will continue in the minds of Iraqis for a long time, possibly generations.
I hope that I will be proven wrong, but I really fail to see any positive outcome at present.
I know there will eventually be an end, but unlike Vietnam the US can’t simply limit its losses and pull out right now without severe repercussions to ourselves a little while down the line. The current administration is essentially saying “The only way out is through,” but we’re going through some of the worst possible territory as far as limiting losses and ending up a credible ally to any other Middle Eastern power. And, what’s even worse, there doesn’t seem to be any way to sidestep the bad spots without creating even worse threats.
I don’t know who we could have a dialogue with to solve this problem. The people we’ve been bombing aren’t about to listen to us, and I don’t think Iran is at all interested in taking US interests into account when it thinks of Iraq. I don’t know how Saudi Arabia would play into this mess, but I’m not optimistic about its intentions, either. And the new Palestinian leader will have to take a long, hard look at US policy in the region before he talks to us, and I don’t think he’ll come away with a high opinion of our past.
Maybe there will be a peaceful resolution. Maybe the last of the fighters will surrender and the Iraqi people will peacefully elect a strong, stable, democratic government. Maybe liquid gold will shoot from my ass.
“World - we’ve made a big mistake and we can’t see a way out. Put together an international force and send us the tab.”
Just maybe an international force drawn from Muslim nations will have a better chance of keeping things together, isolate the hard core insurgents from the rest.
Probably not though but at least it gets us out.
My WAG is we’ll end up supporting another thuggish dictator just to keep a jackboot on the necks of a profoundly anti-western populance.
This is impossible so long as the United States is the sole or primary nation behind the effort. If you get a true multinational coalition behind the drive – including some Middle Eastern countries – and give it enough authority to override the United States’ wishes if they deem necessary, then you have a halfway decent chance of doing so.
Of course, with Bush elected to a second term, this has the same odds of happening as God coming down from His heavenly throne, walking up to the Oval Office, and bitch-slapping George W. Bush with His Holy 2 x 4 of Righteous Smacking™…
If you were a neigbhor of Iraq… and with Bush in power. Would you help a real and effective peace effort ?
I wouldn’t. Simply not having those troops tied down is way too risky for Syria, Jordan, Iran and maybe others. These countries would also prefer a “stable” and peaceful Iraq… its better for business and no one likes Al Qaeda messing around with their authority. Still why risk Bush having funny ideas ?
Agreed, it’s even possible (probable?) that these countries are if not explicitly supporting the insurgents are at least giving them safe passage across their borders.
I think that particularly Iran would prefer having coalition forces tied up as long as possible to prevent potential attacks given their lack of co-operation on the nuclear programme issue.
You guys are giving up WAY too easily. Come on… At this point in WWII, the tide was just starting to turn. For the first six months the U.S. was in that war, it was just a string of disasters.
There’s a very reasonable chance for improvement. First, the elections get held. The government gains legitimacy. Iraqi troops continue to be trained, and continue to get better. The insurgency loses steam simply because the fanatics are being killed in huge numbers. This isn’t Vietnam, where the enemy can hide in jungles, tunnels, and who get re-supplied endlessly. It isn’t even Afghanistan against the Russians, where the Mujahadeen had the financial and military backing of the U.S., tens of thousands of caves to hide in, etc.
Could it all fail? Of course. I’d probably put even money on it, depending on how you define ‘failure’. The worst-case scenario, it seems to me, is that the place turns into another Lebanon. That would be bad. But there are a few things really working in the favor of Democracy:
The Kurds. Semi-independent, they are joining the Iraqi army in large numbers, and they are well trained and good fighters. They also overwhelmingly favor Democracy, and the U.S. has about an 80% approval rating with them.
Sistani. He’s still on board with the elections and the overall plan to Democratize the country. And he’s still the most powerful voice of the Shia.
That leaves the Sunnis, about 20% of the country, and that’s where all the trouble is coming from. I’m still convinced that what we’re seeing now is the ‘real’ war - a planned insurgency with weapons caches set up before the invasion, cash, etc. It’s not a popular uprising among the average Iraqi. It’s maybe 10,000 foreign fighters and Saddam Fedayeen.
The ‘exit plan’ is to keep doing what they are doing, while slowly turning over more and more operational control to the Iraqis, until the U.S. can get to the point where the military provides logistics and support for Iraqi forces. That situation could remain that way for four or five years, until the Iraqi forces are fully trained.
I don’t think it’s impossible to win the war in Iraq.
However, even if we win (somewhat likely, I think) and somehow manage to make democracy stick (significantly less likely), the best we can hope for is a government with a strong Shi’a majority that is closely allied (but not, I think, united) with Iran. I doubt this will be the stabilizing force the U.S. wants it to be, as fear of an Iraqi attack has kept Iranian troops in Iran.
As for splitting it amongst ethnic lines… it’s not going to happen. It would upset Turkey greatly to have to contend with an independent Kurdistan while continuing its own policies with respect to its Kurds.
Here’s what I think will happen. There will be a big show of making an election and forming a constitution. When U.S. troops are mostly back home (except those in their brand new military bases that somehow manage to coincidentally be very close to major oil fields), the Iraqis will concentrate their power in one or very few officials (probably clerics) who continually win re-election because no one runs against him. Eventually, the legislative branch will likely be a rubber-stamping organization for whatever head cleric (who never has competition in elections) is in power at the time.
And since it’s a “democracy”, we’ll have “won”. See, we brought democracy to Iraq!
Sam Stone, I hope you’re right. But I don’t think there will be a Battle of Midway for this war, any more than there will be a complete and lasting peace: I think there will always be people who, for whatever reason, wage armed resistance against whoever is in charge of Iraq, and there will always be people who support them. Iraq, as it exists now, is very ethnically and religiously diverse, and given that conflicts in the Middle East tend to spring up on ethnic and religious lines, ongoing war seems a given.
Secondly, I doubt any government elected while the US is still over there will be very legitimate in the eyes of Iraqis or the rest of the region. They would have too easy of a time saying that we simply installed the person who won, that we faked all of the counts and killed those who protested.
Thirdly, putting Kurds in the military doesn’t seem like a way to win the support of everyone who isn’t Kurdish. The Kurds have a history of trying to break away from all of the countries their homeland lies in, so they could well be seen as `foreign’ to the people the military is supposed to be protecting.
I hope I’m wrong. I hope this all blows over and ends well for the Iraqi people once the caches run out and the last of the bitter-enders are killed. But I don’t see it happening.
That really resonates with me. Perhaps I’m just being hopeful, but I don’t see how the insurgency can last without outside support.
The actual number of insurgents will probably not vary greatly, though; the longer we are there, the more hostility we are likely to create. I think the Palestinian conflict shows this well.
But I’ll go out on a limb and say that we have a good chance of gaining peace in Iraq. The question of whether or not Iraq will be generally friendly to us in the future, though… I’m not sure. We may have to play bad cop in order for the factions to unite, unfortunately.
Sadly, the brutal dictatorship under Hussein may have been the best solution to peace.
To directly address the OP: the only honorable peace I can see occuring in Iraq is if we go in full force. But not militarily: we need to steal the hearts and minds of all Iraqis by dramatically improving their quality of life in a very short time. Infrastructure needs to be in place; utilities need to be in better condition than before the invasion and widespread; jobs must be created in vast numbers, and quickly. Support that with a strict government powered by an Iraqi military.
Otherwise, I don’t see much left to do but hold elections then start pulling out.
[QUOTE=TonyF]
But I’ll go out on a limb and say that we have a good chance of gaining peace in Iraq. The question of whether or not Iraq will be generally friendly to us in the future, though… I’m not sure. We may have to play bad cop in order for the factions to unite, unfortunately.
[QUOTE]
Well, look back to the Korean war, and its aftermath. Plenty of South Koreans hated the US presence there, they saw them as a dividing force against unification of the peninsula, although it wasn’t the opinion of everybody, only some it still bears resonance today. Some countries we’ve helped see the Americans as a necessary evil which has to be there in order to prevent far worse from happening.
The problem is that the insurgency probably does have outside support, admittedly not with anywhere near the financial level of the US, but it’s there.
Sam Stone, I am not advocating giving up, nor do I lack the resolve to see the job through, I just feel that under the circumstances there can be no quick withdrawal.
How many years are we looking at then until this place can be brought under control. Would the amount of troops being there increased make any difference?
How is the training of the Iraqi Army going, is it producing any good results?
What about the Police, even though it seems to be hemorrhaging badly, are they being successful?
Ladies and gentlemen, for your entertainment pleasure, the song stylings of Miss Rosy Scenario…(and the crowd goes wild…)
Yes, I rather imagine he is, since the word “democracy” can hardly be spoken without saying “Hand the country over to the Shia majority”. This is, at bottom, what our pious words about democracy mean.
I have to ask, Sam: do you really think that if all indications were that an election would solidly embrace a Shia theocracy hostile to American interests and dominance, that such an election would be permitted to go forward? Or will some “plausible” excuse be offered why such a thing does not happen?
Its much worse than you mentioned.