« Tall girls | Main | Assorted thoughts on moral hazard » Whither Iraq?26 Mar 2008 06:09 pm A friend asked me today what I thought we should do in Iraq. Answer: I think at this point we have a moral obligation to do whatever is best for the Iraqis. I have no idea what that is. I therefore open up the floor to commenters. What should we do now in Iraq? Update Please, please, please don't make me go in there and delete comments. I know you can do it if you try. TrackBackTrackBack URL for this entry: Comments (73)
Would you be open to restoring a tyrant there? 
I thought the best thing for Iraqis was Jeffersonian Democracy?
I don't think there is any question that the best thing for the Iraqis is for the US to maintain a presence there. Its sounds like we will be able to start drawing down troops pretty soon for two reasons - the Iraqi army is finally starting to become somewhat competent, and most of the bad guys have been killed or have left. I don't see how it helps Iraq if we pull out as Obama or Clinton would have us do, I think there are still enough al Qaeda guys and just plain thugs floating around to cause some major problems if we aren't there. (What's with all the bold type anyway? Make it go away if you wouldn't mind)
I would like to do what is best for Iraqis in the long run... but not at the cost of harming our own country. For example, I would not allow them to create a fundamentalist Muslim theocracy. Of course, I happen to believe that such a government wouldn't be good for them, too... I would like to see them establish a liberal democracy that allowed them to grow their economy.
What should we do now? Continue what we've been doing since the "surge." What people don't tend to understand is that the "surge" wasn't about numbers, but applying a very different counterinsurgency model to the conflict. Col. H.R. McMaster and Gen. Petraeus basically rewrote the book on counterinsurgency and the most credit for the downturn in violence goes to their strategies. Instead of protecting our own forces, we shifted to protecting the civilian population. What we need to be doing now is building on what's come. That means training the Iraqi troops, helping them build an NCO corps that can lead the army, and removing the sectarian influences from the Interior Ministry. If I were going to come up with three priorities, they'd be: 1) Continuing to secure the population and building a rapport on the community level. The central government in Baghdad is dysfunctional, but where we can make a difference is on the community level. 2) To do that, we need to forget the wasteful military procurement system and let the troops in the field fund small projects. Thankfully, we're doing this again. This also undercuts corruption, which is the biggest problem Iraq faces next to security. If we're watching the money being spent, it's not going to terrorism or graft. 3) Building up the army and police so that there's no security vacuum as we leave. The conflict in Basra is a key test. If the Iraqi government can drive out the Shi'ite militias, then they'll have passed a major milestone in ruling their own country. Iraq was always going to be a long term project, and we'll have a long term presence just as we do in Germany or Korea. Nor will Iraq look like Switzerland any time soon. The opportunity costs for violence are so low and so many criminals were let loose that getting things under control will take years. Democratization is a process, not an event, and what we'll see is a continuation of the trends we're seeing now rather than a sudden cessation of violence.
I think we should get out, recognizing that things will be difficult and dangerous for the Iraqi people-- but also recognizing that the Iraqi's are hardly unique in facing difficulty and danger. Democracy happens when it happens organically. The people of Iraq must either come together and produce a workable social and governmental system, or face continued chaos. But if we truly value self-determination, and recognize that it is absolutely necessary for meaningful democracy, we have to get out. There can't be a real Iraq until it is run by Iraqis, and as long as there is an occupying army, that won't be the case. Withdraw, withdraw completely, withdraw quickly, and let the Iraqis pull together or not. I don't have many illusions about what will happen next; one side or another will gain control, after some violence, and whatever democracy exists, I imagine, will be far from ideal. But Iraq cannot begin the business of building it's future with America continuing to occupy it. The current state, this weird hybrid moment, is a kind of national paralysis. It's time to give them their chance.
1. Tell the Iraqis that we want no long term presence in Iraq and will leave in no more than a few years, probably less. 2. Tell them that every day they do no work on political settlements is a day closer to us leaving. 3. Reduce the number of troops by 10% per month, down to 50k, and have plans to withdraw the 50k in short order. 4. Do what is possible to train Iraqi troops and police. 5. Do not choose sides in their political battles. 6. Give up any notion that we decide what the Iraqi government is like (either that it will be a liberal democracy or won't be an Islamic state). 7. Be out by the end of 2010 at the unless events are such that staying one or two more years with 50k troops looks like it will have a positive influence but by 2012 at the latest.
What would be best for the Iraqis? Boosting the US troop presence to the levels that have proven to be effective in other peacekeeping situations (see former Yugoslavia), namely about 1 per 20 inhabitants. That would be about 1 million, which would necessitate about 2 or 3 million in uniform available to rotate in an out. Then keep those troops there for 10 or 20 years -- again, see former Yugoslavia. But I reject that it's prudent or morally incumbent to undertake this force of action. Why should we design our policy to maximize the welfare of the 20 million Iraqis, not the 320 million Iraqis + US citizens, or the 6 billion or so inhabitants of the world? On a consequentialist basis, why do the Iraqis deserve special treatment? Is Iraq the area where our spending generates the most improvements in national interest per dollar and life lost? On a deontological basis, haven't the Iraqis and their politicians have more than enough chances to make this work? If I haul off the patriach (Saddam) from an abusive household, am I now responsible for mediating the struggles between the brothers and sisters left behind?
What we should do is apologize for overstaying our welcome and exit quickly. Start removing troops ASAP until there are none - absolutely none - left behind. Shouldn't take more than a few weeks. The Iraqi people can then figure out what's best for the Iraqi people without us around as a scapegoat for their troubles. There was never much reason to believe we knew better than they did how to fix their society - we don't even speak the language! So long as we're there, those who rightly or wrongly resent our presence will have reason to direct resources to blowing stuff up in an effort to get us to leave. Or in controlling us or using us to hurt their enemies. What they *won't* be doing is trying to fix the problems. After that, we can remove all our troops from Japan, Germany, Saudi Arabia, etcetera. And after that, we can use the savings to get everyone a pony. :-)
Let me just float the idea of a national referendum for Iraqis to vote on a timeline for American withdrawal. Why not better understand the actual opinion of the majority of the Iraqi people? It couldn't be binding-- either for immediate withdrawal or permanent occupation-- but it would be a great tool for America, and a perfect benchmark to begin real withdrawal.
Begin the drawdown and complete a near total withdrawal in a year. Leave what's necessary to secure a diplomatic presence in Baghdad. What is best for the Iraqis is for them to work out their differences among themselves in a way that they see fit. Will it be ugly? Yes, it will be; but no uglier than the violence we foment by our mere presence. We need to stop pretending that we somehow know better than the Iraqis themselves what would be best for them. We might not like the structure of several of the countries in the region, but they are a hell of a lot more stable than Iraq at the moment.
What Patrick said, with one qualification--we are short of troops in Afghanistan, and our European "allies" seem mostly unwilling to go on helping. If it comes down to having to pick one of these countries to stay in for several years, there are arguments for picking Afghanistan. (Full disclosure--my kid is in Afghanistan. He's very busy.)
Here are a couple things 1. Defend Iraq's borders from outsiders. This includes blocking foreigners entering from Syria and also preventing Turkish assaults on Iraqi Kurdistan.
3. Either increase funding for refugee centers or take in more Iraqi refugees.
Of those who support withdrawal, what happens next? Is it reasonably likely that Iraq will be able to maintain order within its own borders? If they can't, what will the ramifications to the region be? Would it not be quite likely we'd be drawn back into the region when Iraq fails? Could we really stand to have a massively failed state right in the middle of one of the most critical regions of the world? For that matter, would al-Qaeda not take it as a sign that they defeated the United States? If what Osama bin Laden said about the U.S. after Mogadishu is proven correct, would that help or hinder al-Qaeda? The problem I have with withdrawal is that I suspect those people who advocate it haven't asked themselves those questions. It's as though withdrawal were an end in itself--and I suspect for many that's true. The problem with that line of reasoning is that you can't go out of Iraq as naively as some would say we came in. Haven't we seen enough of Iraq policies that put some arbitrary objective above the realities of the situation on the ground?
Stay in Iraq for a century, as Obama's military advisor Gen McPeak had hoped.
I've been struggling with this question for years, now. Although I opposed the war and thought (and continue to think) that it was a damned fool adventure, I recognize that our actions incur a moral consequence. The Iraqis (save a small and agitant exile group) did not ask us to invade them, after all. That said, I don't think that our moral obligation is an infinite one and that we must, out of simple pragmatism, place the interests of our own country first. This makes for a very complex moral calculus. Given this, I rather like the plan that David Margolies outlines above. I have long suspected that an indefinite occupation, even with the best of intentions, can have the unintended consequence of actually slowing down political progress in Iraq by acting as a crutch that the nascent government of Iraq can lean upon. Regardless of what might have been and what we ought to have done up to now, I think that we're at a point where the Iraqis need to understand that they can and must solve their own problems and the only way I can see to do that is to, in fact, put a time table into play, and I think that David's suggestions for how to do that merit serious consideration.
Jay, I think the problem is that you are assuming that Iraq is some sort of unique place in the world. There are legions of people displaced by war and violence in the world. There are dozens of countries at or near utter failure. There is massive bloodshed and misery throughout the world. Do I wish it were otherwise? Of course. Do I think that the United States is capable of creating that change? Of course not. The fact of the matter is, at some point, true peace and stability in Iraq has to come from the Iraqis. Remember, saying the surge is working is possible partly because of the severely reduced expectations; Baghdad and Iraq in general remain extremely dangerous, even with increased US military presence. Lasting stability will come from Iraqi hands, not American. I for one feel that continued American presence harms those efforts. I'm also always confused by the "Al Qaeda will be emboldened" theory. For one thing, the threat of Al Qaeda has always been severely overestimated (which we can talk about if you want.) Secondly I don't understand this idea of them being emboldened. Surely the Al Qaeda whackjobs are already as nuts as they are going to be. A lot of this, I feel like, stems from not wanting to be seen as losers. But, honestly, who cares what it looks like if we satisfy our strategic objectives? "Winning" versus "losing" is the kind of symbolic stuff that has clouded our minds to a sensible Iraq policy.
For that matter, would al-Qaeda not take it as a sign that they defeated the United States? I've never found this to be a particularly compelling argument. I don't see the value of allowing al-Qaeda dictate our foreign policy. I would certainly point out that, if this were a concern, that the last several years in Iraq seem to have done more to promote recruitment rather than discouraging it. Whether or not withdrawal is the correct answer is certainly debatable, and I'm willing to have that debate, but I don't think that worrying about the possibility of a short-term propoganda victory for al-Qaeda ought to be a significant factor in our decision making.
Surely the Al Qaeda whackjobs are already as nuts as they are going to be...who cares what it looks like if we satisfy our strategic objectives? Indeed. The question (as it so often is around here) is: what happens at the margins? Die-hard terrorists are terrorists. Peace-loving people stay that way. What about the people at the margins, who are undecided--will they be convinced by a US withdrawal to join the "winning" side and become terrorists (probably some will)? Or will they simply be content that the hated foreign occupier is gone, and stay home to open a small business (probably there are some of these, too)? Managing perception ("how we look"), in other words, is part of our strategic objective, because perception helps shape our enemy's morale and ability to recruit and retain. Either policy is a potential recruitment tool, and I'm not sure how any of us can judge which is likely to be better for the other side. The Iraqi people can then figure out what's best for the Iraqi people Apparently, they had previously decided that Saddam was "best," which explains his high numbers in his final bid for reelection. Seriously, "self-determination" has to mean more than "dictatorship by guy who looks like me." The notion that the Iraqi people will pick what's "best" for them--or even, what a majority of them want--after we leave is one with shaky empirical foundations, to say the least. Which is not to say that we should stay, just that proponents of withdrawal should admit that a brutal dictatorship (a possible, though not certain, result of withdrawal) isn't "self-determination," probably isn't what most Iraqis want, and indeed is probably worse for them than an American occupation. For that reason, I like Freddie's idea of a national referendum. Nothing quite like settling it by election, after all.
This is what I think is the best solution that limits the amount of suffering for Iraqis. Protect trade inside and outside of Iraq. Without a stable and reliable amount of commerce, the Iraqis will suffer. This not only means reducing violence, but also in fixing infrastructure. Finally, they need help policing themselves until everyone can agree on the new social contract for commerce. Draw down the troop levels slowly, though expect waves of violence that will require Iraqi and US forces to work together to control. The waves of violence should subside if they prove to be ineffective compared to other means, such as political or economic movements. The issues with this solution are that we are dictating their future to some extent, and that we are putting quite a bit of US money and lives on the line to make this happen. In the end the US gets little out of this other than perhaps an "attaboy" from the history books - and that's only a maybe even if it works. However, if one is really concerned about Iraqi lives lost, it's hard to argue for a pull out that would seem to destabilize the country and possibly the region. Certainly more would die. At least by staying in Iraq, we have the potential ability to affect the outcome, which is more than we can say about places like Darfur, Burma, and Tibet. You can add to this compelling political disadvantages to pulling out, only to see Iraq and potentially the Middle East crumble. The strategic advantages, as well as the ability to work on new military and political doctrine, is also probably playing a minor role in this, too. It's this logic that makes me think we'll be in Iraq for quite a while longer.
Don't we have an obligation to do what is best for Americans first and foremost? What do you think that would be?
Megan, You are a prominent blogger/editor/writer/whatever with one of the oldest and most respected magazines in America. You also live in D.C., where the freely-elected government of Iraq maintains an embassy. Can I make a suggestion? Ride your bike over to that embassy and ask for an interview with the ambassador or one of his deputies, and put this question to him or her. That would move this discussion beyond questions of what might assuage the guilt of former hawks to what the Iraqis think is in their best interests.
Jay suspects that "those people who advocate [withdrawal] haven't asked themselves those questions [about what will happen if we withdraw]". And he does this on Megan's blog, of all places!!! (Hasn't Megan spent the last several days saying that yes she has considered other arguments etc.?) When I was much younger, it was said that we could not leave Vietnam because it would show weakness and encourage our enemies. But we left and in a very disordered fashion and still, in less than 15 years won the cold war. Yes, of course I have thought about what happens when we leave. But I have also considered whether staying is worse. There is nothing I can add to what Matt Yglesias says on this point. Up and to the left to see a complete discussion, with links to Spencer Ackerman included. Note particularly where Matt points out that we can only stay in Iraq long term if the government is always weak so it depends on us. Note where he links to Spencer explaining why we have to support one pro-Iranian brutal Shi'ite militia against another (less pro-Iranian one) because of how we are boxed in. As to what AQ thinks, I do not give a -- oops, family blog. See Freddie and and Andrew and (different take) Rob above. I generally agree with them. I could go with Freddie's referendum idea but figuring out what question to pose is a deal breaker for me. Tell me the specific question and I can comment more.
We shouldn't do what's best for the Iraqis. We should do what's in the best interests of the United States. And what's in our best interests? Stay, in force, until the NCO backbone of the Iraqi security forces is established, in enough mass for them to defend their own borders, sustain themselves logistically, collect enough intelligence to maintain the initiative, and out gun and out fight Al Qaeda and the Baathist elements on one hand, and step on Mookie Al Sadr's neck on the other. If we leave before that is done, we WILL be forced to return - to a much more difficult fight, and one in which we will have far fewer allies than we do now, having already abandoned them twice.
Win the war. Establish an equitable peace. It's happened before, and it will again. There's nothing unwinable about this war. One thing that bothers me is that many people who claim to have the Iraqis best interests at heart want to leave the country in the hands of its worst elements. That's quite a cognitive dissonance. The honest ones admit that they just don't want their fellow Americans dying for some place that doesn't matter to us. That's honest. But it's not honest when you simultaneously claim to want immediate withdrawal and what's best for the Iraqis. That's two completely different things. It's hard for "internationalist" people to admit that any good can come from armed force, especially American. But it's hard not to look at the Balkans and say that it didn't. The truth is that a lot of Westerners don't give a hoot what happens in Third World countries. They don't want to have their own soldiers dying in far off places. This is a sentiment of both liberals and conservatives--look at Somalia and Rwanda, and a lot of the anti-Kosovo sentiment on the right in 1999. We shouldn't pretend that our interests and that of the Iraqis always coincide. They don't. But let's be honest about just where and when those interests diverge.
Meghan, With respect to your insightful question about what we should do with Iraq (now that we're no longer playing that awful blame game with those awful people who post comments on your fine blog) is to continue doing what we have been doing. Now, I, myself, was opposed to the war initially, but--strangely--have begun to change my mind, especially now that the surge is working so well. So, I think we need to keep our troops in Iraq, and keep our troops fighting the enemy--Iraq--until the job is done, and our boys (men) can come home. GBA!
Pull out and let the chips fall where they may? I'm only half kidding. That, or find another dictator that can hold the place together. Like many countries created basically by fiat by former imperial overlords without any regard for historical, ethnic, or tribal considerations, Iraq was really only held together by the sheer force of the Hussein regime. Speaking in terms of realpolitik, I think this fact was one of the best reasons for just leaving Saddam be. But now we've had to go and make it our problem. I think a lot of the proposals for carving Iraq up into various ethnic enclaves that made the rounds a few months ago got short shrift. Though al-Maliki may not like the idea very much, its questionable how much support the al-Maliki government really has among the Iraqi people, and it could quite possibly be the most rational way to clean up the situation. Why let the solution be bound by some arbitrary lines on a map, drawn by the British almost a hundred years ago after the fall of the Ottoman empire? Certainly it shows more imagination than leaving it the way it is now. I fear it's just going to be us holding the place together by dint of sheer force along with our puppet government until the Iraqis ethnically cleanse themselves into some sort of equilibrium, given the current track we're on.
Like it or not, we have a moral obligation to leave Iraq in a better state than it is today. We foolishly took on this obligation, in my opinion, but, foolish or not, it now belongs to us. A quick withdrawl is only an option if it fulfills this moral obligation. I think it should be clear that it likely will not. However, like a few of the commenters above, I think US troops can be seen as a crutch to lean on- a crutch that can actually impede progress at political reconciliation or partition. I think a phased drawdown, scheduled over a period of 2 to 3 years is not only a possible path forward, but is almost certainly the path that will be followed regardless of the outcome in November.
Yancey: we may have a "moral obligation" to leave Iraq in a better state than it is in today. Unfortunately, we do not have the ability to do so. While we attempt to "stabilize" the country, all we are doing is maintaining a situation of anarchy and low-grade civil war. The Iraqi government is not a serious, legitimate government; it is a parasitical creature of American power. Like most parasites, its interests are different from those of its sponsor. And it will never evolve into a legitimate government. The American presence in Iraq simply adds one more complicated armed faction to the crazy-quilt mix of armed factions that are struggling to control pieces of the country. The only difference is that the US forces are simultaneously the most militarily powerful, and the only factions which lacks any Iraqi constituency whatsoever. US forces in Bosnia arrived to police an agreement brokered between all the factions. And they did so in the context of a European country whose close neighbors all had strong interests that were aligned with the enforcement of the Dayton Accords. That's why that regional solution has worked reasonably well. (The Bosnian government, of course, remains something of a mess.) We are trying to do something similar in Iraq with no accord between the relevant parties and against the express interests of several of the country's neighbors. There is no prospect of success here, and the best thing the US can do is honor the wishes of an overwhelming majority of Iraqis and leave the country in an orderly fashion.
brooksfoe, You could be correct. However, if on leaving Iraq, the country descends into a bloody civil war, would you support taking up the burden of restoring what we have today?
Whatever US does I think one thing is sure and that is the fact that withdrawal is not an option even Michael Ware said this on Bill Maher's show last Friday.
Jason Van Steenwyk says: We shouldn't do what's best for the Iraqis. We should do what's in the best interests of the United States. Jason, I respectfully disagree. I agree with Meagan: "we have a moral obligation to do whatever is best for the Iraqis." I don't think this obligation overrides all other considerations. But once we invaded Iraq, we assumed some responsibility for the future of the Iraqi people. We have to take their interests into account, at least as equally as our own. Mike D says this would be best for the Iraqis: Boosting the US troop presence to the levels that have proven to be effective in other peacekeeping situations (see former Yugoslavia), namely about 1 per 20 inhabitants. That would be about 1 million, which would necessitate about 2 or 3 million in uniform available to rotate in an out. Then keep those troops there for 10 or 20 years -- again, see former Yugoslavia. I'm not sure I agree. But even if I did, it has about a snowball's chance in hell of coming to pass. I'm pretty sure it would require a draft--something I oppose on moral grounds, and something that I can't imagine getting any political traction. I do agree that the current policy has no chance of long term success. If an occupation were ever to succeed in bringing long-term peace to the Iraqis, it would require a draft. The sad truth is that we went into this war without absolute commitment to doing what it would take to win it. For one thing, the American people were never fully prepared to make a long-term sacrifice before the invasion. Rather, they were told the war would be swift and inexpensive. It's no wonder they are tired of it by now. (Also, it might have to do with the fact that Americans didn't sign up for a massive nation-building democracy-creating exercise, but rather a simpler matter of destroying weapons of mass destruction.) John Lynch says: One thing that bothers me is that many people who claim to have the Iraqis best interests at heart want to leave the country in the hands of its worst elements. That's quite a cognitive dissonance. [. . . I]t's not honest when you simultaneously claim to want immediate withdrawal and what's best for the Iraqis. That's two completely different things. It's hard for "internationalist" people to admit that any good can come from armed force, especially American. But it's hard not to look at the Balkans and say that it didn't. I think brooksfoe quite nicely explained why you can't compare what we did in the Balkans to what we're being asked to do in Iraq. But since, as I explained above, there's no way that Americans will actually make the sacrifices necessary to win the war (e.g., a draft), it's a matter of choosing the politically viable options that would be in the Iraqis' best interests. I don't think it's in the Iraqis' best interests for us to continue the occupation as we have been. Our current presence in Iraq is destabilizing. It's dangerous because it provides short-term stability while none of the long-term political tensions are resolved. Our support undermines any Iraqi government--many Iraqis assume that it's a puppet government of the United States. When we leave, it will be unpleasant for the Iraqis as well, but perhaps it will give them a chance to make the necessary political changes for long-term stability without our destabilizing presence.
Morally, what the United States ought to do is just get out. But that's unlikely, and not because the U.S. administration will feel an obligation to the Iraqi people to avert civil war. The U.S. went into Iraq in order to install a pro-U.S. government and turn Iraq into a giant platform for U.S. economic and political domination of the Middle East. That perceived imperative will not go away, even under President Obama. Think Peak Oil. Think of the growing global struggle-to-the-death for resources. The U.S. is very unlikely to abandon the Middle East to China, Russia, or whomever. The demands of empire have nothing to do with what's best for the Iraqi people. The hot wind blowing from the east is the beginning of a hurricane. Get ready for interesting times.
Seriously, "self-determination" has to mean more than "dictatorship by guy who looks like me." But that's way it is in the world we live in, often, Rob. Any discussion such as this has to begin with what we can do. One of the hardest lessons that the US needs to learn is that there are limits to what we can accomplish, limits far more constricting that we have previously imagined. One of the worst miscalculations of the past decade is the notion that democracy causes stability. In actuality, the opposite is true: logistics and infrastructure comes first. You can't have a democracy without a stable democracy with functioning social systems. And you usually have that without democracy. One of the funny things about the debate is how often Kurdistan is brought up as a model. But there is nothing resembling democracy going on in Kurdistan. Kurdistan is currently ruled by two corrupt, competing oligarchies vying for control. Yes, it's stable. But the average Kurd still has very few of the rights that we thought we were bringing to the Iraqi people and now genuine control over his government. We have to recognize that democratizing Iraq is not in our power. We can only get out of their way, or stay there and rule. And that's what we're doing. There is one power in Iraq, and it has almost no Iraqis within it. That's the American military.
I have been trying to answer the same question myslef. Here is what I have landed on for the time being: 1. We have to split the country into 3 ethnic parts (Kurd, Shiite, and Shia). Somehow, Baghdad is the center point where Shia and Shiite come together. Each independent State then forms its own democratic government. Relocations might be a pain, but we get over the ethnic problems. or... 2. We blockcade the border and let them enter into a Civil War. We then support the winner and help them extract the oil to rebuild the country. Painful, but ultimately necessary I am afraid. You are dealing with centuries old problems that diplomacy will just never fix. There is a third option, from my grandfather. Put a big fence around the entire Islamic area and fill it will weapons. Go back in 6 months and declare the survivor the winner and start rebuilding from that point.
For Iraqis? Leave the armor behind. Withdraw US forces by rotating out, and not rotating in. Empty the Green Zone when the force levels are in middlle 5 figures. Cut a deal with the Peshmerga to stay in the North, and not foment rebellion with Turkey by giving them a lot of money. Not a lot in cost of having 150,000 troops, plus logistical tail in place, but a lot compared to what the leaders make in a year of bribes and tribute. Set up some kind of UN election thing. Bring in peacekeepers to run it. When the shi-ite, islamist government is elected, recognize it. Refrain from covert operations. Do not provide air support for anybody in the ensuing violence, but do have given the keys to the armor to the elected government. While the rotation out is happening, begin negotiation with the surrounding powers, particularly Iran. Iran owes the US, big time, for eliminating the check on its power in the Shi-ite crescent, and, if the US will stop idiotic fearmongering to cause low information voters who believe things like Saddam was harboring al qaeda, there are deals to be made. Or that the Iranian government's Marxist revolutionary shiites are evil, while the Iraqi government's marxist revolution shiites are good. These deals will be best accomplished if the US engages in a program of demobilization and disarmament, particularly nuclear disarmament, lowering its warhead count to that of the next lowest nation. But you weren't really asking, were you?
Pretty funny Doug. I realize that one of those Shia references must have been typos, and that you meant to put "Sunni" in there somewhere. But, maybe not, since you seem to believe in some kind of "Islamic area." But I look again, and you typed that Shia vs shiite thing twice, so maybe these aren't typos. In any case, you don't get "democracy" by declaring it. The way one builds a state with a representive government that has previously been under a brutal, Stalinist dictator is that you start by declaring martial law, with overwhelming force in place, enforced brutally, without mercy. Then one sets up local councils, with the proconsul picking people he thinks will be effective. These people make local decisions for 18 months or so, and then local elections are held. If those go well, then you repeat the process at a higher level of organization, like the province level. You do this two or three more times before holding national elections. This takes about a decade, maybe longer. It's especially difficult to do this when the previous government was a police state run by a brutal dictator because people have been taught to be very unwilling to speak honestly in public or to act forthrightly. That's how you do. It's called nation-building. It takes an enormous expenditure of money and effort on the part of the occupying power that wants to accomplish this goal. It worked very well in Europe, particularly Germany, but, as I said, at a very high cost. Fecklessly saying "democracy" doesn't cut it. Institutions have to be built first.
Lady, Iraq is the enemy? I thought we, in our beneficence, were doing this for them.
The way I see it we've got two broad options: 1) Pull out of Iraq (duh) If we decide to pull out, we will have to announce this fact. It will be in US newspapers and will be made clear to everyone in Iraq. They will be sure to hear about it as our pullout directly concerns them. If we take this course of action the results will be the following: 1) While we are preparing to pull out violence will drop. No Iraqi contender for power will waste his forces fighting American troops who are far more competent and better equipped. Assuming we pull out, there is no way to prevent this civil war. As an alternative we can actually pacify Iraq. Why have we been unable to pacify Iraq? We haven't done any of the things that are necessary. There is a long history that shows how to rule a conquered people. No historical conquerer had a military advantage as large as the US enjoys over the Iraqi people. It is not lack of military skill that prevents the US from pacifying Iraq. Four steps that actually would lead to a peaceful Iraq: 1) Form three Iraqi armies with American soldiers serving as officers. One Kurdish army, one sunni and one shia. The three armies allow us to play off ethnic tensions to our benefit. Having trouble in Tikrit? Let the shia patrol the area for a while. Having trouble in Basra? Let the Kurds or sunni patrol the city. The British ruled India with under 10k soldiers with this technique. Will this work? I have zero doubt it would. Would this be better for the Iraqi people? Well, it would be peaceful and eventually Iraq would be as prosperous as it can be (think a bigger Dubai). Would it be better for the American people? Well, the cost of lives would be minimal and there should be a profit turned; Iraq is full of oil. Additionally, this would give our intelligence services a huge pool of Arabic speakers. This would be immensely useful in cracking terrorist networks. Would the American people in general object to this? I don't think they would; Americans wanted the US to fight harder in Viet Nam, not pull out. Would the opinion making class in America accept this outcome? I think "no, they wouldn't" is an understatement. Right now, China using basically this technique to assimilate Tibet. Do people in the West whine about it? Yes. Will they actually be able to stop it? No. In a generation or two, Tibet will be well and truly part of China. (The bit about the Chinese training and appointing the new Dali Lama is brilliant). The lesson we should learn from this is that half measures do way more harm than good. Don't invade countries if you're not prepared to actually rule them. Colin Powell called this the Pottery Barn rule; he argued that if we were going to break Iraq, we should be prepared to put it back together.
I agree with Megan's sentiment, but I think it is very hard to actually put it in practice. There are several problems with this line of thought: (1) Our ability to evaluate what is "best for the Iraqis" is very limited, because many of our policy decisions filter through a complex network of unintended consequences. It is simply very difficult to evaluate whether a long-term presence or a short-term withdrawal will leave the Iraqis better off in the future. (2) On a practical level, it will be impossible to do what is best for "the Iraqis." Any end game that we help produce is going to have winners and losers. The partitioning of the oil, for example, is made difficult by the fact that the various parties want an allocation that totals to more than 100%. (3) Our moral obligation is certainly with limits. I don't think anyone proposes letting every Iraqi immigrate to the U.S. and participate fully in our economy (and perhaps even receive government spending to help them integrate into American society), although on some level this could be considered "best" for Iraqis. (I'm thinking more on an economic level than a cultural level, which I think is fairly reasonable given the rather deplorable conditions Iraqis are living in presently.) So I would agree that we ultimately have some obligation to the Iraqi people and that must be an integral component of our policy, even with the inherent difficulties in discerning what the "right" things to do are. But I think this moral responsibility can be incorporated into whatever policy decision we ultimately make that should be primarily based on our own national interests. The big picture question of whether to stay for an indefinite amount of time or to commit to leaving soon seems to be one that cannot be based on the moral calculus that Megan proposes, because there really does not seem to be much credible evidence available for asserting which macrolevel decision will be "best" for the Iraqis, even if one can find a suitable metric to evaluate what is "best" for Iraqis. However, decisions as to how to proceed at the mircolevel -- whether we stay or go -- should be made with great consideration taken to the effect they have on Iraqis, with our moral obligation to try to have an effect that is either "best" for the Iraqis or at least not appreciably worse than it has to be given any other considerations that come into play.
Seriously scale down on the US military around the world. Stop supporting foreign dictators (Egypt, Iraq, Saudi Arabia), and stop sabotaging the liberals in foreign dictatorships (Iran). Stop subsidizing oil-based energy production and transportation at home. In the medium- to long-term, it's all of these things that are going to doom Iraq. I don't rule out that it might be possible to make things okay for them for the next five or ten years, but I don't see much evidence that our government is that competent when it comes to active foreign missions. Giving up our most damaging policies seems like a safer bet.
Green cards for any Iraqis who want them. Reparations for every Iraqi. Yes, I'm 100% serious.
There's no hope of a sane and effective Iraq policy until 1-20-09, and I'll have to see what things look like then before offering an opinion. Obviously the insane creatures running things now won't do anything that makes sense. tg at 7:16 and brooksfoe at 10:00 made good sense, but nothing will matter until the Bushpigs are gone.
How about doing what the Iraqi government asks us to do? The current Iraqi government has certainly hitched its fate to the occupation, but that doesn't make it a puppet. It's about as representative a government as Iraq has had for 50 years. We should stay as long as it wants us to stay. We should go when it wants us to go. Assuming their next elections are free and fair, the Iraqi people can vote in a different government if they want a different policy. Such a policy is likely to cost the U.S. more blood and money. So be it -- we broke it, we get to pay the price.
Thoreau: I do like your suggestion! But I'm afraid, as we both know, it has even less chance of happening that mine.
The short, simple and honest answer is that the USA should do what is in its interest. That means forcing some sort of powersharing arrangement on the Iraqis and leaving, with a clear indication that the end has been reached, and it's up to the Iraqis to act like adults. if they decline to do so, that's their unhappy look out. Too many soldiers and too much money have been wasted already. Enough talk of moral obligations - ask what America needs. The answer is not more waste of time, men and money.
After reading all the comments, I'm still left wondering "what is possible? what has a better than 50% chance of actually working?" I wholeheartedly support allowing Iraqi citizens to obtain green cards but would want the reparations to be tied to cessation of armed violence. In other words, civil war would mean no more money from the U.S.
Right now Iraq's in a bad situation that doesn't appear to be very likely to improve. It'll be like this indefinitely, as long as we stay. If we leave, there will likely be a very sharp increase in violence. There will likely be thousands (maybe tens of thousands) killed. But after that, the situation has the possibility of improving. Somebody will win the fight; the stalemate will be broken. Over time, that improvement will start to outweigh the damage. So, if you look at it from that perspective, the longer we stay the worse off we make the Iraqis. We'll harm them no matter what, but leaving sooner means we harm them less.
The best thing we can do is leave. They don't want us there, we don't want to be there...so why do we stay? There really is no good reason to stay in Iraq. It is interesting how those who wish to stay like to frame it around the experience of Vietnam. McCain said earlier this week that we need to "win the hearts and minds" of the people of the Middle East. Isn't that the same rhetoric used during Vietnam? Wasn't it a failure then too? And Bush warned against killing fields and whatnot from Vietnam repeating themselves. I should remind people that Vietnam went on to remove Pol Pot from power and end a humanitarian crisis by ending a genocide. And an all out bloodbath in Iraq is only one of many likely scenarios. The least likely is a stable Western style democracy. The most likely is an authoritarian regime, possibly slightly resembling Iran. Once we leave, there is no telling what will happen. The same people that predict doom and gloom in Iraq if we leave are the same folks who said that Iraqis would greet us as liberators and that the war would be short and quick. So really I find that argument unconvincing, because as was demonstrated the other day these folks either don't think anything went wrong or don't want to learn from their mistakes. If we leave, and the shit hits the fan, it will be really easy to go back in with an international peacekeeping force, which would be better for anyone anyways. So really, there isn't much of a reason to stay.
Freddie, If dictatorship is necessary or inevitable, fine. But don't call it "self-determination" or "Iraqis working out what is best for them," because it's nothing of the sort. Democracy may be impossible, but only democracy can reasonably be called "self-determination."
"We have to split the country into 3 ethnic parts" Right, because that worked soooo well for India, Ireland, and Israel (notice how all these partitions start with I?). Let the forever war begin, eh?
Rob Lyman, I find it very intellectually dishonest on your part to suggest that I said dictatorship is either necessary or inevitable. I said neither things. Rather, I said that they would most likely become authoritarian, and resemble Iran. Unless you are a total retard and think Iran is a dictatorship, then you should probably retract your statement. Furthermore, I have no doubt that a majority of Iraqis, if given the chance, would "democratically" vote into power an authoritarian ruler. Didn't Hitler win a democratic election?
Actually, freddiemac, he was responding to me. And I'm afraid I didn't make myself clear. I agree that self-determination is a prerequisite for democracy. However, you can't have a foreign army in your country and have self-determination. I've never heard it credibly suggested that the Iraqis have the power to make policy that the American occupiers really don't like. That's what I mean when I say that there is really only one power in Iraq. I understand that there may be dictatorship, or something similar, following an American withdrawal. But there can't be real democracy while America is there, either. So let's pull out, and let the Iraqis determine their future, like we do for most of the countries on earth.
Oops, it looks as though there are too many freddies. My apologies to Mr. Lyman, I retract my snark! My bad.
Too many solutions, and too little analysis in all the above. But all the proposed solutions in these posts add up to one thing: it's a complicated situation, with different parties and objectives, not all compatible. So, let's start to sort it out. First, let's think of it as a trading situation, based on a contractual agreement. We want something, maybe we owe something, but we have goals, and we are a pretty central party to any agreement. We can renege by walking away from the table, but everyone will hold us responsible anyway, so that does not look like a good option. Instead, let's try to negotiate an agreement where we get something, and they get something. The problem is that there are too many parties on the other side of the table. We'd like there to be only one, the duly elected Iraqi government. The reality is different. We have the Iraqi government, the tribes (Sunnis-Shiites-Kurds), the bad boy Muqtada al Sadr, and all the local sheiks in the provinces without whom nothing really gets done. But then we also have the others all around, esp. Iran and Turkey. A good contract requires offering all these something of value for the future. Can that be done? Probably, but these are people who aren't used to abiding by the rules of contracts and agreements, they tend to live by other rules. But they all want something, and for most of them it adds up to one thing: bucks, mucho bucks. Can peace be bought? In increments, I think. But it can't be only bucks, we need to offer some kind of security. That security is partly military, but it also requires assisting the Iraqis in establishing some basic governance structure based on the rule of law. That's necessary for trade and investment and the protections of contracts and property. So, they have to reform their corrupt governments and their lousy court systems in order for our side of the contract to be viable. I don't think enough Iraqis, of any denomination or tribe, see that yet. Secondly, then, we should look at what the contract negotiation really is all about from our perspective: an investment under huge uncertainty. We made such an investment going to war, and so far it looks like an iffy bet. Surely we underestimated the downside. But we have to ask ourselves at this point, not what we can do to recover a bad investment (sunk cost) but what the rate of return on a continued one might be. The problem with that is that this expected rate of return is not exogenously determined by how al Qaeda or Iran or Sadr or Malaki or the sheiks behave. The difficulty is that their behavior is a function of how we structure our investment. The risk factor is endogenous to our own ability to structure a contract that is enforceable and to how we distribute our investment funds. The posts above suggest a lot of different, practical ways in which that can be done. The analytical problem is that this requires estimating mean/variance ratios (or cost/benefit ratios) for a bunch of different investments on a lot of margins. So, how do we do this? We're actually doing it, as we speak. It's what Petraeus and our diplomats and our local troops are doing every day in Iraq. It's only in Washington that we don't see the complexity of the ongoing negotiations. But, as I've said in another post here, the election won't matter much for the troop drawdown. It matters for how skillfully the contract negotiations with the Iraqis and all the other paries will be carried out, however.
The U.S. went into Iraq in order to install a pro-U.S. government and turn Iraq into a giant platform for U.S. economic and political domination of the Middle East. If this garbage is representative of what other countries think of us, no wonder they hate us.
It's hard to know what approach to take. For one huge thing, we don't have much help. For all the carping both in the states and outside the states on what a shoddy job we've done (in Afghanistan, too, of late), I've not seen many other countries belly up to the bar to join in the fray. In Afghanistan, apparently, NATO troops do not always mean fighting troops or fighting troops that are willing to go where there's fighting--McClellan redux. In Iraq, we're consigned by the mainstream media to fail, its drumbeat marking the perilous abandonment of the coalition partners, of timetables on the table, of ramped-up public violence in Baghdad. Despite these failings, and our own--and of course those of the Bush administration--it was a noble thing to do, getting rid of Saddam. For the first time in my 54 years, the government of the United States is mostly on the right side in the Middle East. Did we not expect chaos when the chickens finally came home to roost? It's time for other parts of the Western world to speak up and do the same. Then the pundits can come back and give us hell.
Well, I was not too opposed to invasion for the purposes of toppling Sadaam, given that he was a murderous dictator. At the time, I said we should go in, topple Sadaam, and then leave right away, while telling the Iraqis something like this. Okay, he's gone. You now have an opportunity to make a country for yourself. But, that is your job, not ours. If you screw it up and become a threat to us or your neighbors, we'll be back. Have a nice life. This may seem callous but there is a reason Sadaam was a dictator there. They put up with it. It's a country where people are horribly wracked by internecine strife based on silly superstitious belieg systems infused with tribal overtones. Until that gets corrected, there's probably not much we can do for them and they are the only ones who can correct that state of affairs.
I agree that self-determination is a prerequisite for democracy. - Freddie I'm not sure whether you mean this or whether you meant to write the converse, that democracy is a prerequisite (or rather a sine qua non) for self-determination, which is what Rob Lyman argued. But both are wrong. China isn't a democracy, but it would be ludicrous to argue that the Chinese people lack self-determination in the Wilsonian sense of the word. And, conversely, you can quite easily have perfectly good democracies which contain one or more peoples who lack self-determination -- e.g. Israeli Arabs. Vietnam is not a democracy, but the Vietnamese people have self-determination today in a way they lacked not only under French colonialism, but in the South under American patronage. The reason? The sole constituency of the Vietnamese government is the Vietnamese people. The main constituency of the former Republic of Vietnam (South) government was the United States government. The fashion in which the Communist Vietnamese government gains the consent of its people is pretty deficient and authoritarian by our democratic standards, but nonetheless the government does have a give-and-take with society, and seeks actively to maintain the approval and enthusiasm of its citizens. It stays in power based on whether it can keep its own citizens from getting completely fed up with it. Not based on whether it can keep the US administration from getting completely fed up with it, and cutting off the guns and aid. Do you see?
Did any of the people who believe that the US presence is only making the situation in Iraq worse supported the US intervention in the former Yugoslavia? Wanted the US to intervene in Rwanda? Want the US to intervene in the Sudan? Did the US presence keep Japan and Germany from becoming a functioning democracies? How about South Korea? What is it about Iraqis (Or is it Arabs? Or Mulsims generally?) that makes it impossible for them to benefit (over the long run) from a continuing US presence, ultimately transitioning to full democratic self-government? Please note: this is a different question than "Should the US maintain a presence in Iraq?". We may very well determine that it is not worth the cost of our continued presence in Iraq. But so many people express the belief that there's no way that our presence can serve a positive purpose and while I grant this may be true, it's in serious contradiction to the historical record. I don't know what makes Iraq so different.
brooksfoe, Vietnam does not have a foreign army dictating policy within its borders. Neither does China. You're right that the nations of China and Vietnam are self-determining. But the nation of Iraq is not, because its future is dictated to it by a foreign power. In a sense, you're disagreeing with Rob, not me-- he said that self-determination is meaningless if it's dictated by a despot. But in the narrow sense of self-determination, you're right, Vietnam and China are self-determining; and I'm right, Iraq is not.
SG, I think your historical record is skewed. You should include in there the many examples of foreign occupation that didn't work. Not only the US occupation of Vietnam, but the British occupation of Iraq, the French occupation of Algeria, the Haitian experience, and Belgians in the Congo. There you will find that, when a populace wants a foreign power to leave, quite often they are forced to do so. To compare the situation in Iraq with post-war Germany and Japan is to draw a false analogy. These were countries that accepted US occupation and had pre-existing democratic traditions. The transformation into peaceful democracies was much different because these were nations that had at one point not too long before occupation held elections and voted for governments. Furthermore, these were nations that didn't question their own statehood. I often point out that Iraq is an artificial construct by the British. The people of Iraq didn't decide that they would all band together to form a single nation, so when we see the infighting in the region it reminds me of the boundary wars of sub-Saharan Africa. To contrast, Japan was the nation of Japan for hundreds of years, and Germany had come together as a people to form a nation. I question whether a majority of Iraqis really love the concept of Iraq. And while I am against partition, I think that if a group within Iraq wants to withdraw from the nation of Iraq that shouldn't really be America's decision. They say that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
freddiemac: I don't think you're really contradicting my point. I'm not saying all foreign occupation is good, I'm saying the US has had a generally positive record when it sticks around. Nor do I see Vietnam as detracting from my point, it strengthens it. We stopped supporting Vietnam and they didn't develop into a democracy, instead there were killing fields and boat people and a communist dictatorship that persists to this day. How does Vietnam support the notion that a US withdrawal will have a positive effect? As far as Germany and Japan being different from Iraq - sure. And so was South Korea. And they were all different from each other, too. That's part of my point - it's been done successfully in lots of different cultures under varied circumstances. There's enough data points to see a trend. FWIW, I think the Philippines are the best counter-example, and even there it's at worst a mixed bag. The Filipino government ain't the greatest, but they aren't the worst either and they are reasonably friendly to the US. Like I said, I'm not arguing for a continued US presence in Iraq, I'm only questioning the assertion that the US can do no good. That said, I do strongly support the notion of an Iraqi national referendum on the US presence. If, the Iraqis say at the ballot box they don't want us, by all means we should leave post-haste; we should respect their democratic decision. I don't take it as a given that they would vote for us to leave immediately, however.
he said that self-determination is meaningless if it's dictated by a despot. Yes, because that's not self-determination, it's determination by the despot. Who, in Saddam's case at least, didn't seem too terribly interested in maintaining a healthy back-and-forth with society to keep up his popularity. What I'm opposing here is the notion that if an Arab dictator rules with an iron fist over Arabs, that "self-determination," whereas if white guy in a US Army uniform rules gently over Arabs, thats "horrifying, evil, foreign imposition." I think autocratic rule is imposition regardless of the facial hair of the guy doing the imposing. And I'm no fan of these sorts of ethnic/tribal notions of finding the "right" brutal autocrat to oppress people. Which, I suppose, is not to say that a dictator might not rule in a fashion which allows a degree of self-determination, so that I was not really right to say that democracy was essential. But I stand behind the notion that Iraq under (the possible) Saddam 2.0 will have no more self-determination than it does under Petraeus.
Freddie, I absolutely agree with you that Iraq lacks self-determination. My point is that this is not really related to the question of whether or not it is a democracy. One could easily re-incorporate Kosovo into Serbia and give every Kosovar a vote, and it would be a perfectly good democracy. But Kosovo would still lack self-determination. (Whether or not Kosovo should have self-determination is a separate question.) The point in Iraq is that self-determination is a separate capacity or quality from democracy. A lack of self-determination tends to have a negative impact on stability and on effective governance, regardless of whether that governance is democratic or not. We have over-fetishized democracy; it is a mistake to think that if democracy is unattainable in Iraq, then no particular outcome is better than any other. A really self-determined, self-reliant state or set of states in Iraq would be better than the current US-sponsored shambles, even if the state(s) were not democratic.
SG: I can't speak for anyone else but yes, I also opposed US intervention in Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Sudan, and Gulf War I. I advocate "free trade with all nations, entangling alliances with none." The main thing we should do about suffering in the world is open our borders and be a safety valve; let the "huddled masses" escape oppression in their home countries and come be productive citizens here. Green cards all around! To be more proactive still, we could repeal the various Neutrality Acts and allow US businesses and individuals to go in and fight on their own. The current Iraq war beautifully demonstrates the downside of interventionism.
Did any of the people who believe that the US presence is only making the situation in Iraq worse supported the US intervention in the former Yugoslavia? Yes. The Dayton Accords were agreed to by all the parties and NATO's enforcement of them has brought peace and stability to the region. The Kosovo war prevented massive Serbian ethnic cleansing and led to the peaceful downfall of a fascist Serbian dictator and his replacement by democratically elected government. An earlier intervention to defend the Bosnian government against the Serbian siege of Sarajevo would have simply meant coming to the aid of an existing government. Wanted the US to intervene in Rwanda? Yes. When it reaches the point where women and babies by the tens of thousands are being hacked apart with machetes, there is no longer any way for the situation to become worse. Want the US to intervene in the Sudan? No. Not unilaterally. But we cannot intervene in Sudan in part because we are in Iraq. No one trusts us as neutral arbiters, especially in the Muslim world.
The biggest problem that seems to come up is that very few of us really have any idea what's going on in Iraq. We're all operating under radically different assumptions--some think the whole thing was about oil and conquest, others think that we're really running Iraq, and others think that the divisions in Iraq society are insurmountable. All of those contentions are likely wrong. We can't come to a point where we can move forward on Iraq if we don't even have an idea of what's going on there. For one, most people don't know much about the structure of the military and how it works in Iraq. I know I'm not all that familiar with it, and I've been studying the situation in depth for years. Even reading the COIN manuals doesn't give you an idea of how those principles are actually applied. We know even less about Iraqi society. The idea that Shi'ite, Sunni, and Kurd are all separate and conflicting blocs is conceptually easy. It's also wrong. Iraqi tribes were frequently mixed Sunni-Shi'ite and even had Kurdish members. If we're going to partition Iraq, exactly where do the borders get drawn. The idea that Iraq can be so easily divided doesn't work in the real world: the lines are not at all clear. Drawing arbitrary lines in the sand didn't work before, why should it work now? I'm coming to the conclusion that this discussion, while illuminating, is also futile. We're all arguing with radically different operating assumptions, and there is no plan which can assuage all of them. Without some common assumptions, there can never be a unified policy.
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Actually Megan, I think (hope) you won't get many objectionable comments on this one. I myself have been tempted to make a few snarky comments on some of your recent posts, but who can object to this post (certainly not us anti-war types, who agree, but believe strongly that getting out now is, in the long run, the best thing for Iraqis)?
Posted by LarryM | March 26, 2008 6:19 PM