May 15, 2008
A Real Debate on Iraq
President Bush and his loyalists have lately trumpeted the “surge” as having turned around the situation in Iraq. Instead of the gloom and doom that was pervasive a year ago, in their view there is now real optimism. The American media has also bought this line and shunted the Iraq war off the front pages of newspapers and magazines.
But this is a false lull. The war will be one of the two main issues in the fall election, and the only reason it is not right now is because both Obama and Clinton agree on the need for withdrawal. Once the Democrats have picked a candidate, then the nation will need to have a real debate on where we go next in Iraq.
There are many aspects of Iraq that need to be considered when forming America’s policy for the next administration. Let me lay out the biggest issues as I see them.
The first question is: “Why are we still there?” The original pretext for the war, the need to keep Saddam from developing a nuclear bomb that he could then give to terrorists, turned out to be baloney. The alleged connection between Saddam and 9/11, which was endlessly touted by Cheney, also is clearly false. The second reason given was the need to free the Iraqis from the thuggish rule of Saddam Hussein. There is no denying that Saddam’s regime was among the worst on the planet, but America has not invaded other countries that are even worse horror shows. The greatest loss of innocent life in the last decade occurred in the wars of Central Africa that killed over two million people. This did not register with the Bush administration. Regardless, the abysmal occupation of Iraq has seen more innocent people die in the last five years in Iraq than did in the previous ten under Saddam. So there clearly was no obvious improvement.
The third reason was to promote democracy. But this purpose has been thoroughly abandoned by the US. There is no real attempt to create a true stable multiethnic democracy at this point. Iraq is run by pro-Iranian Shias who have no intention of sharing power with anyone else. In contrast, when it comes to American allies, there has been no democracy promotion whatsoever. The US has not pushed Egypt or Saudi Arabia to democratize, and it stood by Musharraf instead of supporting a real democracy in Pakistan, which was born without US support.
Fourth, there was the claim that the US needed to destroy “AL-Qaeda in Iraq”. This phantom organization is not some local branch of Bin Laden’s group, but simply an opportunistic use of a name by like-minded Salafi Sunni extremists, many of whom came from other Arab states and joined the insurgency. There would be no Al-Qaeda in Iraq if there had been no invasion.
Finally, there is the argument that we needed to invade to ensure the flow of oil. But this makes no sense as Saddam, or any other ruler, would sell the oil on the world market for his own benefit. The market for oil is a global market, and even though Saddam may not have sold his oil to the US directly, once it enters the world oil supply, it is available to the highest bidder.
So at this point, what is the reason to be still in Iraq? What could be gained? No supporter of the war, including Bush himself, has really answered that question.
More importantly, what is the definition of victory for the US? Is it creating an Iraq that is closely allied to the US and supports American foreign policy? Is it creating an effective central government? Is it a functioning democracy? Is it pushing out Iran? There is no clear definition of victory, so this means there is no clear understanding of what needs to be accomplished.
There are no identifiable reasons to stay, nor are there clear criteria to decide what constitutes success. There is however a heavy burden of costs to consider. First there are the 4100 dead US soldiers, and another 1000 dead American contractors. In addition, there are 20,000 seriously wounded, maimed, and brain-injured, and tens of thousands of psychiatric injuries in need of long-term care. The war has cost 500 billion dollars so far, and some estimate that the total cost will eventually be three trillion dollars including disability and healthcare payments for veterans, interest on the borrowed money, and the cost of rebuilding the worn military equipment. And this war has brought low the reputation of the US throughout the world and has convinced many Muslims that the US seeks to control and dominate the Muslim world.
For Iraq, the war has meant several hundred thousand dead civilians, and another 4.5 million people turned into refugees, almost two million of whom have left Iraq. The middle-class of Iraq has gotten out, while the Kurdish north has effectively seceded. There has been a humanitarian catastrophe that Bush has totally ignored. The waves of sectarian violence and ethnic cleansing mean that the Iraqi state has ceased to exist as a unified country.
The war has also meant the success of Iran in the region. An implacable enemy of Iran has been replaced by an Iraqi government controlled by groups that spent the 1990s in Iran, and have been trained and financed by them.
The war has also resulted in a major increase in terrorism, as groups opposed to the war attacked targets around the world and in Iraq. Meanwhile, women and minorities in Iraq have seen their rights and safety curtailed in the lawless aftermath of the occupation.
As long as the US is there protecting the Shia central government, there is no incentive for the parts of Iraq to reconcile. The presence of the US perpetuates the violence and creates a moral hazard that allows favored groups the protection to avoid really settling the political issues of post-Saddam Iraq.
The surge is not the answer. Fundamentally, it has reduced the worst of the violence in Baghdad, but it has not really changed the basic facts on the ground. Even the Green Zone is still subjected to artillery fire on a frequent basis. The main reason there has been a dampening of the violence has been the willingness of the US to cut deals with various factions. In Anbar province this meant providing arms to turn local Sunnis who were the heart of the insurgency two years ago, into militias. This is hardly a recipe for long-term success. The Sadr ceasefire has also helped over the last year. But even General Petraeus himself noted that the proper force needed for counterinsurgency is 1 soldier per 25 civilians. In Iraq today that would mean almost 1 million US troops. Even with the surge, the US army is still too small to really establish order.
The choice facing the next President is whether to continue this failed policy or to get out. Happy talk about how this time, finally, we are doing things the right way, is unconvincing. Does anyone seriously think that another four years of war, with another 2000 dead soldiers and 300 billion dollars spent, will achieve anything of lasting importance?
A US withdrawal will clearly force the Iraqis to finally deal with the real political reconciliation needed. Such a withdrawal cannot start before January 2009 with the next President, and would proceed at one brigade a month because of logistical limits. That means even if the next President wants out as fast as possible, it will be late 2010 before the withdrawal is completed. That means Iraq will “benefit” from at least another two years of occupation at a minimum. There is no reason to think that adding even more years to that will be good for the US or the people of Iraq.
Comments can reach me at Nali@socal.rr.com.
