Forget the Senate Vote, the Pullout from Iraq Will Commence Forthwith...
Nick Gillespie | June 23, 2006, 9:13am
So the Senate Dems couldn't muster enough votes for either of their proposals to set a deadline for yanking troops out of Iraq.
That failure--expected, really, of a party that ran John Kerry for president and elected Harriet Miers fan Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) as their top dog in the World's Fattest Greatest Deliberative Body--shouldn't put off folks looking for the U.S. to get the hell out of Iraq. As this SF Chronicle account suggests, the troops will likely be coming home in dribs and drabs anyway:
Despite Thursday's votes, it is widely expected that the number of U.S. military personnel in Iraq will fall from the current 127,000 as the November elections approach. Republicans, who went on record in the House and Senate solidly behind President Bush's conduct of the war, still believe a significant decrease in troop levels will help them in the midterm elections.
Army Gen. George Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, predicted within hours of Thursday's Senate votes that the size of the U.S. fighting force will shrink this year.
"I'm confident that we'll be able to continue to take reductions over the course of this year," Casey told a Pentagon news conference, accompanied by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
Whole thing here.
Jonathan Rauch explained last December that the pullout has begun here.
On the 3rd anniversary of the Iraq invasion, Reason asked a bunch of know-it-alls to tell us what to do now. Check out responses here.
joe | June 23, 2006, 11:56am | #
"The problem with a hard and fast deadline is that you encourage the insurgency to hang on until the deadline and then have a chance to win once the U.S. leaves."
While rational and true, this argument isn't very convincing. If the continued presence of the US military was working to eliminate the insurgency, then obviously announcing a deadline would be a break for the insurgents. But the problem is, the insurgency is holding its own, or actively growing, under the American military occupation. At this point, the anti-insurgent work the military is doing is less like building a bridge, with an endpoint that the effort brings us closer to, and more like collecting the trash.
"Further, the arguement for a hard deadline assumes that the Iraqis are somehow dragging their feet in fighting the insurgency because they are depending on the U.S. too much. Where is the evidence of that?" I agree with John here. I don't think we need to announce a pullout date as some kind of "tough love" to encourage the new government's military actions - they are working damn hard already.
The primary argument for announcing, and sticking to, a timeline to pull out is the effect it would have on the political dynamics in Iraq. Some segment of the insurgency is at war with the goverment because they view it as a continuation of their war with the invaders. If these people knew we were on our way, this segment of the insurgency, and much of the populace that supports it, is going to turn to the political process. And with us gone, it's the foreign terrorists murdering Iraqi civilians who become the hated foreign invaders.
"Over the next two years, the number of troops will continue to go down. Every day the Iraqis get better at fighting themselves." And every day, the insurgency, and the segment of the population that supports it, gets larger.
"If the past is any indication, by the fall of 2008, there will only be few thousand troops left in Iraq." Except that the smooth drawdown of forces John postulates isn't "the past." The past is a series of increases and decreases in troop strength, including the cessation of reversal of a couple of effort to slowly reduce the number of troops, as insurgent/jihadist flareups required us to, well, take out the trash again.
The slow drawdown of troops, without a stated policy of leaving, a hard date, and a promise that we don't intend to maintain an open-ended occupation, will completely fail to produce the political breakthrough that is necessary for the pro- and anti-government Iraqi factions to reach an accommodation, avoid a civil war, and allow the government to concentrate on defeating the thousands of international terrorists we've let into their country.
" by the fall of 2008, there will only be few thousand troops left in Iraq and people like Joe will be left to rage about a subject that no one cares about anymore." Uh huh. We're really going to turn the corner this time, by staying the course. Please, John, don't write such things a few lines after using the phrase "...if the past is any indication." It makes the Baby Jesus cry.
thoreau | June 23, 2006, 12:12pm | #
Here's what it comes down to:
Right now the fighting is conducted by a mix of elements:
1) Those whose main grievance is the presence of foreigners.
2) Those who have some vision of an international Jihad.
3) Those who hate their neighbors.
When we leave, I think joe is right about the first group being defanged. The second group will also be defanged to a lesser extent, both because we are part of their motivation, and because it will be harder for them to blend in with the first group (and hence easier for the Iraqi authorities to get them).
The big question is the third group: How much do the Iraqis hate each other? And will they resolve that dispute with an orgy of violence or a negotiated partition? They may not call it partition, they may call it "federalism" or "regional autonomy" or "local self-determination" or whatever. But I sure as hell hope that they opt for the second course.
My big fear is that when we leave the internal disputes will flare up, with violence between Sunnis and Shias, culminating in the tyranny of an illiberal majority and the bloody suppression of the Sunnis. Oh, they'll claim that they're merely doing what is necessary to combat domestic terrorism, and use their majority status to put some sheen of alleged democratic legitimacy on it. But what it will come down to is that they have more people, more oil (and hence more money), more foreign allies (Iran), etc.
As awful as this scenario sounds, I fear that no matter how long we stay it will inevitably happen once we leave. Given that this is the likely outcome, the only question is how many more troops we want to lose before it happens.
I hope I'm wrong. I hope that they negotiate some sort of arrangement once we leave. I hope that the initial burst of euphoria and goodwill that will erupt once we announce a withdrawal creates an opening for some sort of compromise to be negotiated. Sometimes people find ways to capitalize on shining moments and establish something of lasting value. Then again, sometimes they don't.
Either way, the fate of Iraq will be determined by the Iraqis once we leave. The only question is how many soldiers we want to lose before that happens.
