WAR IN IRAQ, NOW WHAT?

What about the war in Iraq, this most divisive of issues facing this nation? I am not going to say much about whether we should have gotten into conflict or not other than to admit that like a lot of Americans I was fooled by the Bush Administration into thinking that Iraq under Saddam Hussein posed more of a threat to us in the West than he actually did. Like most of our congressmen, I initially supported our getting into the war.

I now see Hussein as a maverick with only minimal connection to his Moslem neighbors, a maverick whose single greatest inspiration for governance was Josef Stalin. Hussein used political terror to cobble together a nation and to keep himself in power just as Josef Stalin, his role model, used political terror to keep his hold on the Russian people and then to extend his empire to the countries of Eastern Europe.

Blunder: Misunderstanding Iraq Ethnic Structure

By failing to recognize how the separate elements of Iraqi society were being held together and through blunders such as disbanding the defeated Iraqi army, the Bush Administration set us up for and put us in the middle of the disastrous civil war that ensued. There was, for example, no functional Al Qaida in Iraq until after the defeat of the forces of Saddam Hussein and disbanding of the Iraqi army.

So that’s my take on how we got where we are today. It’s a position that a lot of commentators on the war have staked out including a lot of people running for president in the 2008 election campaign. However, what these commentators aren’t presenting us with is a clear picture of what a so-called victory in Iraq would look like and, secondly, a strategy for withdrawing our forces that makes sense.

Is the Surge Working?

Is the surge in U.S. troops, currently going on, working or is it not? General David Petraeus, our new top general in Iraq, has asked for more time before he gives his own answer to that question. Meanwhile, we’re getting a lot of assessments from the media including from frequently quoted observers. These sources are all over the lot with their evaluations.

One commentator, Ken Pollock of the Brookings Institute, who says he previously was a critic of how the administration has managed the war, recently spent a week in Baghdad. He argues that the surge appears to be working and that he’s seen a substantial improvement in U.S. troop morale as a result, his first pro administration assessment, he tells us.

Inept Regime

If Pollock’s observations bear out as accurate, that’s all to the good, but what about the regime of Iraqis now governing the country? No reliable source that I have come across is telling us that this feeble organization is anywhere close to being able to effectively govern the country. Bringing democracy to Iraq was a stated goal of the Bush Administration in initiating the war in the first place. Remember the administration’s insistence on using the words “the war for Iraqi freedom” in describing the action? As of this writing, one would have to say that that policy is a sad failure.

Given the level of hostility, in fact, the extreme ruthlessness with which the two major ethnic groups, Shiite and Sunni, have exhibited toward each other, finding an accommodation that would make possible an effective governing body including representatives of the two groups strains credulity. It’s even harder to imagine democracy ever working in such a caldron of hatreds.

Democrats Call for Quick Withdrawal

Some presidential candidates on the Democratic Party side, despairing of ever resolving these issues, are saying that the solution is simply to withdraw our troops and quickly. In that case, what about Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia? The fear is that the more radical and aggressive Moslem states, namely Iran and Syria, would jump into the breach, and that that would force action by the Saudis. Some observers see the whole Middle East erupting into war as a result. What then would become of the world’s oil supply, most of which comes from the Middle East?

Then there is the issue of the Kurds in northern Iraq. The Kurds are the only people to have benefited from the U.S. invasion. Oppressed and the victims of poison gas attacks under Saddam Hussein, the Kurds in northern Iraq are free for the first time, and many of them are prospering. With a wider scale war erupting in the region, the area known as Kurdistan would inevitably be sucked into the conflict.

Turkey Won’t Stand By

Further complicating the issue is Turkey on the northern border of Iraq. The Turks are currently engaged in a battle with elements of their own native Kurdish population over the issue of political autonomy. These elements say they want to be free of Turkish control to establish their own government or to merge with their brothers and sisters to the south. In fact, they have taken up arms in support of their cause, and fighting has occurred.

The Turks are opposed to independence for their native Kurdish population and have accused the Kurds in Kurdistan of providing safe haven, money and arms to the dissident Kurdish population in Turkey. Were the U.S. to withdraw from the region, what would Turkey do? Would it invade Kurdistan in an effort to pacify its own Kurdish population and to prevent Iran, for example, from becoming the power broker in the world of the Kurds?

Politicians Responding to Polls

A quick withdrawal from Iraq sounds good and seems to be in keeping with what the current polls of the American public are telling us. Many of our politicians appear to be responding to those polls and frame their answers during questions in public debates accordingly. The trouble is a quick withdrawal is not in the interest of this country and not in the interest of the world at large.

Yes, we need an exit strategy from Iraq. No doubt about that, but that exit strategy is going to have to be phased in gradually. We have no other choice.

Copyright (c) 2007 by Stephen Alan Saft