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December 12, 2006

Marking Time

Prediction, Andre Gide once observed, is very difficult, especially about the future. That is certainly the case in Iraq, where the situation remains grim while President Bush considers suggestions for new courses of action. Hilzoy at Obsidian Wings is upset that President Bush is dithering while Iraq burns, noting that "[w]e do not have all the time in the world in which to figure out what to do." This is certainly true, although there is a corollary, which is that doing the wrong thing may well do more harm than good.

As should be obvious, as bad as the situation in Iraq currently is, it could get much worse. Low-level warfare could expand to open warfare, for example. The insurgency might attempt to place a full-court press on American forces in Iraq, attempting to infiltrate a FOB in conjunction with a direct attack. Things could get a lot more ugly in Iraq before all is said and done. The new direction American forces take in Iraq therefore needs to at least be sure we don't make things still worse. Of course, the trouble with that is, doing nothing might still make things worse.

The only chance we have of salvaging some degree of success in Iraq is if the constituency of Iraqis interested in maintaining a relatively democratic and intact Iraq win the civil war. The problem with that is, as near as can be determined from this distance, that constituency is minimal at best. The other contestants for control of Iraq include the Kurds, who are willing to be loosely affiliated with Iraq as long as they can run things as they like in their area, to include Kirkuk, the Baathists who want to return to the good old days when they were in charge, Sunnis who are willing to share power but who want assurances they won't be overwhelmed by the Shia and Kurds, Shia who know that they're the biggest power in Iraq and want the power commensurate with that, Shia who would like to ally themselves with Iran, non-Iraqis who want to take advantage of the current situation to install a favored government, and doubtless other groups I haven't thought of. And as long as any of those groups are willing to fight rather than submit to the government (whatever government ends up in charge) and are strong enough to stand up to the government, the war will continue.

That is what has been driving the American attempts to develop the Iraqi Army. If Iraq's Army is built up to the degree necessary to make it the toughest force in Iraq, it can determine who runs the show. Unfortunately, there's a lot of evidence to suggest that most units in the Iraqi Army continue to see themselves as Shia or Sunni first, and Iraqis second, which means the government cannot use the army to establish itself as the dominant force in Iraq. Unless that obstacle can be overcome, that means that training and equipping the Iraqi Army is simply providing additional weapons and expertise to be used in the civil war. I think we can all agree that that would fall under making the situation worse as noted above (and this may be part of the reason why the U.S. has been oddly delinquent in making the Iraqi Army self-sufficient).

I have little doubt that this is why the road ahead is so unclear. If the Iraqi Army cannot be built up to the degree necessary to restore order, there aren't any particularly good alternatives available to us. Staying in Iraq may help to keep a ceiling on the violence, but that is a ticket to an indefinite presence in Iraq that will not only mean neverending losses for both our forces and Iraqi civilians, but an ongoing goad to Islamists who will seek to strike us in the United States in retribution for our occupation of Iraq. Leaving Iraq may open the floodgates to a level of violence that would make the current carnage a fond memory.

Ultimately, we have no good choices unless there's a way I'm not aware of to create a national consciousness in the Iraqi Army. As such, while I hate to say it, I think that withdrawal may be the best available option. Yes, the enemy would trumpet that as a success to the high heavens (with some justification, I should note). Yes, we'd be condemning a lot of Iraqis to die (and I believe Hilzoy is correct that we should take in as many Iraqis as want to come if we do leave). Yes, the Middle East would be left all higgledy-piggledy. But there are good sides to withdrawal as well. We could stop the gradual degradation of our armed forces, allowing us to rebuild them in case they are needed elsewhere. We could reestablish a credible deterrent to Iran's nuclear ambitions, while removing a handy means for Iran to threaten us. We would at least reduce the rate at which we're generating new terrorists looking to strike at America for our perceived crimes. Over the longer term we might even remove ourselves from our current position as target number one for the angry and disaffected millions who see our poking around their countries as good reason to return the favor.

I make no pretense that this would be a good answer. I hate the thought of abandoning so many Iraqis to their fates, even if we do attempt to get as many Iraqis as possible to the United States to protect those who have risked so much for us. No matter how many we get out, there will still be plenty left for the slaughter when we're gone. And there's little doubt in my mind that our withdrawal will inspire further attacks on the U.S., so we still need to find a way to deal with that. But maintaining the status quo shows little evidence that it will lead us to a good outcome, and there is good reason to believe it may leave us worse off over the long term. Unless the Bush administration can present a reasonable plan to Congress that is widely seen as offering a reasonable chance of success, rather than simply promising to forestall some feared future doom, it's time to look at how to extract our forces from Iraq with the least amount of risk to them and those Iraqis who have worked with us.