Iraq

I said I'd follow up on this post from yesterday and so here it is.

WITHDRAW immediately or stay the present course? That is the key question about the war in Iraq today.

American public opinion is decidedly against the war; even in the "red states," more than half of Americans want out. That sentiment is understandable.

Here’s a list of polls. Page down to the Pew Research one dated April 7-16, 2006. That’s the latest one to ask the direct question: “Do you think the U.S. should keep military troops in Iraq until the situation has stabilized, or do you think the U.S. should bring its troops home as soon as possible?” 48% say to keep the troops there and 48% say to bring them home now and 4% are unsure. Certainly not more than half!

The prewar dream of a liberal Iraqi democracy friendly to the United States is no longer credible.

Really? This is from the Washington Post yesterday concerning the meeting of parliament there for the first time since it picked it’s new prime minister.
Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, the parliament speaker, urged his fellow lawmakers to exert themselves to work together, because "there is no alternative for us but to succeed."

His address was interrupted by Mithal Alousi, a secular lawmaker, who reminded Mashhadani that most of the parliament members had already spent 30 years fighting against Saddam Hussein and had no need for such a lecture.

"This is unacceptable," he said. "We are not in kindergarten.
Sounds to me like they are planning on making it work.

Back to the article and it's meat. He lists the "most popular arguments for not leaving Iraq".

• If we leave, there will be a civil war. In reality, a civil war in Iraq began just weeks after U.S. forces toppled Saddam Hussein. Even Bush, who is normally impervious to uncomfortable facts, recently admitted that Iraq has peered into the abyss of civil war. He ought to look a little closer. Iraqis are fighting Iraqis. Insurgents have killed far more Iraqis than Americans. That's civil war.

Even Michael Yon is saying there is civil war going on in Iraq. The “civil war” going on now is a far cry different than total civil war that could occur if we left. I think that’s pretty self explanatory and not something we want to see. Is that so hard to accept?

• Withdrawal will encourage the terrorists. True, but that is the price we are doomed to pay. Our occupation of Iraq also encourages the killers — precisely because our invasion made Iraq safe for them. Our occupation also left the surviving Baathists with a choice: Surrender, or ally with Al Qaeda. They chose the latter. Staying the course will not change this fact. Pulling out will most likely result in Sunni groups' turning against Al Qaeda and its sympathizers, driving them out of Iraq.

Withdrawal will encourage the terrorists. The scenario played out above of Baathists fighting against Al Qaeda is possible. But I’m not sure how that then discourages the terrorists. We withdraw, the Baathists fight Al Qaeda and our reputation as a people who cut and run at the slightest sign of bog down disappears? I don’t think so. We cut and ran on Iraq after the first war. They don’t deserve it again.

• Before U.S. forces stand down, Iraqi security forces must stand up. The problem in Iraq is not military competence. The problem is loyalty. To whom can Iraqi officers and troops afford to give their loyalty? The political camps in Iraq are still shifting. So every Iraqi soldier and officer risks choosing the wrong side. As a result, most choose to retain as much latitude as possible to switch allegiances. All the U.S. military trainers in the world cannot remove that reality. But political consolidation will. Political power can only be established via Iraqi guns and civil war, not through elections or U.S. colonialism by ventriloquism.

Yes there is a little loyalty situation with Iraqi troops. But that doesn’t mean you just step aside and let half trained troops fight it out amongst themselves. You train them. You practice with them. You give them experience as you slowly reduce your numbers. That’s exactly what we are doing now. What makes it imperative to leave right now?? What’s the sudden hurry here? He doesn’t explain.

• Setting a withdrawal deadline will damage the morale of U.S. troops. Hiding behind the argument of troop morale shows no willingness to accept the responsibilities of command. The truth is, most wars would stop early if soldiers had the choice of whether to continue. This is certainly true in Iraq, where a withdrawal is likely to raise morale among U.S. forces. A recent Zogby poll suggests that most U.S. troops would welcome an early withdrawal deadline. But the strategic question of how to extract the United States from the Iraq disaster is not a matter to be decided by soldiers. Carl von Clausewitz spoke of two kinds of courage: first, bravery in the face of mortal danger; second, the willingness to accept personal responsibility for command decisions. The former is expected of the troops. The latter must be demanded of high-level commanders, including the president.

I don’t believe this has ever been offered as the main reason to stay. It’s a side reason and still a good one. Of course the troops want to come home. But the troops are the ones actually seeing progress and they want to see that. Note all the re-enlistments.

• Withdrawal would undermine U.S. credibility in the world. Were the United States a middling power, this case might hold some water. But for the world's only superpower, it's patently phony. A rapid reversal of our present course in Iraq would improve U.S. credibility around the world. The same argument was made against withdrawal from Vietnam. It was proved wrong then, and it would be proved wrong today. Since Sept. 11, 2001, the world's opinion of the United States has plummeted. The U.S. now garners as much international esteem as Russia. Withdrawing and admitting our mistake would reverse this trend. Very few countries have that kind of corrective capacity. We do.

I can’t say I’ve ever heard this reason either. Who cares? The only people that care about this are people who DON’T want us in Iraq and think that by leaving we’ll gain credibility.

Two facts, however painful, must be recognized, or we will remain perilously confused in Iraq. First, invading Iraq was not in the interests of the U.S. It was in the interests of Iran and Al Qaeda. For Iran, it avenged a grudge against Hussein for his invasion of the country in 1980. For Al Qaeda, it made it easier to kill Americans. Second, the war has paralyzed the U.S. in the world, diplomatically and strategically. Although relations with Europe show signs of marginal improvement, the transatlantic alliance still may not survive the war. Only with a rapid withdrawal from Iraq will Washington regain diplomatic and military mobility. Tied down like Gulliver in the sands of Mesopotamia, we simply cannot attract the diplomatic and military cooperation necessary to win the real battle against terror.

1- Invading Iraq did a number of things for us. It stopped whatever wmd programs Saddam would have re-started once the inspections teams were gone for good. It got us into the middle east and closer to the problems going on there. It helped Iraqi’s themselves who still say they are glad Saddam is gone. And it consolidated Al Qaeda into one place for easier pickings.
2- I don’t see that we’re paralyzed and he doesn’t explain what he’d like to see us doing. I don’t see why he thinks the transatlantic alliance won’t survive this war and he doesn’t explain that either. We haven’t had much diplomatic mobility since Reagan and event then he wasn’t listened to or trusted in the world. He did what he thought was best.

In fact, getting out now may be our only chance to set things right in Iraq. For starters, if we withdraw, European politicians would be more likely to cooperate with us in a strategy for stabilizing the greater Middle East.

A complete guess here! They haven’t agreed to anything, nor would they. They’ve said out loud they aren’t going to fight in Afghanistan.

Following a withdrawal, all the countries bordering Iraq would likely respond favorably to an offer to help stabilize the situation. The most important of these would be Iran. It dislikes Al Qaeda as much as we do. It wants regional stability as much as we do. It wants to produce more oil and gas and sell it. If its leaders really want nuclear weapons, we cannot stop them. But we can engage them.

Kind of like all of the countries in the Middle East are stepping up to help the Palestinians now that they can’t rely on us?

UPDATE: I want to throw in a re-cap. The bottom line here is that this guy is suggesting we leave now without any real good reason except that he has given up on the Iraqi's and our military. I don't know how this whole situation is going to play out in the end, but right now, the country just got a prime minister that they agreed on, they are in the midst of forming a new government (albeit slowly) and we are in the midst of bringing our troops home a little at a time. (Welcome back 37th Transcom! Soon) To suggest that we just up and leave is unconscionable in my opinion. And frankly, I have faith in the Iraqis and in our military. I still believe the master plan for democratizing Iraq because democracies don't generally harbor terrorists or attack at random is a good one.