by Hale Champion
Why doesn’t anybody except me know how to deal effectively with the insurgency in Iraq and domestic American politics at the same time?
With President Bush, the answer is clear: He’s been wrong about Iraq from the start, making one horrendous mistake after another. American political opinion finally seems to have begun (a little late, unfortunately) to catch up with the reality of Iraq, but Bush is still stuck with defending the indefensible. (See his speech from October 6th.)
Within my own Democratic Party, the failure of leadership on Iraq is a little more understandable, but still not defensible. Democratic leaders blew the 2004 election because they were afraid that the Republicans would say they were afraid. Democrats tried to finesse the issue, and the GOP successfully attacked them for ineffectual timidity.
We Democrats have another chance coming in the 2006 Congressional elections, partially because Bush and his House and Senate allies are in deep trouble on other fronts: cronyism; corruption; incompetence; Karina; the mounting deficit; their overreach in the Terri Schiavo case; their lack of accountability on Abu Ghraib – you name it.
But in order to get back into the governing business, Democrats must start dealing directly and openly with the issues that matter most to the press and public – especially Iraq.
And all it would take is a modicum of courage in dealing with one small phrase: “cutting and running.”
People who know a lot more than I do about Iraq (and there are more than a few) may well be able to offer refinements or enhancements to the scheme I am about to suggest. In dealing with the basic problem, however – which is how to cope simultaneously with Iraq’s violent insurgency and America’s volatile political dynamics – I’m satisfied that that my prescription is, fundamentally, what we need.
Here’s my proposal to any senior Democrat who’s ready to take the lead for the rest of us:
Begin by declaring right now that, if you had the authority, you would move half of our existing force in the Iraq theater of operations (roughly 75,000 out of 150,000) back to the U.S. within six months of the upcoming vote on the Iraqi constitution (October 15th). To the extent possible, National Guard units would be given first priority for orders home.
You would promise that the U.S. would begin this drawdown no matter how the Iraqis vote either in the October referendum or in the subsequent December elections.
Such a declaration would not only please a lot of Americans but give Iraqis, especially the Sunnis, the maximum incentive to solve their differences reasonably – both in political and military-security terms. If they don’t get that done in six months, the chances are that they won’t get it done in six years. In fact, our being there won’t speed up the process – but our promise to get out probably will. Our only continuing commitment would be to make sure that whatever goes on in the Sunni Triangle stays there.
That’s my initial proposal for cutting. Now here’s what I mean about not running:
We would tell the Kurds that we will assure their long-term protection by leaving one fourth of our current Iraq contingent (30 to 40 thousand troops) in Kurd-controlled areas – whether those areas remain part of an Iraqi federation or become an independent Kurdish state. That protection would extend to continuing Kurdish control of the Kirkuk oilfields, a status quo relationship with Turkey and the provision of any help the Kurds might need with respect to the adjacent Sunnis, Syria or anybody else. (Our presence among the Kurds would include substantial airpower as well as ground troops.)
Finally, we would move the remaining fourth of our Iraq contingent into Afghanistan where, with the growing help of NATO, we could finish the vital jobs that were interrupted by our untimely Iraq venture. Those jobs include helping the Karzai government deal not only with the remnants of the Taliban but with insubordinate warlords (who are all too often druglords as well).
I hope it is clear from these proposals that, rather than running, we would be putting ourselves in a position to deal from strength rather than weakness, and would be operating from and within areas that remain essential to our efforts to stabilize the entire region. From Israel to Kurdistan to Afghanistan, we would be in a new and infinitely superior position to deal with Middle Eastern and Central Asian problems, especially compared to where we are now, with 150,000 troops tied down in or around the Sunni Triangle (a region that is unlikely to stabilize no matter what happens militarily or politically in Iraq as a whole).
If legitimately elected Shiites (exclusive of would-be strongman Muqtada al-Sadr) want our help, we’d be close by. If we wanted to make further efforts to catch Osama bin Laden or Omar Mullah or any of al Qaeda’s thousands of Number Two and Three men, we’d have bases from which to operate. We’d also be close enough with adequate strike capability to keep Iran from getting too comfortable or Pakistan getting too restless.
This is not a suggestion that we establish a permanent “Imperialism Lite” for the region. We would go only where we were wanted and needed, and we would stay only for as long as both those conditions held true.
I’m sure that there are many tweaks, modifications and enhancements that ought to be made to this plan before and while it is implemented, but you get the idea: Cut, but don’t run.
If, in a radical departure from his past behavior, Bush himself chose to accept and act upon this good advice from outside his shrinking circle of cronies and sycophants, that wouldn’t be so bad. However, in the highly unlikely event that Bush did adopt some version of this strategy, he’d have to add one more element: fire Rumsfeld and Company. Up to now, all we’ve seen from them is minimal (and often poor) planning with terrible execution. What we really need is a Defense Secretary with a record of success in these kinds of missions and the kind of bipartisan respect that would give him credibility to act decisively and move quickly. (One of our recently retired generals might be up to the job – especially one not compromised by participation in the current fiasco.)
I don’t think Bush is capable of changing course – but I do think the public is capable of understanding that we need new choices and directions in Iraq – and in the entire region. If the Democrats can supply those choices, that will go a long way to establishing their credentials as a party that not only stands against Bush, but offers specific and compelling alternatives to his policies.
We should not leave the subject of cutting without running in Iraq without recalling that the all of these nations and peoples were once subjects of the ancient Persian Empire. According to legend , it was in that empire – at a site not so far from the modern border between Iraq and Turkey – that Alexander the Great was presented with the apparently impossible challenge of the Gordian knot.
If you look up the phrase “to cut the Gordian knot” in the 1976 American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, you’ll find the following definition: “to solve a problem by resorting to prompt and bold measures.” Sounds about right to me.
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