I Vote for Dr. X's Victory Conditions
I thought it over, and I agree with Dr. X that we should leave Iraq when a democratically elected government asks us to.
Unfortunately, this doesn't appear to be the plan:
BBC NEWS: Bush outlines Iraq 'victory plan': "Mr Bush said victory would come 'when the terrorists and Saddamists can no longer threaten Iraq's democracy, when the Iraqi security forces can provide for the safety of their own citizens, and when Iraq is not a safe-haven for terrorists to plot new attacks on our nation'."
I'm afraid really means, "when the Iraqis elect a pro-U.S. government that won't be instantly overthrown when our troops leave." Which may be never, given how most Iraqis feel about what we've done for them.
posted by VMM at 9:40 PM
5 Comments:
Word.
To me, the benefit of the discussion as to whether to pull out is that it can crystallize a consensus as to what conditions under which we should pull out. (I kind of noticed nobody was talking about that before...)
I think they're getting ready for large troop reductions. The fact is, while these people don't appear rational, they really are. It's just that they are motivated strangely, making them appear irrational to normal people. Now that their personal power is threatened by the course of events, they will withdraw regardless of the consequences. It's a pure a calculus. D's will end up sucking wind a year from now. Mark my words.
Could have...but the prediction turned out to be wrong.
Picking up on a thread, personal ambition and ego drives war policy in this admnistration, which is why any reasonable objective set of conditions for victory/withdrawal cannot be met. Which is why I believe that Iraq could have been a sort of rough, Islamist parlimentary (like Iran -eergh) success but is highly unlikely to be in the next decade.
The Iraqi government is a green-zone illusion.
But that small cabal of American egos it is also why we will not be withdrawing, why we will not likely achieve a meangingful victory, and why our continued presence hurts the prospects of a decent outcome more than our leaving.
Our STATED strategy is to divide up our opponents in Sadaamists, anti-US rebels, and terrorists. The result of this has been civil war, now and later, and a forced rather than a rational U.S. withdrawl. Those huge US bases being built, the playforts of the neo-cons, will prove massive impediments to Iraqi stability.
All of this could have, and still in theory could be, avoided by any adminstration but this one, including I suspect the Nixon adminstration. But out of sheer arrogance we've pushed away the international community that might have made a decent outcome possible.
It's a truism that people prefer their own dictators to even decent colonial governments - As the Viceroy put it, I hate Bush but I don't want the Chinese invading and deposing him.
In this case, the sick and maybe unavoidable reality is that Iraqis might prefer their own vicious civil war to the present vicious civil war managed by the U.S.
But that leaves the question of what we should do. What I actually believe would create the best outcome now is a little counter-intuitive. It is also a total political fantasy.
I think we should massively step up troop deployments - perhaps double -for a VERY SHORT and definite period of six months, and BEG the UN, BEG OUR ALLIES TO FORGIVE US and send enough international troops to double the present total troop commitment; the purpose is singular, NOT "victory," but focused and acheivable security for a absolutely certain period, to create an unsustainable period of dominant security.
But in one year, the U.S. completes an orderly withdrawal and is gone, and our bases are ceded to U.N. control. An substantial international troop presence is maintained in one area as safety zone for civilians and for the shell of a government to grow into something with some hope of legitimacy.
I don't think there is a chance to achieve stability without security. But we are no longer capable of doing that alone - our presence is in fact destabilizing as much as it is stabilizing, probably more so the longer we are there.
Outside of a major, and now inconceivable, international troop deployment, the project as far as US control is concerned is lost, unless we are prepared to kill a lot more Iraqis than we have (the Lancet article -by the way- is standing up over time).
But there is a good parallel to Vietnam -and both Palestine and Israel - in this: you really can't kill enough people to eradicate a nationalist movement in a limited period of time.
Given your point that the war is ego-driven, which is hard to disagree with, it is still quite possible that Bush could declare victory (again) and withdraw US forces. Because losing elections is pretty bad for the ego, too.
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