Tom Friedman says ‘In or Out’ while Stephen Biddle says ‘Go Deep or Get Out’. It’s strange to see two different people make the same argument on the same day…one in the New York Times and one in the Washington Post. They agree that it makes no sense to stay in Iraq with less troops. Either we ramp it up, or we should completely bug out. No half measures. No compromise solutions. It’s true that Friedman makes an exception for Kurdistan (and I tentatively agree), but they both are adamant that we not stick around with some half-ass plan to train Iraqi troops or hunt terrorists.
I’m glad they are making that point. I think Biddle put it best.
Moderation and centrism are normally the right instincts in American politics, and many lawmakers in both parties desperately want to find a workable middle ground on Iraq. But while the politics are right, the military logic is not.
I saw Sen. Mark Pryor on the Senate floor today pleading with his colleagues to not take party-line votes on an issue as important as Iraq. He wanted them to embrace Sen. Salazar’s mealy-mouthed do-nothing compromise amendment. It’s a nice sentiment, but it isn’t happening and it shouldn’t happen. One side in this debate must win and win decisively.
But I want to talk about something else that Friedman touched on. In discussing the advantages of leaving Iraq he discussed Iran.
Fourth, we will restore our deterrence with Iran. Tehran will no longer be able to bleed us through its proxies in Iraq, and we will be much freer to hit Iran — should we ever need to — once we’re out. Moreover, Iran will by default inherit management of the mess in southern Iraq, which, in time, will be an enormous problem for Tehran.
Before you throw up your hands and say ‘Great. No matter what we do we wind up making an attack on Iran more likely’, hear me out.
Iran is not all the horrible things that its worst detractors like to allege. But they are definitely not our friends. They are not friendly with our Arab allies. And I don’t think they have any more ability to control Iraq than we have. If we want to screw Iran we can do little better than to put the entire mess in Iraq directly in their laps. Pulling out should weaken Iran and tie them down, while restoring our deterrent credibility when it comes to convincing them to cooperate with the IAEA and other international efforts to prevent them from becoming another nuclear power.
Even if you could care less whether Iran has a nuclear bomb and don’t think that the international community has any right to tell them what to do, a strengthened America and a weakened Iran will make it less likely that hawks will resort to nukes of our own. Bush has done severe damage to the entire framework of collective security and non-proliferation, but we might be able to correct that over time.
In any case, I think there is serious doubt about whether Iran will benefit from a U.S. withdrawal. I think they will suffer. And I believe al-Qeada elements will be decimated by Iraqis in short order and go fleeing back to Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Friedman makes one other point that we have to take seriously.
The minute we start to withdraw, all hell will break loose in the areas we leave, and there will be a no-holds-barred contest for power among Iraqi factions. Our staying there with, say, half as many troops, will not be sustainable…
…Getting out, on the other hand, means more ethnic, religious and tribal killings all across Iraq. It will be one of the most morally ugly scenes you can imagine — no less than Darfur. You will see U.S. troops withdrawing and Iraqi civilians and soldiers who have supported us clinging to our tanks for protection as we rumble out the door.
This is echoed by Biddle:
Without a major U.S. combat effort to keep the violence down, the American training effort would face challenges even bigger than those our troops are confronting today.
The American combat presence in Iraq is insufficient to end the violence but does cap its intensity. If we draw down that combat presence, violence will rise accordingly.
The post-occupation Iraq will definitely be as ‘morally ugly’ as anything we’ve seen since Bosnia and Serbia went toe to toe. And we do not want to be sitting around in bases in the country doing nothing but watching the rotten fruits of our fantasies.
I can see a limited role for troops in Kurdistan as a way to prevent Turkey from invading (they have mobilized 140,000 troops to the border this week). Other than that, we should just get out. And that is what the Democrats should insist on.
