Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Bush's Iraq exit strategy-Failure is not an option. The tragedy, success may not be an option either
Jerusalem Post ^ | 11-13-03 | LARRY DERFNER

Posted on 11/12/2003 6:00:47 PM PST by SJackson

Iraq is turning out to be a tragedy of much greater depth than either the pro-war or anti-war camps, with their shallow certainties, are prepared to deal with.

Hardcore Western leftists still can't get interested in anything going on in that country except American "imperialism." Having endured the embarrassment of Iraqi jubilation at Saddam Hussein's ouster, they're back in the ballgame now with things going badly for the US, and they're raising their voices for immediate withdrawal.

Those who want to sound responsible say the US should hand the job over to an international force – as if any country that's stayed out of the fighting so far wants to send thousands of troops to Iraq now.

There are two main reasons why America can't withdraw from Iraq in the shape it's currently in. One is that this would give spectacular impetus to al-Qaida and the rest of the world jihad movement.

The second reason is that it would open the way to a bloodbath in which Iraqis who didn't oppose the US were slaughtered by those who did.

That's what happened to masses of Shi'ites and Kurds after the US finished up the 1991 Gulf War; for America to let that happen again, with the experience of 1991 behind it, would be just too great a crime.

So failure, as the Bush administration puts it, is not an option. The problem, though – the tragedy – is that success may not be an option, either.

What would have to happen for Iraq to be a success story? I'd say the country would have to become unfriendly territory for America's violent enemies, and be in strong enough and trustworthy enough Iraqi hands for the US to be able pull out its troops, or all but a relative few of them, in the knowledge that success was secure.

For the sake of brevity, if not precision, let's call that democracy.

It's nowhere in sight. There's a controversy on now about whether the strongest fighting force in the world can overcome the Iraqi resistance, but there's no controversy about whether moderate Iraqis can do it themselves. They'd survive about as long as the anti-communist regime in South Vietnam survived after the last US helicopter flew off: no time at all.

The consensus is to stay the course, to finish the job. But Iraq is getting harder for America, not easier. The guerrillas are getting bolder and more efficient. Fury at America, in Iraq and the rest of the Muslim world, is intensifying. The cost in blood and money is rising rapidly.

Unless the military and political trends in Iraq change in a big way, America's situation there will just worsen with time, not improve, while the consequences of pulling out will not become any less dreadful.

THIS HAS always been the biggest hole in Bush's war plan – the lack of an exit strategy. His generals could come up with a military plan to get rid of Saddam, and a military plan to pacify the country afterward, but nobody could come up with a political plan to prevent Iraq from reverting to form – or even worse – once American troops left.

For the US to go to war in Iraq, only for Iraq to fall back into the hands of the Ba'athists, or Islamic revolutionaries, or to explode in a civil war that could destabilize the Mideast, and in any event to be gored by the vengeance and savagery that an American withdrawal would unleash – this was not an option.

On the other hand, for the US to try to keep a lid on Iraq by occupying the country forever with masses of troops – this was not an option, either.

With all the worst, America-hating political forces vying for power in Iraq – as in the Arab world at large – how could Iraq be made to stand on its own two feet, more or less, as a peaceful country where Saddamists, al-Qaida and the rest of America's enemies were shut down?

Given the reality of the Middle East, it seemed impossible. But George W. Bush and his people don't take no for an answer, so with can-do spirit they envisioned a Middle East as they'd like it to be, and found their answer: Democracy.

Once Iraq became a democracy, it would naturally ally itself with America in the war against terror. Once Iraq became a democracy, it would be possible to declare mission accomplished and mean it, and bring the boys home.

But between Bush's natural cynicism about nation-building and his traumatic encounter with the Middle East on 9/11, not to mention his utter frustration with the Palestinians and the loathing he can't help but notice coming at him from the Arab and Muslim world, where does he suddenly come to believe that Iraq can be transformed into a stable democracy?

He doesn't believe it. Bush only talked himself into believing it because he had no choice – his war plan was short an exit strategy, so he took neoconservative advice and adopted democracy as his desperate excuse for one.

In truth, though, there is no exit strategy. America has no way to get out of Iraq without all hell breaking loose. So America digs in, and all hell is breaking loose. Like I said – a tragedy.

The writer is a veteran journalist.


TOPICS: Editorial; Extended News; Foreign Affairs
KEYWORDS: exitstrategy; iraq; rebuildingiraq; timeline

1 posted on 11/12/2003 6:00:47 PM PST by SJackson
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: SJackson
Civil war within Iraq IS an option. It's the most credible threat we have to use against the Sunnis and it just might make them see the light. We can disarm them, we can cut off their sources of supply and after that we will find out if they really want to fight the Kurds and Shias, who will be backed the the US if need be.

This could be very bloody but the tragedy will be mostly for the Sunnis if they want to keep fighting.
2 posted on 11/12/2003 6:13:33 PM PST by SBprone
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SJackson
The writer is a veteran journalist.
The writer is a blithering idiot.
3 posted on 11/12/2003 6:13:59 PM PST by Asclepius (karma vigilante)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Asclepius
One and the same, my man. One and the same.
4 posted on 11/12/2003 6:22:51 PM PST by vbmoneyspender
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: SBprone
Bingo - hardball is a tough game and those in the triangle who choose to play also choose their fate.
5 posted on 11/12/2003 6:29:30 PM PST by cdrw (Freedom and responsibility are inseparable)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: SJackson
Our plan is make Iraq the center of the war on terrorism, if everyone stops fighting and Al-Qada stopped flooding in and fighting us there, then we would have failed. I think its pure genius to have Iraq be the magnet that draws out the scum from under whatever rock they like to hide under. Our exit strategy is victory and a bunch of dead terrorist.
6 posted on 11/12/2003 7:04:51 PM PST by fontoon
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SJackson
They'd survive about as long as the anti-communist regime in South Vietnam survived after the last US helicopter flew off: no time at all.

If memory serves, North Vietnam was a discrete geopolitical entity with unhindered control over a large area, a standing army, and a constant supply of arms from China and the Soviet Union. The Iraqi insurgency is none of that.

7 posted on 11/12/2003 7:08:36 PM PST by Agnes Heep
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SBprone
Very good analysis.
8 posted on 11/12/2003 7:39:44 PM PST by 91B (Golly it's hot.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: Asclepius
I think the Jerusalem Post is Israel's New York Times.

This columnist is indeed blithering ...

What worries me is that defeatism is self-generating.

If we say "damn the torpedos" and get the media to Shut the h*** up for about a month - the terrorism would die. Terrorism requires terror. Terror requires 'marketing' of fear. That "marketing" depends on the media, the worlds most efficient peddlers of fear in the world ... that's why antacids are advertized during the nightly news.

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

9 posted on 11/12/2003 8:30:03 PM PST by WOSG
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: Agnes Heep
You are correct.

The idea that democracy in Iraq is far off is nonsense. It's a consitutional convention and one election off. Countries with less history of democracy than Iraq hav made it; Iraq had decades of constitutional monarchy before the baathists destroyed it.

The terrorists arent 'vying for power' they are just creating death and mayhem that harms reconstruction but doesnt suggest any alternative except anarchy.


10 posted on 11/12/2003 8:32:32 PM PST by WOSG
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: fontoon
Our exit strategy is victory and a bunch of dead terrorist.

Correct

Peace Through Victory!


11 posted on 11/12/2003 8:33:21 PM PST by WOSG
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: fontoon
Our plan is make Iraq the center of the war on terrorism, if everyone stops fighting and Al-Qada stopped flooding in and fighting us there, then we would have failed. I think its pure genius to have Iraq be the magnet that draws out the scum from under whatever rock they like to hide under. Our exit strategy is victory and a bunch of dead terrorist.

.I think you are absolutely right. That is why Bush says we want to fight them there instead of on our shores. Too bad so many are trying to hamper this effort.

12 posted on 11/12/2003 8:35:17 PM PST by ladyinred (Talk about a revolution, look at California!!! We dumped Davis!!!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: SJackson
You can always tell a closet Marxist/anti-American/anti-war creep. No matter what they say that sounds vaguely positive, somewhere in there will be the call for "an exit strategy", knowing full-well that any administration "exit strategy" would, of course, be SECRET!!!!!

In general it would be: Kill bad guys. Come home.

13 posted on 11/12/2003 8:43:58 PM PST by Deb (My Tag Skies to Gotham & Con-Fabs With Net Prexies)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SJackson
I for one am overjoyed - and incredulous - to see American foreign policy directed at establishing governments of our own form, instead of shoring up tin-pot dictators and tyrants on behalf of American business interests.

If the Iraqis are too stupid to appreciate what we're offering them, I'll be happy to see them die like flies in a civil war which they will then roundly deserve.

Moreover, if we fail, and another tyrant emerges, I probably won't be around to see it, but if I am, I'll be happy to see history repeat itself and watch American troops smear Iraqi idiots all over the desert *again* - and give them *another* (by then undeserved) chance.

Succeed or fail, it's great seeing us try to export our own ideology for a change, instead of just reacting to the threat of Communism, Naziism, etc. etc. ad nauseum - I just wish that in the case of Iraq we would confiscate their oil to pay for it all.

(Did the French every pay their war debt, which they incurred for our having liberated them, by the way?)

14 posted on 11/13/2003 12:37:08 AM PST by fire_eye
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SJackson
My view is it would better to break up Iraq into three independent states and ally ourselves with the Kurds and Shiites and clamp containment on the Arab Sunnis in the Baghdad area. It far more preferable to trying to keep an artificial country united against the will of most of its inhabitants and either facing a bloodbath of those we helped to liberate from our enemies or occupying Iraq forever. As a path, it may be a far cry from our ideal of keeping Iraq intact as a single state but its definitely better than the unpleasant alternatives that we're facing.
15 posted on 11/13/2003 12:49:21 AM PST by goldstategop (In Memory Of A Dearly Beloved Friend Who Lives On In My Heart Forever)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: goldstategop
I think you're right, though a Inlamic state in the south might have been a distinct possibility.

There have been a number articles posted here on three state (and two state, Kurdistan in the North, Hashemite state in the rest of the country), but I don't think I've ever seen the concept discussed by anyone in the administration.

16 posted on 11/13/2003 7:04:36 AM PST by SJackson
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies]

To: WOSG
I think the Jerusalem Post is Israel's New York Times.

You are incorrect. Jerusalem Post is a cente/right-wing newspaper in Israel. It is not part of the mainstream either.

This is an opinion piece, not an official article or editorial of the Jerusalem Post.

17 posted on 11/13/2003 11:24:25 AM PST by yonif ("If I Forget Thee, O Jerusalem, Let My Right Hand Wither" - Psalms 137:5)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

Comment #18 Removed by Moderator

To: Deb
Oops, forget my comment. I am responding to the wrong thread! :)
19 posted on 11/13/2003 11:31:24 AM PST by yonif ("If I Forget Thee, O Jerusalem, Let My Right Hand Wither" - Psalms 137:5)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 13 | View Replies]

To: SJackson
The writer is a veteran journalist.

Is "veteran journalist" a synonym for "idiot"?

Shalom.

20 posted on 11/13/2003 11:37:02 AM PST by ArGee (Would human clones work better than computers? Both would be man-made.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson