Obama: Mostly Out of Iraq
I’ve made no secret of the fact that I opposed the Iraq war from the beginning and still seek the quickest, safe, sane exit from that area which can be managed. With this in mind, I was glad to see that Barack Obama took the time to pen an editorial in the New York Times providing (at least some) details of his plans for our involvement in that region. Unlike many of his detractors, I have not seen a vast amount of “flip flopping” on the subject by Obama beyond some of the usual political shifts in details which always seem to come up. He certainly opposed the surge initially, but is now recognizing the military gains from it and the current improvements in stability in the country. His plan will still call for a phased withdrawal from Iraq with room for adjustment based on conditions on the ground and input from our military commanders. There was one section of the plan, however, which gave me pause. (Emphasis mine.)
As I’ve said many times, we must be as careful getting out of Iraq as we were careless getting in. We can safely redeploy our combat brigades at a pace that would remove them in 16 months. That would be the summer of 2010 — two years from now, and more than seven years after the war began. After this redeployment, a residual force in Iraq would perform limited missions: going after any remnants of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, protecting American service members and, so long as the Iraqis make political progress, training Iraqi security forces.
The idea of a small “residual force” remaining behind sounds problematic right out of the gate. Since I’m not nearly as much of an expert on the region as other home-grown pundits seem to think they are, I was pleased to see that Juan Cole had problems with the same passage and addressed it.
That suggestion is not plausible for several reasons. If there is only a small force in the country, who will rescue them if their helicopter gets shot down or they are ambushed and besieged? Then, how would a small American unit be any good against a terrorist organization operating in remote parts of Sunni Iraq? They don’t know Arabic, can’t hope for really good intelligence from locals, etc. Wouldn’t it be more efficient to let the Special Police Commandos of the Iraqi Interior Ministry take care of this sort of thing?
Thanks for doing the heavy lifting, Professor. I’ll second those questions and concerns. In fact, Juan sums it up nicely later in his article:
The way to get out of Iraq is to get out of Iraq.
That’s it in a nutshell. There are a separate set of issues surrounding the redeployment of our troops to Afghanistan, and they all address the hard questions (which we initially failed to do in Iraq) of what exactly we plan to accomplish and how we will identify when we have achieved those ends. If we are going in to continue pursuing the perpetrators of 9/11 and their associates, this is an important job which needs to be fully supported, resourced and equipped. If they plan on “winning” Afghanistan and having democracy flower across the region, let’s just call it a day and leave now. Both candidates need to sit down for a long chat with some old Russian generals before charting that course. You can also reference Juan Cole’s linked article for more on that.
The Loyal Opposition: Over at Hot Air, my friend Ed Morrissey has a completely different take on it and, as usual, we disagree on virtually every point. He makes a fuss over Obama’s 16 month estimate, stating that it will take longer just to get all of the equipment out. (And, apparently, if he can’t do it in the exact time span of 16 months then the plan is fruitless and Obama should not be trusted with it.) My response to this argument is the same as to people who claim we shouldn’t start drilling for more domestic oil resources because it will take seven years before we see any return. If you don’t start, you will never finish. Timetables don’t have to be written in stone. If it takes longer than sixteen months – be it 24 or 32 or whatever – just get started. The journey of a thousand steps, etc. etc. The goal is what counts, and the way to get out of Iraq is to get out of Iraq.
14 Responses to “Obama: Mostly Out of Iraq”
[...] II: My good friend Jazz Shaw shows how to disagree without becoming disagreeable while he “disagree[s] on virtually every [...]
The proposal for the small strike force has been in there waaaaaaaaaay since the beginning…it didn't make sense at that time either. Well it makes even less sense now. See originally the idea was that they could do strikes against Al Qaeda in Iraq, but now that organization has been almost completely destroyed.
I think originally he said around 10-20k troops. Their main job would be to protect the embassy and do training of forces. Notice all the qualifiers in that sentence: “remnants” and “so long as…” In a way it sounds like the main purpose is to just have the option to keep them there if he wants (and say he always supported it) or take them out and say that his conditions for them being there aren't being met. It seems pretty smart politically speaking, and perhaps tactically as well. Even if it doesn't make a lot of sense now to want to keep them there.
Excellent analysis.
Thanks for the post.
I like Obama more and more – for all the reasons he's most criticized about.
He's flexible and pragmatic, something absolutely necessary if we are ever to leave Iraq and the region gracefully.
The problem with alQaeda, whether in Iraq, or Afghanitan/Pakistan is that it moves around. Chased out of Iraq , it moved to the tribal regions of Pakistan and is likely to make a reverse migration if NATO is successful in the latter. That tnedency to migrate to the weakest spot is how it landed in Iraq in the first place.
We held a funeral for the Taliban much too early and we are doing the same now for alQaeda in Iraq. Having a strike force on the spot makes perfect sense in fast changing circumstances.
I don't care how many times Obama ajdusts, refines or remains opaque on details, as long as he is flexible enough to react to changes while keeping his main goal of leaving Iraq firmly in place as his main goal.
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runasim: be very careful in making generalizations. Al Qaeda means “The Foundation” for a reason and that is that it was always meant to be more of a guiding principle as much as a put together group. Al Qaeda in Iraq might have gotten some financing from the Afghan/Pakistani group and PR help, but they aren't the same organization with the same command structure. In fact, the centralized command was very wary of blessing any group in Iraq as official “Al Qaeda” because they didn't want to be that associated with Shia vs Sunni violence (for some reason even though one of their main goals is eradication of Shiites at some point).
In essence I'm saying that to view an Al Qaeda affiliated group anywhere in the world as just “moving around” isn't very accurate as a lot of times the people are completely different with different localized aims. The central command just trains and funds the local groups to run their own semi-independent structure.
Jazz, nice analysis and a good find since I ignored the news this weekend for family needs and missed this article.
First the Dems, including Obama, is accused of wanting to surrender Iraq – anyone remember “Surrender Monkys?”, now they are being accused for wanting a sane exit from Iraq with some troops left behind. Next they'll complain that his plan isn't “detailed” enough meanwhile not detailing their own plan either.
I'm with Runasim, Obama's pragmatic approach to Iraq and many other issues seems the best move.
Mikkel,
i apprecite your point about alQaeda not being one unified force. i think, however, the foot soldiers go to whereever the action is, and the structure and financing is less important to them than the basic ideology They attach themselves to whatever and whereever leadership is available.
“the foot soldiers go to whereever the action is”
I disagree. The “officers” might go where the action is, but if you look at most of the people doing the fighting they are either locals or from the immediately surrounding countries. That's kind of how the whole structure is supposed to work, where leaders are dispersed and build up local apparatuses. For Al Qaeda in Iraq there was one point where the vast majority of members were Iraqi, even though all the leaders were foreigners. Then as they fell out of favor and the allied Sunni groups broke away they were forced to import foreigners as fighters, which enabled the Iraqis to clearly identify them.
I don't think it's just semantics either as it suggests two things: one, that in order to diminish the Al Qaeda influence you should focus on local issues and two, that in order to stop the spread there are a relatively small number of people that should be targeted rather than worrying about mass arrests.
I read this today at lunchtime. It was a nice piece, be it actually written by Obama or written by his team (speech makers). (Doesn't matter; his name is on it.)
“… as careful leaving Iraq as we were careless in entering Iraq”: Actually, the true entry, the war, went off fine; it has been the occupation that has been screwed up so badly. It's something of a cheap shot but the meaning is good and I bet it hit home.
“a residual force in Iraq”
Anathema to the anti-war-and-US-success crowd, and I hope it doesn't fall prey to the “revolution in military affairs plus war on the cheap” view that Rumsfeld had. I hope the troops taken out of Iraq are redeployed to Afghanistan (or rotated first back here for a break) to be used against targets not only in Afghanistan but in the frontier zone of Pakistan as needed.
The oil fields likely need to be guarded so that they don't fall into terrorist hands.
They're a target the moment we begin to leave, sadly.
Mikkel,
I still disagree about he foot soldiers: Syrians in Gaza. and Jordan, etc.,multi-national .splinter groups in London, Lybians all over the place.
You are correct in that I should be more precise when i refer to alQaeda. I just don't know what term should be used for these traveling malcontents. They could attach themselves to alQaeda here and to something else there.
As to Iraq, you are describing, correctly, the situation as it is at this moment. The thing about Iraq and the ME, though, is that any moment is in danger of lasting only a moment. Sunni cohesion against alQaeda is paid for by the US, and that's a nebulous thing to depend on.
When allegience is tribal, it can shift quickly according to changing circumstances. The tribes in Pakistan make and break deals left and right. The Taliban there (local) gets along pretty well with alQaeda (foreign), for example..
One thing that makes iraq and its tribes unstable is the unresolved sectarian conflict. Iraqis are caught beteen irreconcilable urges: a) to maintian an iraqi identity and b) to serve the interests of their tribes and reliigious factions.
It will be a long time before all that gets sorted out, and I think it would be dangerous to rest on the laurels of any one moment or to predict the future from an accidental occurence (the confluence of the surge and its new tactics with Sunni revulsion at alQaeda Iraq).
I think that our differing viewpoints is because we are using “foot soldiers” differently. If you're talking about the presence in Jordan, Gaza, Lebanon, Europe, etc. well then yes I agree with you. But I consider those terrorist cells and foot soldiers to me implies more conventional fighting.
In Somalia for instance there are Al Qaeda affiliated groups that are major combat players, and the same in Afghanistan/Pakistan. Those are the only places (and to an extent Iraq) where Al Qaeda groups are hitting the street every day with arms and specific missions. They do terrorist attacks to further their combat/political adjectives, but they don't sit around planning for months. And those are the types that we supposedly have to stay or else they'll stake over. Although you make a good point that a lot of the “affiliates” are often times tribes that have their allegiance committed wholesale. That and “criminals” who are recruited.
I think that our differing viewpoints is because we are using “foot soldiers” differently. If you're talking about the presence in Jordan, Gaza, Lebanon, Europe, etc. well then yes I agree with you. But I consider those terrorist cells and foot soldiers to me implies more conventional fighting.
In Somalia for instance there are Al Qaeda affiliated groups that are major combat players, and the same in Afghanistan/Pakistan. Those are the only places (and to an extent Iraq) where Al Qaeda groups are hitting the street every day with arms and specific missions. They do terrorist attacks to further their combat/political adjectives, but they don't sit around planning for months. And those are the types that we supposedly have to stay or else they'll stake over. Although you make a good point that a lot of the “affiliates” are often times tribes that have their allegiance committed wholesale. That and “criminals” who are recruited.