Hey Iraq, How’s That Withdrawal Going?

I'll again repost what I think is a key comment on the likely civil conflict that is almost inevitable whenever we leave. It was written in Feb, 2007 and is as true now as it was then, and as true as it would be if we did indeed stay 100 years. About the warning that civil war would ensue if we "cut and run."

The Sunni-Shiite civil war
First, the United States is doing little, if anything, to restrain ethnic cleansing, either in Baghdad neighborhoods or Sunni and Shiite enclaves surrounding the capital… It is facile to assert that U.S. troops are restraining the death squads and religiously inspired killers on both sides. And it would be impossible for us to do so even with a much greater increase in American troops than the president [Bush] has called for…

Second, although battle lines are hardening and militias on both sides are becoming self-sustaining, the civil war is limited by physical constraints. Neither the Sunnis nor the Shiites have much in the way of armor or heavy weapons — tanks, major artillery, helicopters, and the like. Without heavy weaponry, neither side can take the war deep into the other’s territory… Shiites may have numbers on their side. But because the Sunnis have most of Iraq’s former army officers, and their resistance militia boasts thousands of highly trained soldiers, they’re unlikely to be overrun by the Shiite majority. Equally, the minority Sunnis won’t be able to seize Shiite parts of Baghdad or major Shiite cities in the south. Presuming neither side gets its hands on heavy weapons, once you take U.S. forces out of the equation the Sunnis and Shiites would ultimately reach an impasse.

Even if post-occupation efforts to create a new political compact among Iraqis fail, the most likely outcome is, again, a bloody Sunni-Shiite stalemate, accompanied by continued ethnic cleansing in mixed areas. But that, of course, is no worse than the path Iraq is already on under U.S. occupation.

http://greendreams.wordpress.com/2007/04/03/ira...

I simply believe that the U.S. military should pull out on schedule or even before, regardless of whether or not Iraq survives as the nation we had hoped for. I also believe that we should start thinking about pulling out of Afghanistan also. Our dealings with these two should come to an end.

We cannot hold up either of these countries if their people cannot or will not hold themselves up. The financial cost as well as damage to our military's morale and prestige is debilitating. It is making us weaker both in image and in fact, and, by defining what are weaknesses actually are to our adversaries or potential adversaries with nefarious goals in mind. Yes we have learned much about our military’s real ability as well. We had better take heed this hard lesson by making the appropriate changes in our foreign policy and by reassessing our military.

Being utterly unconcerned with national pride at this point, whether or not we are “leading” the world or other useless bragging rights, I believe we need to learn from this experience and apply what we have learned to making our nation stronger in all measurable areas. The reason is that there is no doubt in my mind that we will be tested again, probably sooner than we expect.

I do wish we could learn from our recent military adventures. We have proven to the world, and should have to ourselves, that we cannot militarily subdue even relatively backward second and third world nations, such as Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. We need to find more clever things to try, and I continue to believe that our best hope of avoiding further attacks is to become a model of problem solving outreach coupled with self reliance. Reducing our dependence on resources of troubled areas of the world is key. Let's face it. If we weren't a presence in the Middle East, the attention of hostile regimes would not be on us. In the case of Afghanistan, we should do what we failed to do in Iraq. Apply our financial might rather than military might, to employ Afghanis to rebuild their infrastructure, roads, schools, hospitals, water, electricity, sewer, etc. Become the force that is both employing them (placing them under our supervision) and helping them to rebuild, rather than being an "occupier." Then, contract Afghani farmers to grow food, flowers, even poppies, but for legal use. Replace the drug lords and warlords as sources of income and replace the black market agricultural economy with a legal one. Believe me, all this would cost way less than our current approach. For example, we have spent more than the lifetime incomes of all but the top 1% of Iraqis trying to subdue a desperately poor country with 60% unemployment. If we continue to put all our effort, blood and treasure into a failed method, we. are. fools.

GreenDreams, your reposted comment from 2007 is very interesting. It says: "It is facile to assert that U.S. troops are restraining the death squads and religiously inspired killers on both sides. And it would be impossible for us to do so even with a much greater increase in American troops than the president [Bush] has called for…"

Yet that is exactly what happened. We can debate how much credit goes to Iraqis and how much Coalition forces, but the bottom line is the worked together to accomplish exactly what critics said was impossible. By extension, the belief that conflict is inevitable when we withdraw is deeply flawed.

Father_Time, you write that "We cannot hold up either of these countries if their people cannot or will not hold themselves up. The financial cost as well as damage to our military's morale and prestige is debilitating."

Iraqis continue to make tremendous efforts to hold their country up. That is one of the principle reason things have improved so much since 2007. And that is why the cost to us for helping Iraq has gone down so dramatically.