If You Don’t Know What To Do - Admit It
July 11th, 2007
By Michael van der Galien
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Thomas Friedman writes:
When it comes to Iraq, September will be coming early this year — like now.
Democrats, and a growing number of Republicans, are determined not to wait until September for the president to report on whether the surge is working. The American people have had enough. They want out. As we move into the endgame, though, the public needs to understand that neither Republicans nor Democrats are presenting them with a realistic strategy.
Obviously, President Bush’s stay-the-course approach is bankrupt. It shows no signs of producing any self-sustaining — and that is the metric — unified, stable Iraq. But the various gradual, partial withdrawal proposals by many Democrats and dissident Republicans are not realistic either. The passions that have been unleashed in Iraq are not going to accommodate some partial withdrawal plan, where we just draw down troops, do less patrolling, more training and fight Al Qaeda types. It’s a fantasy.
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.
As evidence for his thesis, Friedman cites the strategy the British pursued in Basra. They “slowly receded into a single base at Basra airport.” The result? “The void has been filled by a vicious contest for power among Shiite warlords, gangs and clans, and British troops are still being killed whenever they venture out.”
What, then, can be done? Well, according to Friedman there are only two possible approaches / plans: a total withdrawal or “all in.” The downsides of the “all in” approach: Iraqis will continue to kill each other, American troops suffer more than the Iraqi forces, the Iraqis will never learn to work with each other, because they know that - in the end - the Americans will be there.
The downsides of the “total withdrawal”: massive slaughter. If you think what we see now is bad, wait until what happens if the US withdraws all its forces from Iraq. Quite a downside of course, although the Democrats will argue - domestically - that they cannot be held responsible because it was “Bush’s war” and because the Iraqi government did not do its part. Of course, the only people who will agree with the Democrats are… Democrats, or at least only Americans. Trust me - I’m speaking as a foreigner here: if the US withdraws from Iraq and if that will result in genocide / mass ethnic cleansing, the world will blame the US.
Every country in the Middle East will blame the US. Every European country - except for the British - will blame the US. Every South American country will blame the US and so on and on.
According to Friedman, the withdrawal plan has four advantages…
Read more at my own blog.
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