With word coming out today that Iraq is expected to request several thousand trainers but no troops after the end of 2011 we take another step on the slow process of getting out of Iraq. A similar road is being followed in Afghanistan although there it looks like we won’t be out until 2012 or 2013.
Of course as is always the case with briar patches the withdrawal may not be as easy as we hope. Many are objecting to the decisions saying they are moving to quickly while others say that the timetables need to be acclerated so that we are out of both countries by the end of the year.
My personal view is to ask why it has taken so long to get here in the first place.
In the interests of full disclosure I did support the move into Afghanistan because I felt that it was important to eliminate the base of support for Al Qaeda. I more reluctantly supported the invasion of Iraq because I believed that Saddam posed a real security threat to the West. His support for terror groups and his goal of obtaining WMD’s was, I felt, sufficient to justify the invasion.
However in both cases my support was for an invasion, not a long term occupation program. A basic model would have been what happened in Germany after World War Two. The first phase of liberation went fairly quickly in both cases so the transiation should have done the same.
In the case of Germany the time from the end of the war to self government was about 4 years. In the case of Iraq and Afghanistan we moved to elections even more quickly than that with both countries holding elections by 2004. Once those elections were held the process of governing should have been turned over to the local governments and the UN brought in to provide assistance as needed.
Certainly a smaller force might have needed to remain for a few more years to help the new government take hold but there is no reason all forces should not have been removed by 2008. Indeed by keeping the troops in place we gave (and give) the locals an excuse for not taking over things themselves.
However all this is water under the bridge and there isn’t anything we can do to change it. What we do need to do is make sure that the current process continues. I am reminded of the fact that our presence in Vietnam originally involved ‘advisors’ and am accordingly troubled by keeping ‘trainers’ in place in Iraq.
The reasons for my concern are, I assume, obvious. Once you have those people in place they become a natural target and that then leads to the need for more troops to ‘protect the trainers’. In Afghanistan we still have plans for troops to remain for another year or more, and then presumably will go the ‘trainer’ route.
It is for this reason that I would prefer to see the troops in Afghanistan and the trainers in Iraq to be moved out as fast as possible. Certainly it is possible that military necessity requires a slower process than I would like but I would have to think we could get both countries cleared out in the near future.
I know there are some who suggest that withdrawing forces from these countries will be a risk to our national security but I find that hard to accept. I just cannot see the locals fighting against our forces in Iraq or Afghanistan hopping on planes and flying to the US to engage in terror efforts.
I do agree that it is important to keep an eye on things, but that can be accomplished with much smaller forces than we have now, and indeed could be accomplished primarily via intelligence operations. Any signs of a serious risk could be dealt with by air strikes and, if needed, short term military operations. But maintaining long term troop deployments does not seem necessary to me.
Another argument made against withdrawing our forces is the need to maintain a troop presence in the region to deal with emergencies. But in this age of rapid deployment I don’t think we need to keep up the cold war concept of major forces on site around the world.
Again, I am willing to accept a small force in place somewhere in the region, but it would seem that Pakistan is a workable site for such deployment. Not only would this put us in a place where we would be less likely to get shot at but we could keep an eye on our erstwhile allies.
In a time where we are dealing with major budgetary issues it seems to me that a rapid wrapup of our forces in Iraq and Afghanistan (as well as keeping our men OUT of Libya) could provide a portion of the solution.
In the classic musical 1776 John Adams, frustrated by their refusal to declare independence, turns to the delgates of the Continental Congress and asks “What The Hell Are You Waiting For ?”
I might direct the same query to President Obama and our military leaders.
Bring them home… what the hell are we waiting for ?