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.