June 23, 2006
Cutting and running, eventually
from - RSA
Eventually the U.S. will pull out of Iraq, and all the Republicans who are now accusing Democrats of favoring a "cut and run" strategy will have to perform an awkward flip-flop, saying that while it would have been cowardly to withdraw earlier, it's the honorable thing to do at whatever point we've reached.
Given the Bush administration's history, we have to think that American political considerations (rather than the reality in Iraq) will dominate the decision to withdraw from Iraq, if it happens before Bush leaves office. What are the possibilities for how the withdrawal plays out?
- Political pressure builds until Bush feels he has no choice but to start drawing down troops. He takes advantage of some minor piece of good news from Iraq and makes an unexpected announcement.
- Political pressure builds until Bush feels he has no choice but to start drawing down troops. He makes an unexpected announcement that commanders on the ground think withdrawal is appropriate.
- Bush sets up a set of political, social, and security conditions. As Iraq meets these conditions, troops are withdrawn.
Now, the last option is obviously something that a responsible administration would go for. I think that the first two are much more likely, however. It took me some time to come up with an explanation for why Bush seems unwilling to be explicit about what needs to happen in Iraq for us to leave. I think it's because until that happens, he's stuck saying that we're making incremental progress. If we had conditions against which we could measure progress, it would be much harder to put a happy face on our situation, which might go on for months or years. That would have bad political ramifications, which, after all, are Bush's main concern.
Posted by RSA at June 23, 2006 12:36 PM
I'd add 4.) The Iraqi government kicks us out.
That could happen if -
1.) They start questioning our motives for being there - not that they could avoid doubt already, but they have to at least put a brave face on and hope for the best, given their limited options.
2.) They become hostile to us in order to pacify the insurgency - not unlikely in my view. Right now it's a balancing act. The government is protected by Americans, but their association with Americans is a large part of what makes the gov't a target. With things like this, the public discontent (and therefore the strength of the insurgency) is likely to grow as time goes on and the Americans are still parked in their streets. Eventually they are likely to evaluate the situation in favor of appeasing the wrath of the insurgents in hopes of gaining enough popular support to survive the insurgency
3.) They "Bush set up a set of political, social, and security conditions", and as they are met, request American withdrawals. Now, wouldn't that be a can of worms?
Can of worms though it would be - if the Iraqis set such goals publicly - with aggressive target dates - pressuring the administration to at least make the motions of assisting with achieving them - and then gave us the boot as we did accomplish them (hopefully), or as we proved unmotivated to accomplish them, this would be the situation that would provide the least chance of a Cambodia-like outcome of the Iraq situation - especially if we did accomplish those objectives quickly.
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Posted by smijer on June 23, 2006 01:34 PM Link to comment |
Interesting addition, one that I didn't think of. I'd sort of assumed, I see now, that things would just keep on going along the same general lines, both politically (incremental/invisible progress) and in terms of violence. External pressure that included a downturn in Iraq could really pose serious problems for our presence there.
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Posted by RSA on June 23, 2006 02:40 PM Link to comment |
Paul, there's nothing in the Unitarian Secret Hand Book says you have to oppose any given war. If Saddam were like Hitler (and maybe he would have been had it not been for the UN Mandated coalition action in 1991), then I would agree with you.
Actually, besides his post-Iran-war agression, there was a time when he was engaged in mass murder. Fortunately, it was a narrowly targeted mass murder and didn't evolve into Hitler's holocaust in part because it was only meant to quell an uprising, and probably in part because of the safe haven created by the U.N. no-fly zone in the north. However, I would have agreed with you if you had wished to see intervention to stop that mass murder as it occurred. So, if Saddam had been hitler, and Iraq Germany - yes, I would agree with you.
And I agree with the sentiment that the civilized world cannot tolerate mass murder and military aggression. I hope that someday the U.S. government begins to feel that way, also - hopefully before it's too late for Darfur.
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Posted by smijer on June 23, 2006 08:08 PM Link to comment |
I'm not nearly as interested in a deadline for withdrawal as I am in some sort of plan for finishing the mission there, some sort of list of conditions that we're striving for or something. It would be nice if the president would say, "When A, B, and C happen, we'll leave" instead of "That, of course, is an objective and that will be decided by future presidents and future governments of Iraq."
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Posted by fdtate on June 24, 2006 12:53 AM Link to comment |
