An Iraq Strategy for the Future

The situation which America now faces in Iraq may be illumined by an ancient writing: the prophecy of Amos. In describing the hoped for Day of the Lord, he wrote:

"Alas for you who desire the day of the Lord!
Why do you want the day of the Lord?
It is darkness, not light;
as if someone fled from a lion,
and was met by a bear;
or went into his house and
rested a hand against the wall,
and was bitten by a snake" (Amos 5:18-19).

Instead of the glorious victory that people thought the Day of Lord would bring, Amos saw only unpalatable and intractable alternatives. You flee from the lion and the bear meets you; you rest your hand against a wall and the snake bites you. Everywhere you turn you face peril and uncertainty and darkness. No truer words could be said about the current situation in Iraq. Yet, the pressure is growing for some kind of "solution" to come forward. Indeed, the pressure is almost unbearable. Even the President has now admitted that we cannot any longer "stay the course," whatever that means. Even Republicans who should have been predictable allies of the President (e.g., Henry Kissinger) have contradicted their President by saying that the war is not "winnable." Thus, something is in the "air," even though we don't know yet if what we are breathing is noxious fumes or pure oxygen. This essay describes some of the options available at this point, and suggests that before anything is done, the American people should be made aware of what good the American presence in Iraq is doing now. First, however, an ironic historical note.

One Historical Irony

When America first invaded Iraq on January 17, 1991, about six months after Iraq had, without provocation, invaded its oil-rich neighbor Kuwait, the concern in the Congress was that Iraq not become "another Viet Nam." Policy makers were still haunted by the ghosts of Viet Nam (i.e., the danger that once you get "in," you may never be able to get "out" until thousands of troops had been killed and you have to engage in an ignominious retreat). And the threats were seemingly all around us. But, maybe surprisingly, the Iraq Republican Guard folded like a bad poker hand and American policy makers were confronted with the problem of whether to go to Baghdad and replace Saddam Hussein. Perhaps aware of the maxim, first articulated by Colin Powell, that if you break it you take it, the first President Bush decided that he really didn't want to own Iraq. Thus, after a decisive victory in 1991, the American troops retreated, with ample troops at the ready to monitor Saddam's reluctant (or nonexistent) compliance with UN Resolutions.

When 2003 rolled around, the United States thought that it therefore had exorcised the ghosts of the Viet Nam experience. We would not get ourselves involved in a quagmire against an uncertain enemy for ideological reasons. Surely the First Gulf War of 1991 had taught us this. We had "gotten beyond" the experience of Viet Nam. I suppose one of the reasons President GW Bush rushed to proclaim victory in May 2003 was that by doing so he not only could boost his poll numbers but he could hammer the last nail in the coffin of any lingering ghosts of Viet Nam. After all, we had won this war; Viet Nam, be thou cast into the Gadarene swine! The only problem with ghosts, however, is that they are not confined to coffins; they don't die when pigs jump into the sea. Their wispy presence escapes from those confines, and they return to torment those who thought they had put them to rest.

And so the ghosts of Viet Nam rose again, principally in the United States' (excuse me, the multi-national) strategy on troop levels in reconstruction Iraq. We would send in about 120,000-140,000 troops to aid the reconstruction of the country. But because we disarmed/dismissed the Baathist officers of Saddam's army, there really was no Iraqi military left to "take over." We would have to start from scratch and build, if not a new world order, then a new Middle Eastern world order. The only problem is that in order to do the job correctly, we probably needed twice that number of troops. That, at least, is the assessment of loads of nonpartisan analysts. But my contention is that the ghosts of Viet Nam still were alive and would not let us have a force of that magnitude in Iraq after 2003. It would be too reminiscent of our experience in Southeast Asia. Thus, we have limped along for 3 1/2 years until we find ourselves in a situation where everyone now says we must change course. But, what shall we do?

Before We Get to Alternatives

The popular wisdom now is that we have three choices. We can dramatically increase the American forces, with a goal of training enough Iraqi police and army forces by the end of 2007, and then gradually start to wind down the War. John McCain has staked out this position. Then, there is the "keep things as they are" strategy, which calls for a large and relatively permanent (at least six year) presence in Iraq until the slow work of building a democracy takes hold. Finally, there is a plan, supported by Senator Obama (D-IL) which calls for gradual withdrawal of US troops, commencing in mid-2007, and being completed sometime after the Presidential elections in 2008. I cannot say at this point whether I favor any of the plans, but I will suggest that before we even get to them, that someone, somewhere take the opportunity to lay out precisely what the American troops are doing, what the new troops would be charged with doing, and how the withdrawal of troops will lead to a stabilized Iraq. That is, I want to see a convincing explanation of what we are doing in Iraq now. Until someone, like the Iraq Study Group (the highest profile group of distinguished citizens you can imagine--maybe too distinguished for the messy task that is before them) lays out where our troops are located, what their day-to-day mission is, how effective they are at carrying out this mission, etc., I really don't know whether to say that our policy in Iraq is only a moderate failure rather than a complete and utter failure. So, give me the courtesy of an explanation of what the 140,000 troops are now doing before you want me to buy into another Iraq decision. Don't you think we have been jerked around a little too much already?

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