SPEAKING FREELY Iraq - an exit strategy
By Brian M Downing
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times Online feature that allows guest writers to have
their say.
Please click hereif you are interested in contributing.
Should Democratic Senator Barack Obama become the next United States president,
he will have to transform campaign rhetoric about ending the war in Iraq into a
clearly organized plan to actually do it.
Failing that, he will become worn down and discredited by the war. The buildup
to the war in Iraq was masterfully orchestrated by the George W Bush
administration, think-tanks and lobbies. An equally masterful orchestration of
similar institutional and
ideological forces will be necessary to bring about a withdrawal from the
strategic error and misallocation of resources the war has become. If the two
orchestrations are similar in form, they will at least be widely different in
content - and candor.
Obama must first of all assemble a solid, realist foreign policy team. He must
avoid the temptation and the pressure from within his party and retinue to fill
the positions of secretary of defense, secretary of state, the National
Security Council, and vice president with figures whose records indicate
philosophical opposition to war and to military force.
Such personnel will only hinder efforts to get out of Iraq and strengthen the
backlash afterwards. Instead, most of those posts should be filled with
realists whose backgrounds reflect experience in strategic analysis, the
military and intelligence - as well as strong opposition to neo-conservative
interventionism.
Preferably, one or more will have combat experience; ideally one or more will
be Republicans such as Senator Chuck Hagel or former Republicans such as
Senator Jim Webb, both of whom are Vietnam veterans. (Precedents would be
Franklin Roosevelt's selection of Republican Henry Stimson as his secretary of
war in 1940 and John Kennedy's choice of Republican Henry Cabot Lodge as
ambassador to South Vietnam.)
Obama will need such people to protect against the predictable and likely
vehement opposition to withdrawal, which will castigate him as an inexperienced
politician unaware of hard realities in the world - an image already being
presented by the campaign of Republican Senator John McCain and his
presidential campaign and in conservative media.
An Obama administration must hammer home to the American public, with the
dogged persistence that neo-conservatives used to initiate and support the war,
several key messages. First, the war in Iraq aimed to oust Saddam Hussein and
ensure there were no weapons of mass destruction, and in both respects the US
has succeeded.
Second, the US in conjunction with Iraqi forces has largely destroyed al-Qaeda
organization and infiltration routes, and lingering Sunni hostility will ensure
that Iraq will not become an al-Qaeda sanctuary on the US's departure. Another
win. Third, withdrawal will free up resources to fight the "war on terror",
which has been adversely affected by the misallocation of resources in Iraq.
Afghanistan, where Taliban and al-Qaeda forces are enjoying considerable
success, is the true center of the "war on terror", and the US must quickly
reallocate resources there to ensure victory.
The mechanics of the withdrawal might begin with an announcement of a firm
commitment to exit Iraq within a year or 18 months. The US should encourage
antagonistic Shi'ite and Sunni groups to relocate into relatively homogeneous
areas. To a large extent, this has already happened over the course of the
merciless sectarian fighting that began with the 2006 bombing of the Shi'ite
mosque in Samarra and only eased somewhat last year.
US forces can help in furthering these relocations. Obama has repeatedly noted
that it is up to the Iraqis to reconcile and form some sort of political
arrangement. Withdrawal will place considerable pressure on them to do just
that, if only in the form of a federation or a unified state with autonomous
regions for the Kurds and Sunni Arabs. An instructive though limited analogy
might be drawn to Vietnam in the early 1970s when Richard Nixon's commitment to
withdrawal pressured South Vietnamese president Nguyen van Thieu into driving
through badly needed political and economic reforms.
Though the majority of high-ranking officers will oppose withdrawal, beneath
the Pentagon's official determination Obama can find quiet redoubts of
discontent with and even opposition to the war. He may cultivate discontent in
other parts. There are many officers who now see the war as a protracted ordeal
that is wearing down the army and marines. Owing to the recent necessity of
waiving drug and criminal backgrounds in about 18% of recent enlistees, the
specter of the disciplinary problems from the Vietnam era worries many in the
Pentagon.
His largest though perhaps least apparent source of military support will be
from officers who worry that the war is transforming the military from a
conventional warfare posture into a counterinsurgency one. Many generals
dislike counterinsurgency because it politicizes the officers out with local
indigenous forces and weakens the command structure. (An army chief of staff
once described special forces personnel in Vietnam as "nonconformist, couldn't
quite get along in a straight military system, and found a haven where their
actions weren't scrutinized too carefully ... ")
More importantly, however, counterinsurgency reduces the need for new expensive
weapons systems for conventional war on which the military has long organized
itself. The insurgency in Iraq has been draining away funds from big-ticket
systems, causing many to see it as making less strategic sense and endangering
the nation's ability to maintain commitments elsewhere in the world.
The navy and air force are especially concerned by the loss of new weapons in
the budget. Indeed, an air force general and the secretary of the air force
were recently fired, in part for opposing budget cuts to conventional weapons
in favor of funding drone aircraft used in counterinsurgency operations.
The navy and air force also fear that counterinsurgency will diminish the
independence of their branches of the service by making them support units for
the army and marines. When confronted by further budgetary cuts brought on by a
recession, there may be many high-ranking officers who will re-evaluate the
strategic wisdom of occupying and fighting in Iraq for years, especially at a
time when a resurgent Russia and a rapidly arming China loom on the threat
horizon.
Support within the military for an exit is unlikely to be strong, but it could
be critical in the furious public debate over the future of the US presence in
Iraq, especially if more directly and forcefully voiced by retired generals
such as Ricardo Sanchez, William Odom and Anthony Zinni, who have already
spoken out against continuing in Iraq.
Obama will need to negotiate with Iran, if only indirectly and through back
channels. Though such negotiations are condemned by the McCain campaign, the
Bush administration has been conducting such negotiations, and the Iraqi
government routinely meets with leaders from Tehran.
There is no reason an Obama administration shouldn't do the same. Iran, having
been invaded by Iraq in 1980 and having suffered several hundred thousand
casualties, has a legitimate stake in events in neighboring Iraq. Iran, having
considerable influence with Shi'ite parties and militias in Iraq, has a
legitimate claim that cannot be ignored.
Iran can use its influence to contain fighting within Shi'ite groups, which it
has already done recently in Basra and Baghdad, and also to contain Shi'ite
attacks on Sunnis. The US in return can disband the Mujahideen-e-Khalq (a group
organized by Saddam to fight Iran, which is designated a terrorist group by the
US State Department) and cut ties with insurgent groups it has been supporting
in Iran among Kurds, Arabs and the Balochis. Both countries will foreswear
direct military presences. It is possible that successful negotiations on Iraq
will establish trust and open up dialog on nuclear research and accessing the
oil and gas resources of Central Asia, which are unlikely to come through
Afghanistan in the next decade, as once planned.
Even if a thoughtful program is carefully put together and fortune smiles on
its execution, Obama and his party, should they win the White House in
November, will face powerful opposition and a vicious backlash based on
formidable interests in Washington and delusional myths about war in the
public.
The backlash will almost certainly be sufficiently positioned and funded to
endanger his presidency. Alternately, Obama as president might not have the
conviction to follow through on his promise and exit Iraq. And he will begin to
refer to "significant progress ... consolidating gains ... his commitment to a
democratic Iraq ... our fallen not dying in vain".
The persistence and acumen of his efforts to close off the strategic error of
the war in Iraq will tell us if Obama is a statesman or simply a skillful
orator fresh from a Midwestern legislature.
Brian M Downing is the author of several works of political and military
history, including The Military Revolution and Political Change and
The Paths of Glory: War and Social Change in America from the Great War to
Vietnam. He can be reached at brianmdowning@gmail.com.
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times Online feature that allows guest writers to have
their say.
Please click hereif you are interested in contributing.
(Copyright 2008 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
contact us about
sales, syndication and
republishing.)
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
