A reader offers a desperate proposal for victory in Iraq
Jim F. writes:
We have three main choices in Iraq now: victory, disengagement in place into enclaves, and total withdrawal.
The latter two choices will most likely result in the slaughter of many Iraqi on both sides of the Sunni-Shi’a split, forcing us to go back in again from enclaves or from more distant positions to stop the carnage. So these choices will gain us nothing, and will lose, not only the confidence of the Iraqi people, but also quite a number of Iraqi and US lives. Internationally, we will become an even worse pariah.
There is a parallel here in the last days of Saigon. It is very difficult for me to believe that our Congress and our citizens endorse either of these positions, as they are shameful, humiliating, and totally irresponsible to the life and limb of thousands of Iraqi and US troops.
We are currently weak on the ground if we mean to stop a full scale revolt and genocide, particularly if the Iranians and Syrians materially step up their support. This is not a situation conducive to diplomatic solution, in my opinion, because we are not in a position of great strength.
This leaves us with the option of going for victory and all that it implies. For one, we would have to call up reserves, NG forces, and institute a draft, I believe. We would need perhaps another 500 thousand troops on the ground for an indeterminate period. To do this, we could use the conscripts to fill in for our US based volunteers while these pros are deployed to Iraq. (The conscripts would not see combat unless they had passed their full training, and decide to volunteer.)
I also believe that the full issue has not been tested in the public sphere in a responsible manner. It should be tested in a forthright national referendum, after a full and complete public airing of the alternatives and their dire consequences.
LA replies:
First, I recommend you check out Parapundit, written by Randall Parker, who has followed Iraq very closely. I commented on Iraq obsessively for years and finally felt I had said all I could and there was nothing more to say. But he follows events on the ground and has good angles on the Iraq disaster.
Parker himself has been pushing a fourth alternative, that we pro-actively help move the country toward partition. But he’s told me he sees no chance of Bush giving in and adopting that, since it would mean abandoning his basic policy.
Also, it’s possible—and I think Parker has made this point as well—that the result of a pullout would be the opposite of what you say. Without us on the scene, instead of expanded killing, the superior power of the Shi’ites will enable them to establish rule in the country fairly quickly and thus lead to less killing in the long run, whereas our being there makes any settlement impossible and prolongs the violence. For example, Parker has written that our insistence that the government reel in the Shi’ite militias prevents the militias from doing the one thing that can end the fighting: chase the Sunnis from certain neighborhoods leading to de facto Sunni-Shi’ite partition which is the only way the fighting can end.
What your policy comes down to is that we raise and send a 500,000 man army to Iraq for an indefinite period for the purpose of—stopping Iraqis from killing each other. You believe that this extremely unlikely prospect becomes likely when the American people seriously look at the alternatives, which is Iraqis slaughtering each other, bringing utter humiliation and disgrace on the U.S. And since that is so intolerable, we must do everything possible to avoid that.
That’s the logic of your argument and there is a logic to it. But it understates the sheer absurdity of our sending a vast army to another country forever for no other purpose than to keep the peace between two factions that want to kill each other, which will continue to cost us many lives—an involvement that can have no possible successful conclusion from our point of view. I’ve been saying this for 3 1/2 years, that we either stay there forever, or we leave and bad things happen. But we can’t stay there forever. We’re going to leave at some point. So isn’t it better to leave now rather than later? (Which is not to agree with the Democrats, see below.)
A more serious problem in your proposal is that you say that the purpose is “victory.” But you don’t say what this victory consists of. This shows that you are still inside the impossibly contradictory mindset of Bush and his supporters. On one hand, Bush and his supporters say our purpose in Iraq is only to keep things afloat until the Iraqis can handle the ongong threats to the regime at which point we will leave; as I’ve said before, that is not victory, that is treading water and passing the baton. On the other hand, Bush and his supporters say our purpose is “victory.” But as just pointed out, his policy is not one aimed at victory. So how is your policy different from Bush’s other than involving 500,000 men instead of 150,000 men? What would you actually seek to achieve with those half million men, other than keeping Al Qaeda at bay, forever, and keeping the Iraqis from killing each other, forever? What would victory consist of? You haven’t said. So while Bush has been keeping 150,000 men there for the purpose of a non-victory, you want to put 500,000 there for the purpose of non-victory.
Real victory at this point for us would have to mean crushing Iraq under our heel. And again, WHY would we be doing this? Not to defend the United States and its allies, but to prevent Iraqis from slaughtering each other.
In brief, your policy of victory would consist of crushing the Iraqis under our heels, in order to prevent the Iraqis from slaughtering each other.
Now maybe you’ll reply that we don’t have to crush all Iraqis under our heels, just the Iraqis in those few problem areas in the center and west of the country. But as we’ve seen over and over again, suppressing troublesome elements in one part of the country just pushes them to relocate to different parts of the country. (See my comments in November 2004 about our imminent “victory” in Fallujah.)
Also, when I say that logic suggests we will withdraw now rather than later, that is not to embrace the position of the Democrats, who just want us to leave and don’t care about U.S. defense, who don’t care about U.S. prestige and power (except about how to reduce them).
There has to be another way. But we can’t see it so long as we remain locked inside the Bush view of things which is that the Iraqis are people like us and just need a little help from their friends, us, to get it together. It is not possible to come up with an intelligent strategy so long as we refuse to see (and our present ideology commands us to refuse to see) what the nature of Iraqis and Muslims is, and as long as we refuse to think about what our stand toward Islam as a whole ought to be. The foundation stone of our involvement has been that the Iraqis and Muslims in general can readily democratize. If we had recognized from the start that that wasn’t true, what kind of policy would we have pursued? If we go back to the starting line and rethink the fundamentals, that might give us clues about how to proceed now. But as long as we remain locked inside the mindset that led us into this horror, any further things we do will still not lead to anything good.
- end of initial entry -
Randall Parker writes:
You interpret me correctly.
Regarding Jim F.’s call for a national referendum: I think we had one in November 2006 and now the Democrats control both houses of Congress. Also, polls show the public has turned against the war.
If we found it too humiliating to see so many Iraqis die and if the public saw more troops as the best way to stop the killing then we’d see a huge public cry for more U.S. troops. But that huge public cry for more troops has not happened.
Regarding U.S. troops keeping the Shiites and Sunnis from killing each other while remaining in close quarters: Why do we want to invest so much American blood and money so that Iraqi Shiites and Sunnis can continue to live next door to each other? What is so special about that other-sect-living-next-door experience that we need to assure the Iraqis all experience it?
I suspect that what is at stake in Iraq is domestic myth within the U.S.: The need to maintain the fiction that all sects and religions and ethnic groups really can just all get along in close quarters. Never mind that census data shows how many groups continue to flee from each other. Never mind that America is Balkanizing. We have to sacrifice American lives in Iraq in order to maintain belief in liberal multicultural mythology.
LA replies:
I made a similar point in the past about our involvements in foreign conflicts, that we insist on multicultural solutions in foreign lands, which in turn keeps the conflict going forever, which in turn necessitates the endless presence of U.S. peace-keeping forces, all in order to legitimate our own multicultural order in America. But in Iraq, America’s self-referential multicultural imperative is vastly more deadly and costly.
Jim F. replies:
Obviously I didn’t defend my position sufficiently in my last. I should have defined victory carefully enough to avoid the infinite stay of our troops that you suggest would happen. The end game here is composed of many parts, in my opinion, but these seem to be the most important:
1) An effective government apparatus that has a good chance of mastering the national rule of Sunni, Kurds and Shiite;
2) a secure and upgraded oil infrastructure and fairly shared revenue from the oil;
3) a trained national army sufficient to sustain the peace, control the borders, and discourage outside intervention;
4) a national recovery program fairly apportioned across the sectors;
5) disarmament of the people and militias;
6) a police force in each province sufficient to keep the local peace;
7) a form of regional autonomy for Sunni, Shiite, and Kurds under a national federal leadership;
8) a US presence sufficient to ensure progress in all of the above, and diminishing over time to zero.
There are a number of difficulties to be overcome, some of which are seemingly intractable:
1) Tribal organization and loyalties
2) Sect loyalties
3) Sect hatreds
4) External influences
5) Lack of trust on all sides
6) Revenge motives
7) Systematic bribery and corruption
8) Greed
9) Rule-by-Fear mindset
10) Traditions
It would seem that to give the full rein to the Shiites now leads back to the exact reverse of Sunni or Baathist rule. To the ordinary citizen, it is only the names that have changed, with the twist that revenge and sect hatred are then powerful motivations for the Shiites to clean Sunni house, and to rule by fear. This is not even close to the relative freedom and democratic forms that we desire for the Iraqi. Perhaps such freedom and democracy cannot be achieved, in light of the difficulties cited earlier. We need a solution tuned to the Iraqi mentality and traditions, not necessarily the more desirable US model of a republic. Our troops stand between the Shiites and Sunni to minimize the bloodletting for the moment.
One idea that sparked my interest is to privatize the oil industry, and to give a percentage of oil shares to every Iraqi citizen, thus making them stakeholders in the enterprise, and far more motivated to secure the peace, since profits would show up immediately in their pockets. Poverty would be largely eliminated, and private reconstruction efforts would be started up, thus reducing unemployment. If this program could be initiated rapidly, even if we had to seed the money, it might be a significant key to pacification. As usual, the devil is in the details here, and this just might require realistic and forceful threats to achieve.
To effect much of this requires heavy US troop power for a few years to isolate Iraq from Iran and Syria (very long borders and interiors to patrol), to disarm the citizenry (by force if needed), to train the armed forces and police, to convert militias into police forces, to participate meaningfully with the Iraqi in all engagements and police activities, to ensure the security of the oil resources and infrastructure, and to be a forceful presence everywhere needed while the government meshes into its job. My guess is two to three years of the heavy deployment, followed by another two to three years of successively lighter deployments. Had we gone “heavy” to begin with, and done it right, we would now be faced with a year or so more instead of the five or six I see (yes, this is my speculation!).
A further practical need for significant troop power is the ferment in Iran. If there is to be a war between the US and Iran, we need to have Iraqi bases and sufficient power on the ground to prevent the devastation of our current forces and the destabilization of Iraq by Iran. Our 150 thousand troops could not, in my opinion, defeat the entire Iranian army were it to attack. Thus we are vulnerable on the ground in Iraq as it stands now, and would be faced with the question of using our air and nuclear power to stop the conflict.
Thus, prevention of a massacre is certainly not the only reason to increase our troop levels, and the time of deployment cannot be extended “forever” obviously. But it does seem to offer a practical route to stability and perhaps a somewhat messy victory, where letting them loose to do as they please is a bloody way to go.
LA replies:
Though it’s in the middle of Jim’s comment and does not stand out, it seems me his main military objective is the disarming of the Iraqi populace. That seems to me an impossible task. But at least Jim has given us a definition of victory that is internally coherent, which the Bush administration has never done.
Jim F. continues:
The last time we let the client state go it alone, it resulted in several million deaths and untold misery in SE Asia. I do not feel it is right for us to gamble with so many lives by saying that the winning side will be humane to their long-time, sworn enemies, we believe, so let the Shiites roll. No one has offered any proof that the Shiites would be gentlemen about their position of power in Iraq, and I believe that few Sunni would believe their protestations anyway for lack of trust.
I am not a fan of multiculturalism, and do not have illusions about being able to force the issue on the Iraqi. Autonomy or statehood may be the right way to go for each sect, provided that the oil question is settled comfortably for the Sunni.
For the other idea that victory means crushing the Iraqi wherever they fight us, there is truth in that. If we must first dominate Iraq to achieve our real objectives, then so be it. We should, however, hold out the tangible and tasty carrot I brought up of sharing the oil revenue with all citizens to preempt the fighting. Live well, or die!
Jim F. wrote:
I suppose your ignoring of my assertion of the need to put more troops into Iraq, partly because of the real potential of an Iranian conflict and to stop imports of fighters and weaponry from Iran and Syrian the next year or so, was deliberate. This has very substantial military significance, perhaps even overshadowing the need to find all or most of the more conventional arms caches throughout Iraq and destroying them. (I wonder whether we have even searched all of the mosques.)
With an ever increasing security comes more and more Iraqi willing to give us tips about insurgents and arms caches, I believe. The combination of searches by teams, patrols, tips, massive 24/7 surveillance, and reaction forces to incidents works if they are frequent, comprehensive, nearby the scenes, and fast-responding to reports of suspicious activities. This takes manpower—lots of it—ours and Iraqi too.
We do not have sufficient manpower in country now to effect this, will not have it during the “surge,” and didn’t have it from the beginning. With the will to win, this tragic mistake could be corrected now. Otherwise, I have no faith in eventual victory as I define it. Going down the track we are currently pursuing, without overwhelming force, leads to politically-driven withdrawal, defeat and chaos in Iraq, if not genocide. Kicking the fledgling national bird out of the next before it is ready to fly will ensure its becoming a meal for foxes.
I am trying here to restart, not assign blame. It is unfortunate that our President seems closed to new ideas.
LA replied:
What are you talking about? Your proposal for 500,000 was upfront in the initial blog entry.
I’ve treated your proposal with respect and replied to it at length. And in reply I get an accusation that I’m deliberately ignoring your argument. Some people cannot be satisfied.
Adam M. writes:
With due respect to Jim F.’s opinions on the war in Iraq, I think his ideas are ludicrous. He has an 8 point list of what would constitute “victory” in Iraq. He may as well of added “The descent of universal brotherhood and good feelings upon all men” as item nine.
As you have pointed out, the administration’s stated (current stated) war aims are to hand over the baton to an Iraqi government. Correct me if I am wrong, but this means that we have entered a phase in this conflict analogous to our involvement in Vietnam, circa 1969 or so—Vietnamization. The difference being, we now have about 150,000 men in Iraq, whereas in 1969 we had about 500,000 men in Vietnam (which number was still not enough). Vietnamization proved to be a complete failure. The ARVN still succumbed to North Vietnam, as soon as our military support was withdrawn. And that support was withdrawn because the American people were simply tired of the whole mess. I would also point out that the North Vietnamese communists, although evil and ruthless, were at least rational actors. Our current foes in Iraq are evil, ruthless, and—seemingly—quite insane. The only way to prevail against such men is to exterminate them, which would entail vast numbers of civilian casualties, which would further enflame them against us. And to what end? Is it the purpose of this country to go bounding around the world, seeking out basket-case nations, and killing them all for their own good?
Sounds like something a Jacobin or a Bolshevik would do. Is that how we now define “conservatism”.
As an aside, I said above that handing over the baton to Iraq is our stated war aim. Actually, to judge from the news this last week, the entire purpose of our 150,000 strong army in Iraq has been to find the three soldiers who were captured last weekend. I suppose this means that the army’s only mission now is “force protection”, i.e. protecting the army itself. Couldn’t the army protect itself much better in the U.S?
Also, Jim F. mentioned as one of his war aims, the disarming of the populace. Why? Iraq is clearly a lawless nation, and people there have need of the means of self defence. Imagine what hay the U.N. would make of that—they would tell us “Well, you disarmed the people of another country—a multicultural country—in order to promote social peace. Why won’t you do the same to your own populace.” Having the U.S. Army disarm a populace because it is needed for the maintenance of social order in an increasingly lawless multicultural nation is not a precedent I wish to have set.
There is one more point I wish to make, and it touches on the issue of multi-culturalism. The combat arms of our military are overwhelmingly white. Most of the soldiers who have been killed or maimed in Iraq are white. As such, from the point of view of white Americans, this war is disturbingly dysgenic. I’ve met several of the young men who have been sent to combat in Iraq and Afghanistan. They are decent, brave, and upstanding young men (and I’m sure that goes for those black and Hispanic ones too, not just the white soldiers). While these young men are risking their lives for … what, I can no longer even hazard a guess. Their elected representatives are selling out their country behind them. America is not made stronger by sending our best young men to be killed and mutilated in Iraq. It would be made stronger by their being here: alive, healthy, productive, and raising families.
LA replies:
Had the U.S. maintained its obligations to South Vietnam to use airpower against the Communists if they violated the Peace Treaty, South Vietnam could have survived. That did not require our being in force in South Vietnam any more; we just had to back them up as a last resort with air power. But the Democratic Congress voted that down.
Posted by Lawrence Auster at May 19, 2007 12:19 PM | Send