Perhaps we should oblige.
Not that long ago the current administration was talking of a prolonged American stay in Iraq. The end of US combat operations would not be synonymous with the end of US presence. John McCain and Robert Gates both made reference to the Korean analogy. Both were of the view that the situation within Iraq and adjacent states would compel the Iraqi government to acknowledge the necessity of an on-going American deployment.
The view espoused by these two men and so many others ignored the reality of history as a force in contemporary Iraqi politics. The prospect of the Iraqis accepting a prolonged US force presence with utter equanimity requires ignoring two salient features of the Iraqi experience over the past seventy-five or so years.
First, it is necessary to pretend that the British never occupied Iraq in the aftermath of World War I. Along with that it is essential to ignore the impact of the British economy-of-force approach to counterinsurgency in the Twenties.
Dubbed by the responsible officials of HMG, "The Imperial Policing Scheme," this product of cheapness and enthrallment with advanced technology employed bombers against insurgents. Well, not the trigger-pullers exactly, more like their families. Bombing villages and nomadic camps might have been a cheap way of killing Iraqis and it even might have played some role in ending the resistance to the British military occupation.
It sure as hell left a foul cloud in the memories of Iraqis generally. The foul cloud was renewed year to year in the Iraqi educational system in the long years following the withdrawal of HM Forces after World War II. No matter who wears the uniform, the Iraqi view is that foreign military forces are occupation forces. Period.
The second feature of the recent Iraqi experience focuses on the role of the minority Sunni population during both the occupation period and the years of Baathist rule. The Sunnis became the chosen "native" component of the on-the-cheap British semi-Raj. They kept this favored position during the short-lived post-war monarchy and expanded it during the Baathist decades.
Shiites have a sneaking suspicion that the Americans would compel or inveigle a recapitulation of this past Sunni supremacy if given sufficient time. Certainly the American views of secular, multi-party democracy fueled this suspicion.
The most obvious exponents of a hidden American agenda to restore the Sunnis to former power are those such as al-Sadr. But, he and his more-or-less pro-Iranian ilk are far from the only Shiites who harbor the sneaking fear that given sufficient time the Americans can and will reduce the Shite majority to their former powerlessness.
More cynically, it is payback time from a Shiite perspective. The American shadow might fall across the bright goal of Sunni squashing.
Whether one takes the cynical view or not, the end result is the same. The Shiite majority sees itself repressed and stripped of its freedom of action by any long term US presence.
Freedom of Shiite action is encoded in the constant refrain of "protect our sovereignty."
Freedom of Shiite action is behind the willingness of the Kurds to keep the Americans around. Of course the Kurds would be better off if the US left. They have the political coherence and military capacity to carve out and defend an economically viable Kurdistan. But, a rational appraisal of risks suggests to many, if not all, Kurd leaders that taking a pro-US stance at the moment is the better option.
So, where are the Sunnis in all this?
It would seem to be in the better interests of the Sunnis to keep the Americans around. They are quite aware that payback is a medivac and the inhibitory effects of the US forces would lessen the risks of a possible Shiite Night of Very Long Knives.
Many Sunni politicos and (more importantly) tribal leaders are quietly in favor of a continued US presence perhaps without time limits. But, even with self-interest involved, Sunnis remember the Imperial Policing Scheme. They were primary targets of the lumbering biplane bombers of the day. The idea of occupation rests heavily on their minds, no less than it does on the Shiites.
Perhaps the time has come to take the Iraqis at their word. Iraq is their country. The Iraqis, whether in government or not, must decide if they want a unitary state even if it is populated by three not completely compatible "nations."
The Iraqi political/religious leaders must know that they have two alternatives. One is a unitary state complete with messy compromises of power and revenue sharing. The other is fragmentation complete with proxy war as Iran sides with Shiites and Sunni Arab states move to "protect" their Sunni Arab Iraqi comrades.
The second option would not fit well with the grandiose goals of nation-building so often and loudly proclaimed by the current administration, but would it impair core US national or strategic interests?
No. Probably not. Unless one wishes to posit that the price of oil is a or the core US interest. We have accomplished the minimum necessary strategic goal. We have assured that the opposition can't declare a military victory over us. We cannot "not-lose" in Iraq.
Perhaps we should accept that standing down our military efforts on the expiration of the current UN mandate is an acceptable option. We could use the next few weeks to do two things: Wait for the Iraqis to re-evaluate their stance on our presence and start packing for an orderly exit.
An exit and redeployment to Afghanistan. Afghanistan, a place where we can still loose.
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2 comments:
Well, I'd be more likely to agree on getting out of Iraq on a fairly expedited basis if we don't just turn around and immediately ship those forces over into Afghanistan.
And that means we also keep them out of places like Darfur and Somolia, also.
Reasoning on Afghanistan is as follows:
1) We need a plan. Whatever we have as a plan in Afghanistan, it's not working. And in terms of the coalition effort, that's (at best!) only "highly disorganized" on it's best days.
2) The environments between Iraq and Afghanistan are literally so great to be like being on different worlds. I read something Mike Yon wrote very recently how Iraq currently references by 20 to 30 years in relation to Western nations, where in Afghanistan's case, we are likely talking in terms of a century, and easily more.
3) The Afghanistan logistics issues haven't even been addressed, much less solved. Increasing the force structure in Afghanistan has eerie reminders to me of a long time ago in a place called Guadalcanal, and the problems the Japanese had on what came to be known to them as "Starvation Island".
4) We haven't got a workable plan for Pakistan, and certainly not the FATA (Federally Administered Tribal Areas). And absent that, we're going to go nowhere fast.
We can only do so much in Iraq - and we have accomplished much, and been very successful. But at some point, the locals have to step up and decide to make the hard calls.
Hopefully, Iraq will learn from the sterling examples being set forth almost daily by our US Congress and do the exact opposite. God help them all if they decide to use our US Congress as a positive role model.
And I do think Iraq will be a success. But Afghanistan seems doomed to continued anarchy and chaos.
We need to start to retrench and disengage our forces - and soon. It's actually going to be highly important for the current administration to start the process, rather than leave it to the next administration. It's likely they'll be way too weak-kneed, both in their intents and actions, and that will just invite continued 'incursions' against us from other foreign entities.
A couple of hundred posts ago the Geek first argued in favor of leaving Afghanistan. Since then the only reason the Geek has adduced for staying is to achieve the minimum strategic goal of "not losing."
If the black turbans of the world were to believe that they had achieved a military victory over us and the rest of the NATO and coalition forces, life would become far more challenging for us in the West. That sort of additional challenge is one we can well live without.
Afghanistan remains what the Geek termed it over a year ago--a geographical expression, not a nation and certainly not a nation-state as such is understood in the US or the West generally. The entire "nation building" exercise in Afghanistan so beloved the current administration and at least some of the High Minded in this and other countries is rather like masturbating with steel wool--neither productive nor enjoyable.
Look back a few days, the Geek posted another in his ongoing series on the Afghanistan morass. The instant that the US and its associates achieve the minimum strategic goal of "not-losing" we must ship out of the place.
Historically interventionary operations including but not limited to counterinsurgency are the most difficult to execute effectively. One reason for this has been harped on repeatedly in prior posts. The battleground is the human terrain such that the side having the greatest capacity to maintain political will over time while accepting significant losses will win.
That is a reality which most American decision makers and military commanders find hard to accept and impossible to apply.
Thank you for a thoughtful and well developed comment that has added much to the original post.
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