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	September 22, 2003

IS 'BRINGING THE TROOPS HOME NOW' AN OPTION? There's increasing attention -- and pressure on liberal and moderate presidential candidates to state their position -- on how best to extricate ourselves from the expensive and unnecessary war in Iraq. There seem to be two schools of thought: We need to turn over governance of the country to Iraqi nationals under UN supervision immediately, and end US military presence. We need to hang in for the long haul, helping Iraqis to rebuild and democratize their infrastructure and not handing over control until we're sure peace and democracy will ensue. There is no question in my mind that both alternatives will be bloody, and embarrassing to the US. Although I would agree with this Salon editor (who favours the second approach) that Iraq is no Vietnam, I disagree strongly that long-term foreign military presence has any hope whatsoever of leading to a peaceful and democratic future for Iraq. in fact, Iraq resembles more closely the balkanized Yugoslavia after the death of Tito and the rise of Milosevic. Here's my ugly, pessimistic scenario for each of the two alternatives above. Remember, as you read this, that we have George Bush and the neocons for getting us into this awful mess in the first place: Fast Exit: If we immediately turn over political control to the Iraqi council led by the dreadful and unpopular Chalabi, and, following the Chiraq proposal, introduce UN peacekeepers, service organizations and trainers to try to restore law and order to the country: The Chalabi government, lacking popular support, will likely fall and be replaced by a fundamentalist Sunni [Shia -- thanks Philip] government, which will attempt, for a time, to coexist with the Kurdish and Turkmen minorities in the Northern areas and the independent warlords that hold sway in scattered parts of the country. The detente will not last and civil war will erupt, much as it did in Yugoslavia, and will only end when the country is likewise partitioned under UN supervision, into Shia, Kurdish and Turkmen states. With luck, these three states will overcome the warlords. Fighting will continue over the central areas of the country because, of course, that's where the oil is. Eventually there will be a UN-administrated 'neutral zone' that will manage the oil lands and partition the profits in some agreed way among the three Iraqi states. The good news is that the bloodshed will only probably last twenty years or so, that the murder of American troops will be minimized, and that the cost of this alternative will not bankrupt the US economy. Slow Exit: If we continue to believe that somehow under prolonged foreign occupation the people of Iraq are going to magically bypass the bloody lessons every other country has been through before it achieved free and democratic laws and institutions: The UN will, rightfully, refuse to commit its resources and troops to support a fruitless and bloody unilateral US miltary occupation. The current astronomical level of expenditure needed to continue the occupation will last until either the US treasury or the patience of American taxpayers gives out, after which we'll resort to the Fast Exit strategy anyway. In the meantime, American troops will continue to lose their lives. The Chalabi government will fight among themselves, and never be recognized as the legitimate government of Iraq. They will be replaced by successive US puppet regimes and coalitions, none of which will be accepted by the Iraqi people. Separate Kurdish and Turkmen states will be declared in the North, and American and Southern Iraqi troops will be pressed into service in the hopeless task of trying to keep a country together that has no wish to stay together. The warlords will grow in power as the chaos and power vacuum ensues. The loss of lives will be massive and last for years, until the US attempts a face-saving attempt by 'declaring democracy' and ceases the occupation, turning over control to whoever seems to be in greatest control at the time provided they promise elections at some future date. The end result will be exactly the same, but with a much greater human and financial cost, a long and unnecessary delay, and incalculable damage to the reputation of the US and the viability of the UN. The lesson here is simple. There is no easy route to self-determination, rule of law, freedom and democracy and it cannot be imposed militarily by an outside force. All we can do is set a good example, offer the assistance of the UN to help keep the peace once it is established, and hope the bloodshed is short and minimal. It will of course be embarrassing to withdraw from a country we hoped to save from the anguish of this struggle for identity and democracy, and watch it degenerate into further bloodshed, as it was in Yugoslavia. And with the removal of Saddam Hussein the transition may be shorter, and freedom and democracy may come sooner than it would have otherwise. But the alternative of a long-term military occupation of a country that does not want us, is much bloodier, much costlier, and will merely prolong the inevitable. 6:30:33 PM  trackback []  comment []

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