A Better Plan?
Lately, people are talking about what to do in Iraq. The Democrat side is saying that we should be planning to pull out the troops, and the Republican side is to stay the course. Both sides are lambasting each other and the positions they are taking. The Democrats infer that the Republicans have no plan to get out of Iraq, and the Republicans say that the Democrats want to cut and run. The correct course of action is somewhere in the middle of both camps.
The current situation in Iraq is not a good one. While the Iraqis do have a “democratically elected government”, the situation outside of the Green Zone is more akin to Tom Lehrer’s “National Brotherhood Week”:
Oh, the Shias hate the Sunnis,
and the Sunnis hate the Shias,
the Kurdish hate the Turkish,
and everyone hates our troops
Every day, everyone can read in the newspaper, hear on the radio, or see on TV stories of Iraqis being killed by the dozens. Most are killed by other Iraqis, with a small portion killed by coalition troops. Simultaneously, stories keep appearing about coalition troops being killed or wounded. IEDs explode incessantly, gun battles between rival militia groups go on, with no end to the carnage in sight. So-called “good-news stories” are few and far between.
The Republican plan is to stay the course. Of course, it is not known what that course is, as the President has stated it will be up to the next President to solve the Iraq problem. Realistically, the course seems to be to try to stabilize the country, get troops, police, and other security forces trained, and try to get the infrastructure fixed. That’s a good amount of food to be piled on one’s plate. As already stated, stabilization is not happening, with so many deaths and Iraqis fighting each other constantly. By the established standards, there aren’t any Iraqi units capably trained to take over for any coalition squads. It would seem that the Iraqis we are training are defecting and joining in with the street gangs to cause more turbulence in the streets. With oil, water, and electricity supplies still below pre-war levels, the course, it seems, is failing on all fronts.
The Democrats this last week, held a debate: pull out definitely by next year, or pull out in stages, with a definite end date in mind. Of course, nether measure passed the Senate floor, because the Republicans wouldn’t allow either idea to pass. Unfortunately, just pulling out is a bad idea, because whether or not we agreed with the war, we still as Americans have to take responsibility for the ill-conceived decision to go to war. Pulling out would create an even bigger mess that would threaten stability in the entire region, igniting a war between various Muslim factions, spreading the internecine conflict that exists now throughout the entire region. Even worse, a conflict between Muslims, Jews and Christians could erupt, bringing on the Apocalypse it seems certain conservative Evangelical Christians and Muslim fundamentalists desire. Neither of those outcomes is desirable to say the least.
Those of us who opposed the war, unfortunately, have to clean up for those who got us into this mess. What is missing right now is a plan, a course of action with specific objectives and time-lines and grading points where success could be measured. In every organization I have ever been affiliated with, in every job, and even in the military, there were syllabi, course objectives, mission statements, projects and time-lines. The Iraq war does not have that: a time-line and a plan for success. We have to think it out logically, and develop a plan that would do three things:
- Stabilize Iraq,
- Fix the infrastructure destroyed by two wars and the decade of bombings inflicted on Iraq, and
- Get foreign troops out of the country as soon as possible.
Right now, the only places that seems safe and secure are the Green Zone and the Kurdish North. We should concentrate our efforts to the areas immediately surrounding these areas, stabilizing them, and absorbing those neighborhoods into the stable zones. For example, the neighborhoods immediately surrounding the Green Zone could be stabilized, and added to the Green Zone Eventually, the stable area would encompass the entire city of Baghdad. After that, the province of Baghdad would be incorporated. Similarly, The more stable, Kurdish areas to the north could assist in stabilizing regions immediately surrounding them, expanding south to join with the stable Baghdad region. After this is done, the stable top half of Iraq could sweep south to encompass the Shiite region, and then west to encompass the Sunni region, where there will probably be the most resistance.
As areas are stabilized, the US military personnel there could be relocated to other regions or even to other areas of the world where they are needed more. In the stabilized regions, the trained Iraqi security personnel would be policemen and women, not military personnel. We could also enlist forces from the Arab League to assist in stabilizing the country, also freeing up our forces to come home Of course, this is wishful thinking, considering how Bush and his minions f*ed up our image and foreign policy, but we can dream, can’t we? Besides, the next president won’t have the baggage that Bush has, so s/he wouldn’t have to worry so much about what other nations think of what Bush did.
In the stabilized regions, it would be easier to have better running water, electricity and fuel. Roads and buildings would be built and not destroyed by insurgents. Oil pipelines could be built and not destroyed. Other exports like grains, cotton, and livestock would supplement their economy, which obviously would be dominated by oil exports. The key is, however, that the regions have to be stabilized FIRST and free of insurgents, before any of these improvements could be made.
Speaking of insurgents, as the stabilized regions grew, they would operate in smaller and smaller areas, and having fewer and fewer disenchanted people from which to recruit. Eventually, the insurgency would be either driven from the country, or snuffed out like a candle. Either way, they would be gone. The Al-Qaida influences would be gone. The theocratic Shia influence from Iran would be gone. As the insurgency grows smaller, there will be less need for troops to be in Iraq, and they could come home for good.
There could be a timetable attached to when the troops come home, say, over the course of three years, at which time all troops would be gone from Iraq. Intermediate steps could be implemented, to measure progress and success incrementally. In six months, have the entire city of Baghdad a Free Zone. Within a year, the province of Baghdad a Free Zone, and so on and so forth.
Of course, this plan is wishful thinking, because the administration would not allow anyone to know about any kind of plan, if there is one, except to say “stay the course” and “don’t cut and run”. Having a plan would not energize the populace and give them a goal to work toward in order to gain their freedom; a plan and a definite end-date would energize the insurgency. That’s the Administration’s logic and Republican talking point. We cannot have a plan, at least not one that’s published and widely known, that would not work. Which is why, with this Administration, the Iraq experiment will always be a failure.
