A Middle Way on Iraq II Posted by Shawn Brimley

This is an important debate, and I’m pleased that Democracy Arsenal is helping to facilitate it. As we approach (finally!) the point when we will have a Democratic nominee for President, this debate will enter a new and very important phase.  It is critical that we as a party begin to think about governance, and with all due respect to all concerned, I simply don’t buy the idea that a Democratic President will pull the plug on our effort in Iraq and begin to withdraw our forces without calibrating the speed or nature of our departure to the situation on the ground.

Without going over my case for a middle way again, I want to respond to Max’s argument that:

the problem therefore with a more middle of the road approach is that in my view we will still be in virtually the same place five to ten years from now.

I disagree with that characterization.  The point I’m trying to make is that nearly every political actor in Iraq (with the exception of AQI) has, at one point or another, manipulated America for their own particular purposes.  It is time we use the very real leverage we have over several actors in Iraq.

The Kurds desire an enduring relationship with us, ISCI is posturing to further their designs on more robust regional power, Sadr is using us to help reign in elements of JAM that are not response to him and erode his legitimacy, Dawa and the secular elements of the Shiite ruling class who desire a unitary Iraq are desperate to retain the help we provide in training the Iraqi security forces – the list goes on and on.

To be clear though, the United States is losing leverage by the day.  Every day the Bush administration has provided a blank check to the various Iraqi actors, and every day they imply through the ongoing SOFA talks that we will be there unconditionally for the foreseeable future is a contribution to the erosion of America’s strategic position in Iraq and the region. The “all in” for perhaps “all time” approach is not really a strategy, but the absence of strategy, as it abdicates the imperative to make real choices.

I hope and expect that a Democratic administration would fundamentally change this equation.

My position (and I should mention that my colleague Colin Kahl is also a leading proponent of this view) is that America should begin – finally – to make our security, economic, and diplomatic aid conditional on demonstrable efforts at real political progress in Iraq.  To take this position actually requires that we be willing to pull out troops if progress is not made.  In fact, if this strategy has any chance of succeeding, an American President must be willing to play hardball.

Will this work?  It is impossible to tell, but at least we could say that we tried an integrated approach that used both carrots and sticks.  A withdrawal that is not connected to the situation on the ground leapfrogs from our current “all in” position to the “all out” position without at least trying a “middle way.”

So again, this strategy would require two things.

First, it needs to be sustainable, hence my recommendation that a new President continue a measured drawdown until we reach the point that our military commanders believe can be sustained for the long-term.  I expect this number would somewhere in the neighborhood of 75,000 troops.  If commanders on the ground think it prudent to take all of 2009 to get to that point, so be it.

This isn’t chump change.  The next President will inherit somewhere between 115,000 to 130,000 troops in Iraq – perhaps more.  I think the country would accept a withdrawal to 75,000 over the course of a year.  That is a lot of our people coming home in the first year of a new administration.

Second, we condition the remaining mission on Iraqi political progress.  During 2009 we would expect to see real progress on oil revenue sharing, a provincial power law, elections, and integration or affiliation of the CLCs into the Iraqi Security Forces. I would expect that we would continue a robust training mission as well.

If the Iraqi government makes progress on these vital issues, America should be willing to stay in Iraq at a sustainable level for some time. Iraq is, after all, perhaps the most geopolitically important place in the whole world – at least for the next decade.

However, if the various actors continue their intransigence and even the threat of our total departure – now made credible by a new president – fails to jump-start a renewed and real effort at political compromise, the United States should shift to containment posture that would be geared toward preventing spillover and intervention by Iraq’s neighbors.  This would be the “all out” posture that others have recommended.

The position I have outlined is not a blank check, is not Bush-lite, and does not keep American troops fighting in Iraq forever.  I think this is a pragmatic strategy that a new President should at least attempt in 2009.  I think this approach remains true to our moral responsibility to Iraq, and remains wedded to America’s enduring national interests in the region.

Comments

[Mike M.]

75,000 troops is way too many and the financial cost of keeping them there is way to high. We should have way less people than that at risk in Iraq and should be spending a lot less money. The job of the next president is to undo Bush's mistakes. That means diverting the money that Bush would have spent in Iraq towards domestic spending or debt reduction (in order to strengthen the dollar). We can't do that if we maintain such a large presence in Iraq as you're proposing.

[Zathras]

So now we are not to be in Iraq indefinitely; we will only be there "for some time." We will settle Iraqi quarrels, the details of which do not merit mention, by using the leverage supplied by a reduction in force to levels our military commanders think sustainable over the long term, without knowing what those are. We absolutely will not concern ourselves with the costs of the now definitely not indefinite commitment, as a matter of progressive principle. We will maintain the Bush administration's conviction that Iraq is "the most geopolitically important country in the world." Because it is, that's why. It just is.

Personally, I think it probable that a Hillary Clinton administration would attempt to pursue something very like the course outlined here, abandoning it in haste and confusion only if forced to by events elsewhere. For now, I just want to mention one thing that Messrs. Cohen, Brimley, and Bergmann all have unambiguously in common: they give no sign that they think "our" responsibility to Iraq and its people, however much more important this may be than all the other responsibilities America has in the world, is in any material way "their" responsibility. You won't see any of them humping a pack around Baghdad, or even volunteering to have their income taxes raised to pay the bill for the men who do. Just not their thing, I guess.

[Jim Arkedis]

As we consider a withdrawal strategy, the next administration has to do a better job of playing the hand we're dealt, and not trying to cobble together a passable few cards by raiding the deck.

Our moral and strategic duty is the establishment of a pluralistic Iraqi civil society that respects all religious and ethnic blocs under the rule of law. The Bush administration has lowered that bar repeatedly, but, campaign rhetoric aside, that goal should remain. It is the only long-term moral and strategic justification for lost American and Iraqi lives and fortunes, respectively.

Now here’s our hand:

The civil society being created in Iraq today, the one that the surge is allegedly permitting, is being dominated by Shi'a (see: one highly flawed de-Ba'athification law). Following decades under the boot of Saddam's Sunni minority, it's tempting to say that you can't completely blame them.

Furthermore, we have to acknowledge that Americans have a tough time understanding the Arab mindset. We easily forget that it is a culture based on slowly developed relationships forged over decades of networked acquaintances and gradually-built trust.

However, trends in violence, though tenuous, are headed in the right direction. This at least allows the US to be more involved on the diplomatic side.

Those cards aren’t necessarily the stuff a winning hand is made of.

Having taken stock, a realistic plan for withdrawal is this: With constructive American engagement and plenty of American patience, we should craft a policy of carrots and sticks geared toward mitigating Shi'a dominance and fostering a comfortable political niche for all of Iraq’s diverse groups. This means exerting pressure on Shi’a groups on the verge of passing oppressive legislation (like the de-Ba’athification law), but also rewarding them for equitable laws. Given the years of Sunni minority domination, this task will be neither easy nor fast. On the other hand, a quick withdrawal will remove our one check on Shi’a domination.

However, as long as the decreased violence becomes a stable trend over 2008 and economic development proceeds, we can gradually begin to draw down our military presence by several divisions (tens of thousands of troops) over the course of several years. However, we must also leave several tens of thousands of soldiers (perhaps the 75,000 suggested above) to ensure stability and to keep pressure on the Shi’a majority. A timeline is difficult to estimate, but within slow-trusting Middle Eastern culture, some American presence could remain for decades.