More Iraq Posted by Ilan Goldenberg

OK, I’m going to weigh in late here on what has been a high quality debate.

Ultimately, my views are much more in line with Max’s, but I think that Shawn makes some pretty good points that can be incorporated into a withdrawal plan.  The ultimate flaw in Shawn’s approach is that the probability of success under any scenario is extraordinarily low (Like 1-2% in my view), and I don’t think you will see a major difference in outcomes inside Iraq, whether a drawdown occurs over 3-10 years or over 12-18 months.  What you will see under Shawn’s plan is a much greater cost to the United States and further regional destabilization as the U.S. is unable to recalibrate and focus on other major strategic objectives both in the Middle East and across the world.  It’s one thing if there were no costs.  But the opportunity costs are huge and the potential benefits are unlikely to occur.

The reality is that we are sitting on an unstable balance of power inside Iraq, supported by localized cease fires that are unlikely to last.  No one has any idea how to convert these cease fires into actual institutional stability.  All it will take is one major event:  a second Samarra, a well placed assassination, contested elections, something that ignites the powder keg and causes everything to once again explode.  Shawn’s prescription to solving this problem seems to be way too optimistic.

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.

Every one of these actions by the Iraqi Government is the equivalent of passing Universal Healthcare Reform in this country.  It is a massive legislative and political undertaking and the likelihood of it happening is extraordinarily low.

That being said, I agree with Shawn’s point that the only leverage we have is the American presence.

So, what should a new President do?  Early on I’d appoint either one or a number of high level special envoys.  I would send them out to all of the key players both inside and outside the country:  ISCI, the Sadrists, KRG, CLCs, Awakening Councils, Sunni Greenzone politicians, Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Syria, etc…  The United States would make clear to all of these players that we are leaving.  The plan should be to pull most of our forces out in roughly 18 months or whatever the military feels is doable, given the difficult logistics.  But then I would also make clear that if the Iraqis, with help from us and their neighbors, make major political progress and come back and ask for more American support, we would reconsider and leave troops in longer.  In other words, a genuine leave-on-failure stay-on-success strategy that exercises the same type of leverage Shawn is talking about, but with a smaller American commitment and more pressure.

As part of this approach, I think it’d be wise to go to all of the players with at least a suggested outline of what a solution might look like.  Not because we want to dictate a solution but because there needs to be a starting point for discussions that they could react to.  I’d also scrap the whole piecemeal benchmark concept.  Trying to do this operation one benchmark at a time is silly.    If you are dealing with the oil law today, then you are going to take the maximalist position, because you are just negotiating on this one piece.  You have to negotiate a package that includes the oil law, provincial elections law, constitution, etc…  This will force the parties to prioritize and decide which of these issues really matter and on which they can be more flexible.  Everything needs to be on the table at once.

If phase one of these diplomatic discussions goes well, and it looks like an agreement might be possible, then you move on to phase two. Through careful negotiations you pave the way for a prolonged peace conference that brings all of the parties together to negotiate an agreement that settles how the various parties in Iraq will share power and what the state will look like.  This just can’t be done piecemeal in the greenzone.  If it’s going to work it needs to be done all at once.

At the same time.  I agree with everyone that we have a moral commitment to the Iraqi people.  That moral commitment should not involve keeping thousands of troops in Iraq indefinitely in an intractable situation that we cannot control.  That doesn’t help them and it doesn’t help us.  But the moral commitment should involve a massive humanitarian aid program, helping refugees and IDPs resettle and get their lives back together.  We should be much more welcoming to these people in our own country and work with our allies to find more places for refugees to resettle.  I don’t know if we can save Iraq.  But I do know that we can do a lot more to help millions of Iraqis deal with the consequences of what has happened.  This is an element that has been shamefully neglected.

Anyway, is this plan likely to work?  No.  But it’s as likely to work as anything anyone else has suggested, and the benefits of this plan are that if it doesn’t work, at least we are out.

Comments

[Dan Kervick]

Let’s start with a more frank appraisal of what is really going on in the region.

First, the states neighboring Iraq do not want Iraq to be a failed state; they do not want volatile and unpredictable oil prices; they do not want Iraq to become a base for terrorist threats to neighboring governments and peoples; they do not want Iraq to be a state that is unsafe for their citizens to travel to; they do not want Iraq’s religious destinations to be tense and turbulent sites for battles among pilgrims; they do not want floods of Iraqi refugees putting strains on their own domestic economies and social services; they do not want the crime, gun-running, kidnapping, racketeering and other routine symptoms of war and societal breakdown crossing into their countries. They want stability next door.

Unlike the US, these states aren’t going anywhere. They live there, and so are in it for the long haul. Any joint approach they settle on is likely to be more realistic, more durable and more credible. We really should be encouraging Iraq’s neighbors to step up in this way to settle on a unified approach to Iraq. Even the appearance of a common approach will do much to settle divisions inside Iraq, and discourage factional machinations in Iraq based on playing one neighboring party off against another.

Iran is attending the upcoming neighbor’s conference in Kuwait in April, and all the diplomatic and media commentary in the region seems to be trending in the direction of support for greater Arab-Iranian cooperation. Iraqi government spokesmen are also now calling publicly for greater Arab-Iranian dialogue, and are stressing that the American view of the issues does not quite match the Arab view. There is increasingly a common regional interest in stabilizing Iraq.

But one large thing strands in the way: Our president just took a trip to the Middle East, part of the purpose of which was to use US leverage to prevent this cooperative common approach from emerging, and to continue to promote division and rivalry among Iraq’s neighbors, divisions which Washington evidently believes are in the US interest. The US is using its influence to discourage these regional efforts. So any suggestion that the US is primarily aiming at stability in Iraq are unfounded. US efforts on behalf of a political settlement are clouded by the desire to preserve a large US piece of the economic action in Iraq, to establish a permanent US presence there, and to use Iraq and the Iraqi people as geostrategic tools: wedges to drive between regional states in support of US regional ambitions.

When a whole region is sick, there are natural restorative powers that come into play, restorative powers that the US is currently blocking. Right now the US is exhibiting the symptoms of a geostrategic version of Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy: a transparent effort to keep the Iraqi patient just sick enough to require permanent care from its US caregivers.

I keep hearing this theory that our main leverage over Iraq comes in the form of the "threat" that we might leave; so we need to stay so that we can continue to exert leverage by threatening to leave. This seems convoluted to me. The main thing we need to do is get out of the way of a settlement. Once we say we are leaving, the current unproductive stalemate or holding pattern will end, and the starting gun will go off on constructive efforts to put the country back together. So let's say we are leaving today. Let's say we fully support the movement toward cooperation among Iraq's neighbors. These neighbors, working with their various allies, proxies and kinsmen inside Iraq can then figure out the most workable settlement without meddling from countries half a world away.

If we want to discharge our moral obligation toward the Iraqi people, perhaps a good first step would be to stop killing and occupying them.

[Simmons]

I don't see much of a difference between yours and Shawn's plans, other than that you would pull out more quickly?

[Ilan Goldenberg]

Simmons,

That's probably right. But 5-10 years vs. 1-2 years matters. Also, I think I get a lot more specific on the political and diplomatic end, but I doubt Shawn was severly disagree with me on that. Also, I think Shawn is a stronger supporter of Iraq Security Force training, which I am not a big fan of. But he can speak for himself.