What Happens After We Leave? Posted by Michael Cohen

Michael Gordon has an important article in yesterday's New York Times that examines the "parallel universe" between what is being said on the campaign trail about Iraq and what is actually happening in that country.

The American officers I met were hardly of one mind on how to proceed in Iraq, but they were grappling with decisions on how to try to stabilize a traumatized country with a hard-headed sense that although there have been significant gains, a long and difficult job still lies ahead — a core assumption that has frequently been missing on the campaign trail.

The politicians, on the other hand, seemed more intent on addressing public impatience with an open-ended commitment in Iraq, either by promising prompt withdrawal (the Democrats) or by suggesting that victory may be near (the Republicans.)

. . . In the meantime, some senior officers seem utterly puzzled by the debate at home. “The one thing that befuddles is I have not heard any candidate describe what their short and long term goals are for Iraq, how it fits into their regional goals for the Middle East and transnational terrorism,” said the American officer. “Is their goal just to withdraw troops as fast as possible?”

In Gordon's piece lies an important critique of the Democratic position on Iraq. Democrats are clear about wanting to bring the troops home from Iraq, but none of them are particularly clear on what America should do after we leave. (I won't even get into what Republican candidates are saying about Iraq because it is, in general, so unhinged from reality and so vacuously presented that to do so would be the blogging equivalent of shooting fish in a barrel).

I mention this article in part because Glenn Greenwald, who for many is a voice for the progressive left, has written an 1800-word screed trashing the allegedly "pro-war" Gordon.  because,  According to Greenwald, Gordon is arguing "that the Only Serious Option is to remain in Iraq for a long, long time, and any politicians who refuses to accept this is being -- for that reason alone -- irresponsible and Unserious." I've long given up trying to understand the peculiar psychology behind Glenn Greenwald's incessant and occasionally unhinged attacks on the "serious foreign policy community," but this analysis is not only wrong, it's quite misleading.

Whether Greenwald wants to admit or not, Gordon's raises "serious" issues about American engagement in Iraq that not only progressives, but Americans of all political stripes, have been far too reluctant to address. (Until recently, I would have included myself in this analysis).

While I have been an adamant supporter of withdraw for some time I cannot escape the notion that the manner in which Democratic candidates are discussing the war is leaving out an important part of the equation: the aftermath.

For example, consider Hillary Clinton's plan for dealing with withdraw: Among other things she would, "support the appointment of a high level U.N. representative -- similar to those appointed in Afghanistan, Bosnia, and Kosovo -- to help broker peace among the parties in Iraq" and "convince Iraq's neighbors to refrain from getting involved in the civil war." Good luck with all that. That's not a plan; that's wishful thinking.

Obama's plan isn't much better, but at least he appears to be contemplating the notion that the US might have to send troops back into Iraq if civil war breaks out. In general, however, it's hardly surprising that both candidates would want to avoid these tough questions.

For example, if we leave Iraq what happens to counterinsurgency efforts, which have largely been dependent on American arms and which have, at least in the short term, brought some success in stabilizing the country? What if the threat of American departure does not lead the Maliki government to move forward with real political reforms as all the Democratic candidates for President claim it will? If Iraq devolves into an orgy of sectarian violence what are America's responsibilities to stop the killing? Does America have a duty to stay in Iraq and protect Iraqi civilians? Are Americans willing to accept the fact that our departure from Iraq may further destabilize not only Iraq but also the entire Middle East?

These are not easy questions and I don't have the answers for them. Like many I wrestle with my extraordinary desire to see American troops out of Iraq as soon as possible, as well as my fear that if we leave Iraq prematurely we are consigning the Iraqi people to a terrible and bloody fate - one that we as Americans unfortunately must bear responsibility (even for those of us who adamantly opposed this war).

The left has been pounding the drumbeats of withdraw for quite some time and today most Americans seem to share their view.  But I wonder if most Americans would support withdraw if they knew it would lead to widespread sectarian violence? I suppose it is quite possible that like Vietnam we will decide that we are willing to concede defeat in Iraq; that we are willing to sit by and do nothing if Iraq falls apart. But that is a discussion we should be having as a country. Unfortunately, if Greenwald's missive is any indication, it's not a debate that many progressives seem willing to even engage in.

Indeed, Greenwald recklessly derides anyone who disagrees with immediate withdrawal from Iraq as "pro-war," whether it's Gordon or fellow NYT reporter John Burns (both of whom have no doubt spent far more time in Iraq then Mr. Greenwald) or Anthony Cordesman and Andrew Krepenivich, two men who can only laughably be considered "pro-war" and who have both thoughtfully considered and debated many of the questions that Gordon raises in his piece. Instead Greenwald prefers to cite Pat Buchanan for support -- a figure who has nothing but contempt for many of the beliefs that progressives hold dear -- simply because he bolsters Greenwald's own conspiratorial views about "American imperialism." Mr. Greenwald casts the desire to stay in Iraq as part and parcel of a larger US foreign policy attitude that the world is "our playground to run and control through military force."   But does he truly believe that American has no responsibility to the Iraqi people? Is he fully comfortable with the possibility that our departure my lead to terrible violence and regional instability? That doesn't seem very progressive to me.

The fact is, just because America may one day choose to withdraw from Iraq (and let's hope that day is sooner rather than later) it does not mean that we can simply wash our hands of the problems there. Even in Andrew Bacevich's brilliant takedown of surge proponents he seems to stop short of calling for immediate withdrawal, noting instead that we should "cut our losses and deal with the consequences of failure."

Dealing with the consequences of failure is undoubtedly America's best course of action
vis-a-vis Iraq. This will involve a serious debate by politicians from both sides of the political fence. It is unfortunate that Republicans have, rather than engaging on this question, used the war as a political tool for attacking Democrats. But progressives are no better if they play on the American people's desire for withdrawal from Iraq while ignoring the difficult questions that such a step could raise.

UPDATE: This post has been edited to correct some grammatical errors and eliminate repetition.

Comments

[Zathras]

Apart from being badly written, this post expresses a view more consistent with John McCain's than with that of any other current Presidential candidate, at least as far as the future of Iraq is concerned.

It presumes not only that we have a special responsibility to the Iraqi people but also that American policy must recognize the likelihood of stupendous catastrophe if we withdraw our forces from Iraq. Given these assumptions, McCain's position that we must remain in the country indefinitely looks like, to coin a phrase, straight talk; the assertion that we can withdraw our forces from Iraq and still prevent a lot of bad things from happening there looks more like willful self-deception.

One could argue that McCain, by championing counterinsurgency tactics that emphasize integrating Iraqi forces into American efforts to protect the civilian population, also pays at least some degree of respect to the idea that Iraqis bear some responsibility for their own country. Cohen, as a good liberal, doesn't go that far, though I imagine he'd be more than willing to heckle the current Iraqi government to the extent its failings can be made out to be an inevitable result of Bush administration policy. But in truth even McCain does not talk about Iraqis' responsibility very much. To him, Iraq's success or failure is just another way of saying America's success or failure; their failure must mean our failure.

The fundamental defect in McCain's position, of course, is that it makes no effort to question the premise of his Commander-in-Chief's geopolitical orientation of the last five years. For the whole of that time Iraq has been assumed to be more important to the United States than all our other interests in the rest of the world combined. Iraq absorbs more attention at the senior levels of our government; Iraq absorbs far more material resources. Sen. McCain would continue both conditions for years into the future, making President Bush's absurd premise that of his own administration and implicitly declaring his intent to continue the present administration's neglect of American interests outside of this one, mid-sized Arab country indefinitely.

Most hard decisions in foreign policy are hard not because the ideal choice is difficult to see but because the best choice may still involve some very unpleasant consequences. American interests, the ones that matter, demand the liquidation of the military commitment in Iraq. Once the decision to take this step has been made there may well be things the American government can do by way of damage control on the way out -- but if damage control is unsuccessful and bad things happen in Iraq, they happen. We don't get to shed the burden of the commitment in Iraq, cutting our losses after all this time, and still indulge that part of our conscience that tells us we need to ask other Americans to sacrifice to fix some situation about which we feel guilty.

[Peace]

The only solution to get out of Iraq is to develop a settlement with the regional actors such as Syria, Iran, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia. These countires could work with local Iraqi leaders in developing a stable Iraqi government. That is why Obama is the best bet for ending the American occupation of Iraq because at least he would work with Syria and Iran unconditionally in finding a settlement unlike Hillary Clinton and John McCain.

[Mike M.]

Hang on... there's a more important question than responsibility here... there's the question of how the American people, who were tricked into allowing this war to go forward in the first place, want to expend our national resources. If you want to say that George Bush and Dick Cheney have a moral obligation to the Iraqi people, fine. But I don't. I never wanted us to initiate this war. And our government is supposed to represent Americans. That means that right now, our government should be doing everything possible to avert an economic disaster. That means we need a costly stimulus package. We should probably stop spending money in Iraq right now and start spending it here at home or else we risk our long term economic future. That's where the moral obligation of our government should lie -- with its citizens. As for a moral obligation to Iraq, I leave it to the people who walked us into this war in the first place.

[David Tomlin]

'Glenn Greenwald's . . . analysis is not only wrong, it's quite misleading.'

It looks dead-on to me. Gordon's rhetorical questions are slanted in just the way Greenwald suggests.

'Are Americans willing to accept the fact that our departure from Iraq may further destabilize not only Iraq but also the entire Middle East?'

You provide your own example of loading the question, oblivious to the irony. I could ask 'Are Americans willing to accept the "fact" that the continued presence of American troops in Iraq may further destabilize not only Iraq but also the entire Middle East?'

[David Tomlin]

'Greenwald recklessly derides anyone who disagrees with immediate withdrawal from Iraq as "pro-war,"'

To say that someone is 'pro-war' is not to 'deride', any more than to say that someone is 'anti-war'. Both terms are simply descriptive.

What is your peculiar definition of 'pro-war', that does not apply to those who advocate continuing a war?

[Dan Kervick]

If US leaders are sincerely interested in stability in Iraq, they first have to stop pursuing policies that are actively de-stabilizing Iraq. For several years now, the US has sent a clear message that it doesn't strongly support the government it helped bring to power through democratic means in Iraq, because that Shia-dominated government, representing a majority of Iraqis, is uncomfortably close to Shia-dominated Iran. This has emboldened Iraq's minority Sunni population to continue fighting the government and put off submitting to its authority. They have been encouraged to believe, not without reason, that if they continue to resist then eventually the Americans will reject and disown the Baghdad government, for geostrategic reasons, and help restore Sunni power.

When Iran has tried to prop up the neighboring Baghdad government with investments and diplomatic support, the US responded by arresting Iranian emissaries and decrying Iranian "meddling" in Iraq. Imagine that. Iraq's most important next-door neighbor wants to have good, stabilizing relations with Baghdad, and this is meddling. A country half a world away invades Iraq with an initial shock and awe display, ends up causing the deaths of perhaps a million Iraqis, and sends millions more into exile ... and that country is the one that is allegedly interested in "stability".

The whole discussion is absurd. Until I see some evidence that the American government, and also the national security thinking class in Washington and New York, are sincerely interested in Iraq's security and ending violence, rather than in pursuing every other sort of selfish US "interest" in Iraq, then I see no reason to give them the time of day when they come playing their mournful violin music about the poor, poor Iraqis and our moral obligations to them. Let's see Washington send high-level emissaries to Tehran and Damascus, and encourage a regional concord on Iraq among those two countries, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Jordan and Turkey. Until something like this happens, I will continue to believe all of these professions of concern for the Iraqis are bunk, and that the leadership class is still just desperately angling for a way of pulling some semblance of victory and face-saving out of this mess.

And one other thing: The US has visited a hideous atrocity on Iraq: a wretched holocaust of murder, torture, exile, daily misery and long-term economic devastation. We've ruined the lives of millions of people. Don't you think at some point we should say "We're sorry" and "We need help to fix this"?

In the end, economic considerations are probably going to dictate the next US policy in Iraq. With the growing economic downturn, the extravagant commitment of resources to Iraq is unsustainable. As always with US leaders, it is money that talks in the end.