democracyarsenal.org: A Downpayment on Withdrawal

January 12, 2009

A Downpayment on Withdrawal
Posted by Ilan Goldenberg

Marc Lynch did a great framing memo for an NSN Iraq workshop for us last week and now he's put it out. Here is the critical recommendation from Marc's paper.

Make a significant "down payment" on troop withdrawals. There will be tremendous pressure to postpone the initial withdrawals because of the intense calendar of Iraqi events detailed above [Provincial elections in January, SOFA Referendum in July, Kirkuk resolution in March, national elections next December]. This would be a mistake. A visible, significant early withdrawal would help significantly with the SOFA/WA referendum, would send an important message to Iraqi leaders, and would break the institutional inertia that threatens to lock in the current strategy. Only the certainty of a U.S. withdrawal will shift the incentives of Iraqi politicians to move quickly towards a minimally acceptable political accommodation. Many Iraqis are deeply concerned about alleged secret annexes to the SOFA/WA and that the United States does not really intend to leave. The more clearly the commitment to withdrawal can be articulated, the better -- for both Iraqi and American political purposes.. The military is already prepared for such an initial withdrawal, and should have little problem implementing such early cuts -- and would welcome the freeing up of resources for Afghanistan and other challenges. Critics will argue that this is not the right time to begin withdrawals, but it never will be.

Marc's piece speaks to the constant tension between those analyzing Iraq purely on security grounds versus those who are looking primarily at the political. Those who look primarily at the security, such as the recent piece from Biddle, Pollack, and O'Hanlon, argue that we need to keep large troop levels in Iraq through the general election and then we can start redeploying forces. It appears that some folks on the ground, most notably General Odierno, seem to agree with that perspective.

But what this perspective misses is the fact that by leaving large numbers of American forces in Iraq, we are having a dramatic impact on the likely political outcomes. If there are still 140,000 or so troops in Iraq in July, it's impossible to imagine that the Iraqi people won't look at the situation and vote against the SOFA, which would create a speedier and messier withdrawal. In fact, there are all kinds of conspiracy theories in Iraq and Iran about secret annexes in the SOFA that would allow U.S. forces to remain indefinitely and not having some kind of significant and early withdrawal would ensure that these rumors persist. Without an early redeployment the Iraqi public is likely to become jaded with a new American administration very quickly and simply conclude that it is more of the same. Still, there is an argument to be made that during the intensive national election period, you don't want to be pulling out too many troops all at once and that there will need to be American forces there to help secure the polls and ensure that, for example, international elections monitors can move around.

The right approach seems to be to stick to the 16 month timeline to remove American combat forces from Iraq that President-Elect Obama outlined during the campaign. But rather than doing a brigade a month, make the withdrawal lumpy. You can start by making a grand gesture and removing a number of brigades during the first half of 2009. This should be done loudly and proudly so that it is clear to Iraqis that large numbers of American forces are in fact leaving and that Obama is in fact keeping his promise and is different than Bush. Then slow things down in the second half of 2009 to ensure you have right level of forces to provide security during the elections. And then do the rest of the withdrawals in early 2010 to meet the 16 month time commitment.

January 12, 2009 at 03:05 PM | Permalink

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Comments

The military is already prepared for such an initial withdrawal

Wrong. Gates, Mullen and Petraeus all say that any withdrawal must be related to conditions on the ground, something Rumsfeld said for years, and which are merely code words for maintaining the status quo.Obama has backed off his pre-election withdrawal fervor and has said that he will listen to the Pentagon, so there you go. Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose. (It's my Monday foreign language mode.)

Posted by: Don Bacon | January 12, 2009 at 04:03 PM