Over at LT Smash’s shop, he’s drumming up calls and emails in support of “We’re In ‘Till We Win” (if I may paraphrase).
It’s a week before the elections in Iraq – one of the first and freest in the Arab Middle East – and, for partisan advantage, the leadership of my party is saying that we should tell the Iraqi people “OK, we’re going home now. Nice visiting you, sorry we didn’t finish cleaning up the mess.”
I emailed my hawkish Democratic Member of Congress, Jane Harman a few weeks ago.
Here’s what I got in reply:
Dear Mr. Danziger:
The 2,000th American casualty provides a grim marker for our involvement in Iraq, but it also presents an important opportunity to answer the American people’s most pressing question: What is our exit strategy?
This war is costing far too much in American lives and taxpayer dollars. It is creating a new breeding ground for terrorists where one did not previously exist. It is setting back our efforts to confront Iran. And it is causing our allies to question our competence, policy judgments and above all, our word.
But just as staying indefinitely is not an option, so too is an immediate pullout of most American forces. We are not able to keep order with the number of troops we have there now. Withdrawing most of our forces immediately would effectively turn Iraq over to Al Qaeda, or perhaps Iran, leaving in our wake civil war, increased human suffering, and a far-more dangerous place than we found 31 months ago.
Thus, the most prudent exit is a steady efficient drawdown of U.S. troops beginning after the Iraqi elections in December. Exactly how many and at what pace? Those numbers may be important but only for symbolic – not necessarily strategic – reasons. Troops signify intentions, and the American people (and the Iraqi people, for that matter) are concerned about our intentions.
For that reason, America must clarify its intentions if this drawdown – this exit from Iraq – is to succeed.
First, President Bush should state unequivocally that the U.S. does not seek and will not maintain permanent military bases in Iraq. Our 60-year presence in Germany and our 50-year presence in Korea rightfully make people nervous that a half-century from now, American Marines will be living on a base in downtown Baghdad. President Bush should put that to rest – and make clear that U.S. policy is to leave Iraq completely.
Second, President Bush must clarify our intentions with respect to Iraq’s oil. We have no designs on Iraq’s precious natural resource, but Iraqis don’t believe us. We should state clearly that oil revenues belong to the people of Iraq and no one else. At the same time, we should also help Iraq get the oil flowing and encourage its neighbors, like Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, to assist.
Third, we should redouble our diplomatic efforts to get allies and partners to come into Iraq to share the burden for security and infrastructure. Internationalizing our efforts will take the target off our back and make it easier for us to leave. But it will only work if we invite others in – and if the offer to cede control is genuine.
Fourth, President Bush should ask a high-level personal envoy to focus on nothing but ironing out the political conflict between Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds. Creating a weakened, balkanized state is not our intention, despite the conspiracy theories of some. U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, Dr. Zalmay Khalizad, who engineered the Sunni “buy-in” to the recent Constitutional referendum, is a natural choice for this role, but it will mean reducing his other responsibilities.
And fifth, we must set forth a clear plan to have a fixed number of Iraqi military units trained to operate independently by a certain date. Establishing metrics for success, and sticking to them, will send the unequivocal message that the Iraqi people will be the defenders of their own country.
These five statements of American intention, backed up by concrete action, must accompany any drawdown in troops. No one – not in the Muslim world or here at home – will believe us unless we begin to leave, but no one should believe us unless we state now that we want a future for Iraq that is free of American involvement.
America seeks no empire, yet we give the impression to some that we do. Putting that issue to rest, once and for all, will allow the democratically elected Iraqi government to gain control over their country and will let our brave men and women finally come home.
Regards,
JANE HARMAN
Member of Congress
While I actually agree with parts of this (esp. the “Your oil belongs to you”), once again, her objective isn’t success against the insurgents; it’s “what does it take to get us to come home,” as clearly stated in the opening paragraphs.
Her notion that internationalizing the war – involving ceding control – is a good idea mystifies me. Who, in the feckless UN or EU, has shown any measure of resolve in dealing with this?
And this just makes no sense to me at all…can anyone help?
These five statements of American intention, backed up by concrete action, must accompany any drawdown in troops. No one – not in the Muslim world or here at home – will believe us unless we begin to leave, but no one should believe us unless we state now that we want a future for Iraq that is free of American involvement.
I’m composing a new letter and will get it to her by the 14th.
She used to be my Congressman before they gerrymandered Palos Verdes into Orange County and we moved north. She is the best Congressman her husbands money can buy.
Harmon is on the right track aside from the internationization nonsense. The other mistake is tauting the ‘exit strategy’ nature of the plan. That smacks of defeatism. We will draw down our troops because that is strategically useful to us and bring us closer to victory, no other reason. That must be emphasized. We are not doing so because keeping them safe is our highest priority, as the strange Kerry Defense Doctrine indicates.
Um, why is it bad to imagine a permanent base such as we have in Germany or Korea? I can’t see a big problem there, and there are upsides, such as keeping Iran from getting any ideas.
“Um, why is it bad to imagine a permanent base such as we have in Germany or Korea?”
It confirms the impression that we are occupying the country for imperial purposes. So long as there are significant US forces in country there will be the suspicion that the government is our puppet, no matter the election results. Now that may not matter to us for many parts of the world, but the Iraqis themselves are suspicious. The Sunni insurgency is largely driven by that premise, and worse we must never forget we are still on probation with the Shiia. If a chunk of them decide to start fighting again in the south our ability to deal with the Sunni and keep the government whole is in jepordy. We have promised to leave when we could, we should stick to that promise and prove all the critics wrong and reward those that trusted us. Bases in Kuwait will suffice, and special forces can still hunt in country with the Iraqi governmnets blessing. This scenario is still at least a couple years away though.
The no permanent bases in Iraq smacks of the same short sightedness that says no American involvement in the business of Iraq.
No permanent bases also says we are not interested in helping you. Why did we not leave Japan, Germany or Korea. Because we wanted to support the democracies. How long would any of these have lasted if we left the moment a government was in place.
Never mind Germany or Korea. People got to start remebering the Balkans.
Never mind preventing a full fledged civil war from starting, back in the 90’s we put our troops right in the middle of raging genocide and brought peace to a region with much deeper problems than Iraq currently has. Now, all the democrats can think of is how to get us not-involved as quickly as possible. Murtha’s plan even contemplates letting Iraq become another Afghanistan… and _then_ going back in!
It’s not only defeatist, it’s an insult to one of the democrats’ own major accomplishments of the Clinton administration.
It might be well to point out at this point that it isnt ultimately up to us. If the Iraqi Government intends to ask us to leave at some point (as polling strongly indicates), we would leave right?
For all our promises of leaving Iraq with no bases, taking none of its oil, freeing its people of Saddam, and helping it write the first bona fide democratic constitution in the Arab world, I would like to know:
What are the Iraqis going to do for us in return?
Iraqi response to America’s liberation of their country is my litmus test for the viability of the entire Arab world — which as of late, frankly, I have short patience for, and a sinking feeling that they’re a hopeless civilization — en masse.
It’s up to them to convince me I should think better of them.
Removing our forces from Iraq so that we can re-enter in force later sounds too much like the movie Groundhog Day to me. I don’t believe that’s going to happen.
Once we’ve redeployed our forces out of Iraq what conditions could possibly motivate us to move them back in? Civil war? There’s already a civil war. Emergence of a new Saddam? I don’t think we’ll have the stomach to remove another one after the political shenanigans over removing the first. Emergence of an Iranian-style theocracy? We didn’t stop the emergence of the first one nor are we doing anything about it now. Invasion by its neighbors (as Syria did with Lebanon)? Three of its neighbors are our allies the other two (Syria and Iran) are already engaged in acts of war against us. We won’t invade them, we’ll just bomb them.
“…This war is costing far too much in American lives and taxpayer dollars…”
My step-dad makes this argument and quite frankly, I do not understand it. I remember back when Clinton was president and people said something like “we hate the way he acts, but the economy sure is good”
Is there some cost to these decisions? Hey — I’m for war but only if it costs less than a hundred billion? We should kill all of the terrorists but not at the expense of presciptions for seniors? The president may be a criminal, but by golly I got a raise last week so he’s okay in my book?
Granted, the Clinton argument is at the extreme of the spectrum, since it is not a life-or-death decision. But sending troops into combat? Yep. You and your buddy should die, but once the tab gets too large we’re pulling the plug. How the heck can people live with themselves when they say things like this? To me, there should be a lot of soul-searching and conviction in a person if you are sending troops into combat. We’re not buying a new set of shoes on a credit card at K-Mart, for goodness sake. This same kind of reasoning goes like this: I’m your congressman and thanks for electing me on my values, but I just got this big check from a PAC so I’m sure you can understand that this is now a financial matter.
Yes. We can’t do everything we’ve promised. So instead of finding whipping boys like the war to blame this on, how about fixing the process that keeps letting us bust the budget?
Considering the billions we throw away as a matter of course on dubius government spending, i would say that investing in democratizing the Middle East is a money well spent. How many billions were we spending ‘containing’ Saddam anyway. Have to rememeber to subtract that from the price tag.
I take issue with Harman’s Point 3. She uses some rhetorical slight of hand in asking for more international involvement. More would be nice, but we have allies helping us in Iraq, and we’ve had them all along. “See my blog entry today for evidence”:http://politicalfred.blogspot.com/2005/12/our-multilateral-allies-in-iraq.html
I also fault the overall tone of the message, which emphasizes negatives, some of them imagined, others exagerated, while never providing the positive context of the reasons for the battle.
–Fred K (the other Fred)
–PoliticalFred.blogspot.com
_It might be well to point out at this point that it isnt ultimately up to us. If the Iraqi Government intends to ask us to leave at some point (as polling strongly indicates), we would leave right?_
Yea, totally. We got to get over this myth that the USA is out to colonize everyone. The Iraqi polls are responding to the question: “Do you want the US to stay and run things for 14 years like the Syrian in Lebanon?” not “Do you want the US to stay until a permenent legitimate elected government in control with an army that can defend it?” They’re two totally different questions. When people say ‘stay in Iraq’ or ‘leave iraq’ they really have to start elaborating enough to explain what they mean.
Marcus Cicero,
_What are the Iraqis going to do for us in return?_
The same thing the Afghans are going to do: _Not_ serve under nutcase totalitarian leaders or hoast terrorist tugs. What? That’s not good enough? You want to blow off Afghanistan too?
The Blakans and Afghanistan were in far far worse shape than the Iraqis are, and we helped both of them sort themselves out. We can do the same for Iraq (also like south korea, japan, germany etc. etc. etc.). And every time we’ve finished the job it’s _always_ paid off for us in the long run.
Dave Schuler
_Once we’ve redeployed our forces out of Iraq what conditions could possibly motivate us to move them back in?_
Islamist terrorist camps like Al Quida in Afghanistan, that’s what. And if we go with the Mutha plan, that’s exactly what we’ll get.
Those numbers may be important but only for symbolic – not necessarily strategic – reasons
The Dums main goal is not success but failure if Iraq succeeds their worst fears are realized the US’s heart and pride that was ripped out in Vietnam by our defeat and the Dums will be restored to health and again we will have confidence in our military ability. Not to mention Bushitler and those neo-cons will be proven right.
This statement is exactley what is wrong with the Dum party and why they cannot be allowed national leadership. This statement shows what they see as most important the symbolic, that may be great for adouvers at Parie and polls but for reality symbolism is subverted by reality on the ground. Symbolic troop reductions like the Dums want will do nothing exept show weakness of nerve to the enemy and our allies while same time giving the Dums some more hollow crap to cry about when a symbolic deadline cant be met.
And the garantees
We want no oil no long term bases this two is crap. The we want no oil what now because we are one of few who faught to liberate and give freedom to Iraq makes us unable to get the oil contracts the french, russian and chinease were willing to sell their souls for??WTF we shouldnt comandear the oil but we should be allowed like everyone else to do buisness with the new Iraqi nation we helped form.
Then the best no long term bases this is pure ignorance on many different levels 1) it is going to be awhile before the Iraqi gov can defend itself against a major war conflict that needs airforce, artilery, massive support, weapons stockpiles, ect.. they will need the US military thier if nothing more than the trip wire like N. Korea that will force immediate support from the states no matter who is pres. Also if our allies see us openly proclaiming we were not going to have long term bases then by nessecity they will be forced to make other arrangements who will it be Iran, AQ, Syria, Saudi, what? Kuwait, Bahrain, Qutar, even Saudi Arabia has large US bases and contigents why would Iraq be a taboo for such garantee’s I think in the long run the free Iraqi gov if supported and things are done right will be stronger allies than all the previous put together. Besides our ability to have large air bases and ground forces stocked up in Iraq is a huge leverage tool for our long term Middle East goals, ohh thats right cant tie Iraq into the larger geopolitical speere of the WOT can we now that is just ehhh justifiying the Iraqi war in the first place.
Like it or not one thing the Dums are incapable of seeing is the WOT will not stop with Iraq it is but one phase in a long term struggle on many fronts. The bases in Iraq will be key to whatever the Iran situation turns into wether that be limited air strikes, all out invasion, or embargo isolation of Iran. Does anyone really believe Syria pulled out of Lebanon becuase of UN pressure (that by the way had been on for 20+yrs) I would take a leap of faith to say 150k US troops within days of Damascus and US war plane based in hours of had a major hand in that outcome and continues today. If that lever was removed tommorow I would be very suprised if Hezbollah didnt rise up cause some unrest then Old brother Syria would role in to bring back stability of course. Not to mention Iran is a growing not shrinking problem and if anyone thinks we should have 150k troops boxed into Kuwait a mainly Sunni nation with Iran and the US at eachothers throat your a real bad gambler, Iraq is large spread out and largly Shia who would not look to kindly on a pre-emtive Iranian attack even if it was aimed at the Infedels Iran missles just are not that accurate and chem/bio depends on the wind.
No. The domestic political calculus simply wouldn’t support it. Bomb yes, land invasion no.
I think Mark Buehner is on the right track, but I’d like to elaborate.
We didn’t declare war on Iraq on the sense that we did on Germany and Japan, who attacked us nation-to-nation. We conquered those countries and that’s why we could have bases there irrespective of the wishes of the Germans and the Japanese.
Now, my belief is that we don’t announce we aren’t seeking permanent bases in Iraq is because we are, but the rhetoric of the Iraq War was all about liberation. We’re supposed to be liberating Iraq and letting its government take care of itself (that’s why we’re building the largest embassy in the world in Baghdad?!). There isn’t, I think, any doubt that any freely-elected government of Iraq will be cold to permanent bases, and under the picture that the Bush Administration has painted, we’re really going to have to acceed to their wishes. Well, unless we want to announce that the American left-wingers and like-minded foreigners are correct, and I don’t think Ayatollah Sistani will be overjoyed at the news.
As far as the internationalization, I’m sure you guys remember how after the Fall of Baghdad and the great statue-toppling photo op (fake, of course), we sneered at allowing European involvement in Iraqi Reconstruction, except from the minority of countries in our Coalition of the Compliant. I know this was reversed in theory, but is there any sign it was reversed in practice?
I haven’t met too many Americans who would have a problem with US bases in Iraq 50 years from now…if the population liked us the way Germans and Japanese do. And that can happen just like the Germans and Japanese took awhile to like Americans. The only issue now are the IEDs…and they can be stopped with strategic geopolitical relationship turnarounds in Saudi Arabia, Syria and Iran.
In fact, maybe the Saudis have been helping Bush by not putting on the brakes for the insurgency so the Democrats can go way, way out on a limb…before the Saudis and Al Jazeera become pro-Bush in 2006…leaving the Democrats holding the bag and the Republicans can remind the voters how the Democrats had been ready to surrender. 🙂
All I see in Jane Harman and many of the above commentators are people dedicated to the leftist cause or gay marriage or name your Democratic Party ideal…looking for an excuse to say that people should vote Democrat in 2006…when the Republicans will, rightfully, point out for the next year that Democrats are white flag wavers at heart…and don’t care about stopping Iran or other threats.
Look toward Iran becoming the issue of 2006. There will be an Iran War Resolution at some point in 2006. We, of course, have to stand up to what is going on. I believe Israel should make the first move of course.
I haven’t met too many Americans who would have a problem with US bases in Iraq 50 years from now…if the population liked us the way Germans and Japanese do. And that can happen just like the Germans and Japanese took awhile to like Americans. The only issue now are the IEDs…and they can be stopped with strategic geopolitical relationship turnarounds in Saudi Arabia, Syria and Iran.
By the way…Hitler had nothing to do with the attack on Pearl Harbor and we attacked him first (if you don’t count the skirmishing on the oceans). Our Lend-Lease Act was, by leftist standards AT THE TIME, an outrageous act of war!!
Remember, the American Left was pro-Hitler as long as Stalin was pro-Hitler…and that lasted for the first 2 years of WW2! This means that for 33% of World War Two, your average “progressive” American liberal didn’t want Hitler to be attacked by Americans or conservative Brits.
Meanwhile, maybe the Saudis have been helping Bush by not putting on the brakes for the insurgency so the Democrats can go way, way out on a limb…before the Saudis and Al Jazeera become pro-Bush in 2006…leaving the Democrats holding the bag and the Republicans can remind the voters how the Democrats had been ready to surrender. I would like to see a major strategic shift that would put the liberals into free fall. 🙂
Maybe China publicly admitting that the Vietnam War ended with their peace pact with Nixon and that they had had every intention of invading Thailand if the Americans hadn’t put 500,000 troops into Vietnam in 1965.
All I see in Jane Harman and many of the above commentators are people dedicated to the leftist cause or gay marriage or name your Democratic Party ideal…looking for an excuse to say that people should vote Democrat in 2006…when the Republicans will, rightfully, point out for the next year that Democrats are white flag wavers at heart…and don’t care about stopping Iran or other threats.
Look toward Iran becoming the issue of 2006. There will be an Iran War Resolution at some point in 2006. We, of course, have to stand up to what is going on. I believe Israel should make the first move of course.