[Peace-discuss] How to get out of Iraq

[ppatton at uiuc.edu]

Published on Thursday, October 7, 2004 by the Boston Globe
Exiting Iraq
by Robert Kuttner
 

 On November 3, whether the president-elect is John Kerry or
George W. Bush, popular pressure for the United States to
withdraw from Iraq will increase dramatically. If it's Bush,
much of the anger that coalesced behind Kerry will convert to
a new antiwar movement of a breadth not seen since Vietnam.

If it's Kerry, he could face a split in his own party. A great
many Democrats, united behind the goal of ousting Bush, are
too polite to say that they're not wild about Kerry's proposed
Iraq policy, either.

The antiwar sentiment among Democrats powering Howard Dean's
candidacy was deep and real. That Dean couldn't convert it to
a nomination was merely a personal failure. Since then the
situation in Iraq has only worsened.

And though Kerry, unlike Bush, has at least promised to get
the troops out within four years, that will seem an awfully
long time as GIs keep getting killed and Iraq moves no closer
to stability. Indeed, as the months and years stretch on, the
National Guard, reservists, and the conventional military will
continue to be stretched thin, the costs will mount, and the
casualties will rise. Public opinion has already turned
against the war, and this will only intensify. Imagine the
MoveOn ads.

What kind of exit strategy is thinkable? Neither candidate
talks about this, since both are trying to project resolve.
But you can be sure that both think about it -- a lot.

Stanley Hoffmann, the dean of America's international
relations scholars, writing in The New York Review of Books,
proposes a withdrawal within six months of the election of a
new Iraqi national assembly. The United Nations would be
responsible for assembling a new, international peacekeeping
force. Troops could be drawn from any nation acceptable to the
Iraqi government.

Morton Abramowitz, a distinguished former US ambassador to
Turkey and Thailand who counsels early withdrawal, points out
that the US invasion and occupation have only increased
radical insurgencies.

Peter Galbraith, former ambassador to Croatia, calls for an
Iraqi federation under strict international supervision.
Galbraith, long an advocate for the Kurds, worries that civil
war could break out unless Kurdish semiautonomy is guaranteed
and policed, though conflict between Sunnis and Shi'ites is a
risk, too.

Kerry is at least on the road to reason when he talks about a
new start with a broader coalition that could gradually share
responsibility with the United States.

One expedited approach would have a UN-led authority recruit
peacekeeping troops mostly from Muslim or Arab-speaking
nations that are at worst moderately authoritarian, such as
Algeria, Morocco, Egypt, and Pakistan. The good-citizen
nations that always contribute to peacekeeping forces --
Sweden, Norway, Canada, Australia, among others -- might also
help. We'd withdraw troops as the United Nations put new
troops in.

America would still pay a lot of the cost. But other nations
would be so relieved that the United States had ceased to be a
lightning rod for rage that even Germany and France might
contribute something. In the short run, the peacekeeping force
would be larger than the one in there now. As Kerry keeps
observing, Bush has put in just enough forces to fail.

This strategy would get the United States out of its present
disaster much more rapidly than either candidate currently
proposes. But would it work?

Unfortunately, no course is guaranteed to "work," if that
means turning Iraq into a stable, quiet democracy. Iraq will
be a cauldron for the foreseeable future, no matter who
polices it. But an international constabulary force with at
least 50,000 more peacekeeping troops than the United States
currently fields and with the hated American occupiers no
longer there to stir up resentment, is more likely to work
than the current policy.

Even with the best possible exit plan, Iraq could still end up
with a smoldering civil war or with a new dictator only
moderately better than Saddam Hussein (though America
tolerates scores of those as long as they are not overtly
hostile, including its former tactical alliance with Saddam
brokered by one Donald Rumsfeld.)

The worst outcome would be if Iraq turned into a haven for
terrorists or if a Shi'ite-led regime were closely allied with
a nuclear Iran, which would then raise pressures for a new
intervention.

These risks will weigh heavily on the next president, who will
not want to be remembered as the man who "lost Iraq." Still,
internationalization and US withdrawal would be a vast
improvement, for the current policy is already a total loss.
The sooner the next president reverses it, the better.

Robert Kuttner is co-editor of The American Prospect. His
column appears regularly in the Globe.

© Copyright 2004 Boston Globe

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Dr. Paul Patton
Research Scientist
Beckman Institute  Rm 3027  405 N. Mathews St.
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign  Urbana, Illinois 61801
work phone: (217)-265-0795   fax: (217)-244-5180
home phone: (217)-344-5812
homepage: http://netfiles.uiuc.edu/ppatton/www/index.html

"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.  It is the
source of all true art and science."
-Albert Einstein
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