[Peace-discuss] Paleocons: Get out of Iraq

[C. G. Estabrook]

	Tuesday, January 18, 2005
	Why We Shouldn't Stay the Course

This American Conservative cover story by William Polk is one of the most
persuasive analyses I have ever seen of why the US should get out of Iraq.
Polk considers three options,

    "The first option has been called 'staying the course.'  In
practice, that means continued fighting. France 'stayed the course' in
Algeria in the 1950s as America did in Vietnam in the 1960s and as the
Israelis are now doing in occupied Palestine. It has never worked
anywhere. In Algeria, the French employed over three times as many
troops -- nearly half a million -- to fight roughly the same number of
insurgents as America is now fighting in Iraq. They lost. America had half
a million soldiers in Vietnam and gave up. After four decades of warfare
against the Palestinians, the Israelis have achieved neither peace nor
security....

    "The second option is 'Vietnamization.'  In Vietnam, America
inherited from the French both a government and a large army. What was
needed, the Nixon administration proclaimed, was to train the army, equip
it, and then turn the war over to it. True, the army did not fight well
nor did the government rule well, but they existed. In Iraq, America
inherited neither a government nor an army. It is trying to create both.
Not surprisingly, the results are disappointing....

    "The third option is to choose to get out rather than being forced.
Time is a wasting asset; the longer the choice is put off, the harder it
will be to make. The steps required to implement this policy need not be
dramatic, but the process needs to be unambiguous. The initial steps could
be merely verbal: America would have to declare unequivocally that it will
give up its lock on the Iraqi economy, will cease to spend Iraqi revenues
as it chooses, and will allow Iraqi oil production to be governed by
market forces rather than by an American monopoly.

    "The second step, more difficult, is to make a truce and pull back its
forces. If President Bush could be as courageous as Gen. Charles de Gaulle
was in Algeria when he called for a 'peace of the brave,' fighting
would quickly die down. This is not wishful thinking; it is what happened
time after time in guerrilla wars."

Too bad we will now probably have to wait until after 2008, when whoever
becomes President then can say of his predecessor, "He screwed up big
time." The current White House occupant has already declared the
re-election absolves him of all previous sins and stupidities. Waiting for
"I screwed up" is Waiting for Godot.

posted by John McCreery 8:51 PM Comments (2)

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