The Only Choices Are Bad ChoicesEndless plans, no good options for Iraq.
Posted Monday, July 16, 2007, at 8:04 PM ET
Leave Washington in the winter, return in midsummer. What will strike you is first the heat, then the humidity—and then the certainty. Out in the world, there are shades of gray. Inside the Beltway, there are black-and-white solutions. And everybody who is anybody has a plan for Iraq.
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StumbleUponHillary Clinton has a three-point plan; Barack Obama has a move-the-soldiers-from-Iraq-to-Afghanistan plan. House Democrats have a plan to take most troops out by next March; Senate Democrats have a plan to take them out by April. Some Senate Republicans want the president to shrink the size of the U.S. military in Iraq; other Senate Republicans want to let the surge run its course. Search the Web, listen to the radio, watch the news, and you can hear people arguing that if only we had more troops, fewer troops, or no troops at all, then everything would be OK again.
What is missing from this conversation is a dose of humility. More to the point, what is missing is the recognition that every single one of these plans contains the seeds of potential disaster, even catastrophe.
More troops? I hardly need elaborate on what's wrong with that plan, since so many in Congress do so every day. But for the record, I'll repeat the obvious: More troops means more American casualties, maybe many more casualties. Worse, the very presence of U.S. soldiers creates strife in some parts of Iraq, aggravating Iraqis, motivating al-Qaida, sparking violence. Besides, we've tried the surge, and the surge hasn't brought the results we wanted. And anyway, the surge simply can't be maintained, let alone expanded. There aren't that many more troops to send, even if we wanted to send them.
Fewer troops? This plan sounds like a reasonable compromise: Neither surge nor cut-and-run, just leave a few guys on the ground to train the Iraqis, guard the border, and fight the terrorists. It also sounds a touch naive: So, in the middle of a vast civil war, small groups of Americans will withdraw to some neutral outpost and announce that they would no longer like to be shot at, please? Both "guarding the border" and "fighting terrorism" are hard to do effectively without involving ourselves in wider political and ethnic struggles. There is also trouble with the "train the Iraqis" part of the plan, as Stephen Biddle spelled out in the Washington Post last week, since "training Iraqis" invariably puts us in the middle of military conflict. Besides, fewer Americans could mean more Iraqi violence; more Iraqi violence could mean more American casualties—not to mention more Iraqi casualties—which defeats the purpose of the plan altogether.
No troops? Though deeply appealing to the "we told you so" crowd, this plan is clothed in the greatest degree of hypocrisy. How many of the people who clamor for intervention in Darfur will also be clamoring to rush back into Iraq when the full-scale ethnic cleansing starts taking place? How many will take responsibility for the victims of genocide? I'm not saying there will be such a catastrophe, but there could be. Mass ethnic murders have certainly been carried out in Iraq before. Other possibilities include the creation of an Iranian puppet state; the creation of an al-Qaida outlaw state; or merely a regional war involving, say, Turkey, Iran, Syria, Jordan, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia, just for starters, and maybe Israel and Gaza, as well. Maybe these things would have never happened if we hadn't gone there in the first place, but if we leave, we'll be morally responsible.
Of course, I don't want to exaggerate: There are people who know that there is no perfect solution for Iraq. They tend to be people who are not running for president, vice president, or any other public office. Last weekend, I met a Marine about to depart for his second tour in Iraq. He wasn't exactly enthusiastic about going, nor was he particularly optimistic about what could be achieved. But he wasn't demanding to stay at home. If nothing else, he felt obliged to stick by the many Iraqis who had helped the Marines and who might well be murdered if the Marines left for good.
He had, in other words, perceived the only truth of which we can really be certain: There are no obvious solutions in Iraq, only policy changes that could make some things better and some things worse. Maybe much worse.
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Remarks from the Fray:
Among the journalistic clichés that should be outlawed by editors around the nation is the anecdotal "I talked to a [insert service]."
Unnamed sources are supposed to be rather suspect to begin with. Second, "a marine" could be anything from a clerk/typist private to a battle hardened general. Third, it is somewhat disturbing to hear so many pols desperately try and convince me that "The Marines" believe in one policy or the other. Who gives a rat's ass what that Marine thinks? He volunteered, he goes where/when ordered. Pretending as though the military has some special claim on policy-making is a root element of militarism that is being reflected by all sides in this debate.
It is absolutely trivial to find a single anecdotal person within the vast military who will just happen to have an opinion that is in line with whatever you want to write. If you are really serious about discovering the "mood" of the military, then do scientifically rigorous polling. Heck, let's just have an election and let the troops themselves decide whether or not they want to stay. After all, as every PFC will tell you, any PFC knows what to do better than any general - let alone commander in chief.
Indeed, Bush is yet another practitioner. He dodges responsibility by emphasizing "the military's plans" and speechifying his own anecdotal tales of soldiers/sailors/marines who just happen to believe wholeheartedly in his policies.
Polling the troops didn't win the two world wars. And most people don't even bother to poll, but rather pull "my soldier cousin Vinny" out of a handy hat. Enough with quoting unnamed random service members like they were Oracles of Delphi.
--fozzy
(To reply, click here.)
I think Bush has the merit of at least caring about the outcome. As you point out, none of the candidates and especially the Democrats are framing the discussion remotely in any way that actually cares what the outcome is. They can't seriously believe that just pulling out and letting thousands of Iraqis be killed is in the interest of the United States. There is no reasonable way to make that argument.
--Dan_O
(To reply, click here.)
One thing that is missing from all the discussions of numbers of troops in Iraq, whether to stay, is the opportunity cost ... the discussion becomes much more clear cut when you point out the debt burden of the war for future generations of Americans and what could be done with the money right now, such as health care for all Americans, with money left over.
Put in those terms, I think all but the most militant warriors would pull the plug on the disaster Bush has made on behalf of all of us.
--bubba_barry
(To reply, click here.)
We know bad things can happen no matter what we do, but bad things are already happening every day. If we stay, the brutal and senseless killings continue, and we lose more soldiers, contractors (Some people do care about them), and money. If we leave, the killings may continue, there is no guarantee they will stop, but we will lose less troops and spend less. Iraq has already said it's ok if we leave (they were polite enough to no add "you've done enough damage"), so let's graciously accept their offer.
There is a chance that some of the violence will subside if we leave, as much of it is directed at the U.S. presence there. We don't know what will happen, but we do know what will happen if we stay: more soldiers will die, hundreds of billions of dollars will be wasted, and the U.S. standing in the rest of the world will continue to decline.
Leaving is not a great solution, it is not a good solution, but it is better than staying. Ethanol is not a great solution for powering cars, but it is better than gasoline. Kerry was not a great choice for president in 2004, but he would have been way better than bush. In all of these cases, the defenders of the status quo make their case by pointing out the dangers of making changes, while ignoring the absolute certainity of disaster while staying the course. When did this country become the fearful nation?
--kgsbca
(To reply, click here.)
(7/17)