The argument usually goes something like this: “yes, the occupation is a disaster for Iraqis, but if we withdraw it will be so much worse.” It seems to me that there is a major flaw with these analyses. Briefly, the flaw is inherent in the question: are we, as a country, going to commit to the sacrifices necessary to prevent this disaster from unfolding? As far as I can tell, this desperately incompetent administration figured that they could “do Iraq on the cheap” and more than just about anything else I see that as the “strategy” that they are unwilling to change. They have been unwilling to ask for any form of national sacrifice, though, of course some have sacrificed all. I expect someone genuinely concerned with our responsibility to the Iraqis, someone maintaining we have a moral obligation to the Iraqis that can ONLY be met by our continued military commitment in Iraq, will recognize the abject failure, the disastrous consequences of the current Iraq policy and will, because of the moral obligation, advocate strongly for the sacrifices that are necessary to redeem this disaster.
What sacrifices? A military DRAFT, so that we can field appropriate anti-insurgency military forces, realistic, engaged, flexible DIPLOMACY that starts extracting the U.S from the extreme isolation in which we have been positioned in this quagmire, an Iraqi (or even Middle East) “MARSHALL PLAN” to rebuild the destroyed infrastructure of Iraq and channel the efforts of Iraqis into being productively engaged in the world economy, and, finally, much higher TAXES to pay for these things rather than mortgage our children’s and our grandchildren’s economic future and threaten our own. Empirically, it seems obvious undertaking such a program is extraordinarily unlikely, at least a single data point being that no serious politician has even broached these ideas – our professional political class understands that these ideas would be touching, nay, clutching, the third rail of politics.
So, even though we are currently engaged in a slow motion disaster (is it really that slow?) we are not committed to doing what is necessary to stop it. Taken in this context it occurs to me that an analogy for the “we must stay to prevent a greater disaster” crowd is folks who go to their doctor with a bad cold demanding antibiotics who then fail to take the full course of the drugs. That “slow motion disaster” produces, as is well known, drug resistant bacteria that become dangers to everyone. That is what I see the these analysts arguing for – a low-level, inadequate, “treatment” of the Iraq disaster, in most cases, simply advocating for some variation of a “Friedman unit” approach. We already have some solid evidence that this produces results that are, at a very minimum, contrary to our military goals – serving as a means to recruit for (global) insurgency against America, honing the skills, tactics and strategies of those engaged in the insurgency, and exporting these experienced fighters to other regions.
So, I can not even begin to take pieces like this seriously until I see their authors take a deep breath and advocate, integrally in their positions, for the SACRIFICES that are necessary to stop the disaster. Go home, take two aspirin, and get into bed. When you are ready to take the medicine, all the medicine, the full course, come back and we’ll talk. Otherwise, methinks you are really not so serious about the moral obligation and perhaps withdrawal is the better of a fistful of dreadful options.