Newsweek: The Perils Of Pulling Out ("Is anyone planning for U.S. pullout?")

[grytpype]

A damn good question for everyone on the anti-war side, not just the "miracle the troops home today" people. Withdrawing from Iraq is going to be a huge project in and of itself. It will require long-term planning, coordination, all the stuff the Bush administration can't do worth a damn. Even with competent management it's likely to be a disaster.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18108844/site/newsweek/

The Perils Of Pulling Out

Everyone is talking about whether the United States should withdraw from Iraq. But is anyone actually planning for that day?



...

The central lesson in all these cases was not that withdrawal was a bad idea. Wise or not, it became inevitable. But the aftermath in every case was made worse by the fact that governments waited so long to admit that a pullout might be necessary. When the moment came, their hasty departures made the chaos that followed that much worse.

Think tanks in Washington have begun to explore those consequences for Iraq in detail. Pollack's report, coauthored with Daniel Byman, warns, "When the United States decides that reconstruction has failed and that all-out civil war in Iraq has broken out, the only rational course of action, horrific though it will be, is to abandon Iraq's population centers and refocus American efforts from preventing civil war to containing it." Many of the paper's broad recommendations are similar to those made by the Iraq Study Group chaired by former secretary of State James Baker and former congressman Lee Hamilton last fall: work for regional peace and stability. Others are draconian suggestions tied to fears of disastrous events—for instance, to create a system of "buffer zones" to collect refugees at the borders.

...

Ultimately, even informal discussions of fallback options keep coming to the same conclusion: U.S. troops will have to stay in Iraq—perhaps not in combat roles, but in large numbers nonetheless. Philip Zelikow, who formerly worked with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, notes that the kind of "drawdown" being proposed by the Democrats "is easy to say, but the issue is, what are you going to withdraw?" The U.S. forces are vital to the Iraqi military's logistics and intelligence, and also act as a restraint. If the Americans pull back, the Iraqis "will end up fighting the war their way," says Zelikow, and that would be uglier than the conflict we have now.

Even Steven Simon, who strongly advocates disengagement, says that American and other international forces—once they pull out of Iraq—should be ready to go back in "for humanitarian intervention in the event that violence in Iraq becomes genocidal." The day after in Iraq may look a lot like the day before.

[TwilightGardener]

1. These are all points I agree with--thanks for sharing this.

[leftchick]

2. and WHY we need to pull out....

If America Left Iraq

(page 2 of 2)

But what about the foreign jihadi element of the resistance? Wouldn't it be empowered by a U.S. withdrawal?

The foreign jihadi element—commanded by the likes of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi—is numerically insignificant; the bulk of the resistance has no connection to al-Qaeda or its offshoots. (Zarqawi and his followers have benefited greatly from U.S. propaganda blaming him for all attacks in Iraq, because he is now seen by Arabs around the world as more powerful than he is; we have been his best recruiting tool.) It is true that the Sunni resistance welcomed the foreign fighters (and to some extent still do), because they were far more willing to die than indigenous Iraqis were. But what Zarqawi wants fundamentally conflicts with what Iraqi Sunnis want: Zarqawi seeks re-establishment of the Muslim caliphate and a Manichean confrontation with infidels around the world, to last until Judgment Day; the mainstream Iraqi resistance just wants the Americans out. If U.S. forces were to leave, the foreigners in Zarqawi's movement would find little support—and perhaps significant animosity—among Iraqi Sunnis, who want wealth and power, not jihad until death. They have already lost much of their support: many Iraqis have begun turning on them. In the heavily Shia Sadr City foreign jihadis had burning tires placed around their necks. The foreigners have not managed to establish themselves decisively in any large cities. Even at the height of their power in Fallujah they could control only one neighborhood, the Julan, and they were hated by the city's resistance council. Today foreign fighters hide in small villages and are used opportunistically by the nationalist resistance.

When the Americans depart and Sunnis join the Iraqi government, some of the foreign jihadis in Iraq may try to continue the struggle—but they will have committed enemies in both Baghdad and the Shiite south, and the entire Sunni triangle will be against them. They will have nowhere to hide. Nor can they merely take their battle to the West. The jihadis need a failed state like Iraq in which to operate. When they leave Iraq, they will be hounded by Arab and Western security agencies.

What about the Kurds? Won't they secede if the United States leaves?

Yes, but that's going to happen anyway. All Iraqi Kurds want an independent Kurdistan. They do not feel Iraqi. They've effectively had more than a decade of autonomy, thanks to the UN-imposed no-fly zone; they want nothing to do with the chaos that is Iraq. Kurdish independence is inevitable—and positive. (Few peoples on earth deserve a state more than the Kurds.) For the moment the Kurdish government in the north is officially participating in the federalist plan—but the Kurds are preparing for secession. They have their own troops, the peshmerga, thought to contain 50,000 to 100,000 fighters. They essentially control the oil city of Kirkuk. They also happen to be the most America-loving people I have ever met; their leaders openly seek to become, like Israel, a proxy for American interests. If what the United States wants is long-term bases in the region, the Kurds are its partners.

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200512/iraq-withdrawal/2

[Redstone]

3. No. We go into an immediate defensive posture, with lots of air cover, then get in the trucks

and go. Then we hire somebody the Iraqis trust (the Swiss, maybe?) to go in (peacefully, not with a fucking army) and fix all the shit that we broke, no matter how much it costs.

Pretty simple, that. And we owe it to the Iraqis.

Redstone

[MadMaddie]

8. Agreed Redstone....

No matter how you look at it...

if we stay Iraq continues to worsen and more of our soldiars die and more Iraqi's die

or

Withdraw and Iraq continues to worsen but our soldiars don't die but unfortunately Iraqi's will..

I go with the latter and like you said pay for the reconstruction of Iraq...but that will only be successful if Iran and Syria are pulled into the picture....that's another discussion...

[Redstone]

10. OK, we pay the Swiss to do the rebuilding, under Iranian and Syrian management. Works for me.

Redstone

[peaches2003]

4. Forget it

We're not going anywhere for a very long time. Bush started this and has made such a mess of it for one reason only- he and his oil friends want us there and have made it impossible for us to leave.

[grytpype]

5. No, I don't buy the "chaos was the plan" BS.

This is their worst nightmare. They wanted a stable Iraq that would let us do anything we want with it. Not this, where we have to stay out of total desperation and we can't get the oil out.

[peaches2003]

7. I only meant

that the plan was never to get rid of Saddam and then leave. Bush always planned to stay- hence the permanent military basis, embassy so big it can be seen from space, etc.

[Redstone]

11. Balls. It's NOT impossible; it's EASY. See post #3.

Redstone

[aquart]

6. Yes, Iraq will be a disaster. But we no longer have rights there.

What they do when we leave, having been more disastrous than a tsunami, will be their decision. The civil war we precipatated was always going to happen. Now they finally have to get it over with. It might not have been as ugly if we hadn't been there. But that ain't necessarily so.

And all the dead, during our occupation and after we've left, will still be on us at Judgement Day.

But that isn't the disaster that worries me. The Iraq catastrophe is a done deal. Afghanistan, too. The disaster that worries me is THE RETURN OF OUR SOLDIERS. Our exhausted, traumatized, angry, wounded citizens coming home to................a government that doesn't give a shit. And an economy that didn't have a job for them before they left, let alone now.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

9. The shitstorm to come..inevitably.

The brilliant planners at the White House and Pentagon that jumped into Iraq with flags waving and guns blazing and expected the joyous Iraqis to fling flowers and start naming they're kids Dubya have proven their abilities as strategists.

Though it is impossible to think of Bush and his merry band of advisers doing anything approaching thoughtful, now is the time for diplomacy and coalition building throughout the middle-east and Europe to try and contain the violence, deal with the refugees, and find ways, practical ways, to protect and support the Iraqi people.

But, even that is a vain hope. The Europeans have decided that Iraq is the tarbaby that we have embraced and have no appetite for grabbing any part of it themselves - especially if the Americans insist on holding the reins. The countries of the region all have their own priorities regarding not just Iraq, but their own future in the region.

Now, the "plan" seems to be to feed more troops into the meatgrinder and pray for a miracle that will end with flower flinging and a happy smirk from the imBushcile-in-chief.

The American people are finally beginning to realize that erecting bogeymen, waving flags, and choruses of "God Bless America" are not the way to run a rational foreign policy.

[Name removed]

12. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Richard Steele]

13. How many times are you planning on posting that?

Once was enough, barrister.