The Moral Dilemma of Leaving Iraq

[kentuck]

http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2007/11/iraq-war-index.html

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http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2007/11/iraq-war-post-us-scenarios.html

Post-U.S. Scenarios: The Bad, the Worse, and the Ugly

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Let's just get the wishful thinking out of the way first. Peace won't break out if and when the United States leaves Iraq; violence will continue, and possibly get worse. That's not a rationale for leaving the troops in place, just a hard reality. How bad, exactly, will it be? Here are four scenarios, ranging from the horrific to the somewhat hopeful.

1. Apocalypse Now
The feeble, feckless government collapses, and the militias go to war. Kurds seize Kirkuk and the northern oil fields; Sunni and Shiite Arabs fight back. Sunni forces try to take Baghdad, battling Shiite militias. In the south, competing Shiite forces battle it out for Basra while Al Qaeda in Iraq (aqi) gains a safe haven in the Sunni heartland. As the fighting intensifies, the neighbors jump in: Turkey invades northern Iraq to crush the Kurds, Iran and Saudi Arabia defend their allies, and restive minorities in neighboring countries rebel—all the ingredients are in place for a broader regional war, playing out on top of two-thirds of the world's oil supply. Gas hits $10 a gallon.


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2. Mad Max
Tens of thousands die as Sunnis and Shiites battle to control the country. But the regional powers agree not to intervene; after a time, the worst killing dies down, leaving a Somalia-style society run by gangs, warlords, and militias. To keep the slaughter contained within Iraq, U.S troops set up "catch basins" along the borders—armed buffer zones dotted with "refugee collection points," a.k.a. camps, for those trying to escape Iraq's hell.

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3. Partition
Iraq breaks up into Kurdistan, Shiastan, and Sunnistan, with the squabbling statelets struggling to control the country's oil. Michael O'Hanlon, coauthor of a Brookings report called "The Case for Soft Partition in Iraq," says up to 5 million Iraqis would be forcibly relocated; others have called it "a bad idea whose time has come."

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4. Let's Make a Deal
The corrupt politicians who rode into Iraq on American helicopters—from Washington creatures such as Ahmed Chalabi to the Shiite clerics who spent their exile years in Iran—bail out as U.S. troops leave. (As Carter-administration national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski says, "The only Iraqis who want the United States to stay are the ones who will have to leave when we leave.") On the Sunni side, a nationalist constellation of insurgent groups, tribal forces, and the old Baath party elite works to seek a power-sharing arrangement with the Shiites; among Shiites, nationalists eclipse the separatists and Iranian hirelings and forge a compromise. The resulting government coalition is both anti-American and anti-Iranian. It ruthlessly crushes Al Qaeda in Iraq and persuades the Kurds to accept limited autonomy rather than independence.

.....much more

[madokie]

1. There is no good to come of this

I feel for the Iraqi who were and for the most part are innocent

[snappyturtle]

2. I found this very interesting...thank you. However, I don't think there's any

'good' way for America to exit. There's going to be trouble and we're the ones who will bear the shame...BUT Sadam is gone! :sarcasm:

[bigtree]

3. I have a more sedate view of the aftermath

I believe that Iran will gain enough influence in the post-occupation Iraq to provide whatever 'stability' is needed there to avoid an outright re-ignition of civil war. Sadr and his supporters will likely be wooed into the Maliki regime or they will succeed in forcing Maliki out through the upcoming elections. Sadr and Sistani have adopted a strategy of wait-and-see as the U.S. makes noises like we're leaving.

I really don't believe they will need to resort to the same kind of resistant violence we saw earlier in the occupation to assume positions of power and influence in post-occupation Iraq. With Iran firmly behind them, providing military and other assistance, the Shiite majority will advance and maintain their hold on government there with relative ease, I believe, because the Iraqi regime won't be able to isolate themselves behind the protection of U.S. forces anymore and will need the protection of Iran to maintain themselves in power. Sadr's followers will likely be dissuaded from violence by their Iranian-backed leadership because of the obvious risk of allowing the U.S. pretext to continue or return.

Certainly we didn't need an invasion and occupation to effect all of that.

[Warpy]

4. The region had a magnificent civilization

when my ancestors were painting themselves blue and clubbing each other to death, so I have another possibility:

Left to their own devices, they rediscover the nascent sense of national identity they had under Saddam and hammer out a working coalition for national government with each region of the country being semi autonomous for local matters.

We will not like that government and they will not like us.