Published June 17th, 2006 by Future Atlas
Iraq: redeploying or bugging out?
Amidst real costs and fantasies of defeat (and some fantasies of victory), a movement is growing among American liberals to “redeploy” American troops out of Iraq.
There are a number of reasons that the idea is worth considering:
- The Iraq war has undermined the war on terror — 87% of top foreign policy experts agreed that it has had a negative impact.
- Iraqis think we should leave — 70% of Iraqis say the US should leave, with half of these saying in 6 months, the other half in 2 years (as of 1/06; see p. 6 of this report).
- The US military is strained — resources for dealing with other contingencies are limited.
- The US presence drives the war — a large portion of insurgents appear to be motivated by the fact of occupation.
However, setting a fixed, short-term timetable for leaving Iraq would appear to make a number of outcomes more likely:
- Iraqi government collapse — The government remains weak and riddled with factions. With no American referee, it is not clear that the government would hold together.
- Full-scale civil war — While the US remains, the worst levels of civil war can be averted. A civil war is underway, but it so far does not involve large-scale sectarian conflict over territory, with the mass killings and population transfers that is likely to involve.
- A victory for terrorism — Iraq had nothing to do with the war on terror, but the Bush administration made it part of it, by creating the conditions in which al-Qaeda could prosper. A precipitous withdrawal (such as the end of 2006) would be seen by global jihadists and the Muslim world as a victory for terror, with future consequences for the US and for the people of other possible jihadist battlegrounds. (This Vietnam-style “credibility” argument has its limits: our presence in Iraq also helps global terrorists, and so one might have to choose between the two downsides.)
- Disaster for the Iraqi people — Iraqis have suffered terribly because of the invasion, and things could get much worse. Legally and morally, the US has a responsibility for the situation that cannot lightly be set aside. In the next couple of years, that responsibility will only have been discharged when the Iraqi government says that it is time for the US to set a schedule for departure.
Juan Cole advocates reducing and reconfiguring US forces for genuine anti-terrorism and counterterrorism, but that is rather different than simply leaving.
Colin Powell opposed the Iraq war (while facilitating it) partly because of the “you break it, you own it” principle. By this reasoning, the US broke Iraq, it now owns the situation, and redeploying quietly out of the store doesn’t change this.