What’s The Plan?

Kevin Drum demands to know what the plan is for dealing with Iraq:

So: what’s the plan, hawks? “Whatever it takes” is just cheap talk. Are you suggesting higher taxes to fund a dramatic increase in military end strength? A draft? A ground invasion of Iran? A permanent military occupation of the entire Middle East?

Because that’s probably what it would take. Right now, nearly a thousand Iraqis are dying every month, the per capita equivalent of about 100,000 deaths per year if this were taking place in the United States. And keep in mind that this is the result of a mere low level civil war, not the real thing. What happens when full scale civil war breaks out and the U.S. military is stuck in the middle?

What’s the plan then?

Which assumes that there will be a “full scale civil war” in Iraq – this isn’t it, nor is such a thing likely. The Shi’a are not unified, the Sunnis know full-well that they can’t win in such a war, and the only credible military force in Iraq other than US and the Iraqi Security Forces are the Kurdish peshmerga, and they have little desire to ruin Iraqi Kurdistan’s relative quiet.

There are two main tracks that need to be followed in Iraq: a political track and a security track. The political track involves the formation of a new Iraqi government that’s representative of the Iraqi people as a whole. The current Prime Minister, Ibrahim al-Jafaari is being supported by the Sadrist radicals, but is not liked by many in Iraq, and even many within the Shi’ite United Iraqi Alliance. The US has less-than-subtly indicated we’d prefer al-Jafaari to be replaced with a stronger leader. Unfortunately, al-Jafaari is refusing to step aside, which means that the UIA will split, and al-Jafaari, who was approved by a single vote, will probably end up being forced out.

If al-Mahdi gets in power, and that seems quite likely, things will get better. Al-Mahdi is liked by secularists, Sunnis, and many Shi’ites. Despite SCIRI’s ties to Iran, al-Mahdi is a political moderate, and is far less beholden to Iranian interests than is al-Sadr. The US and Britain have already declared al-Mahdi to be an acceptable choice, and it seems quite likely he has enough support to win.

Once that’s achieved, we can seriously start on the security track. The security situation in Iraq isn’t a conventional military problem – it’s a policing problem. Before his fall, Saddam Hussein emptied Iraq’s prisons. Especially in Baghdad, there are thousands of criminals roaming the streets, causing problems and committing acts of violence. What Iraq needs is an Iraqi Rudy Guiliani, someone who will stamp out and prosecute crime and corruption within the police forces. al-Mahdi may just be the man for that particular job. The US still has terrorists to hunt down, but the terrorists are only part of the problem. This situation is a combination of low-level military work with good old-fashioned police work.

This is a long-term problem. There is no quick fix. Expecting things to progress on our timetable is not a reasonable expectation. Again, democratization is a process of two steps forward and one-and-half steps back. If the goal in Iraq is to have everything working brilliantly and have an entire civil society grow from nothing in only three years, then such a goal was hopelessly naïve. The military side of the operation was a success, followed by a long, steep learning curve. The “insurgency” such as it was doesn’t exist as a viable political and military force anymore, which is why the narrative has changed from breathless proclamations that the insurgency would win to breathless proclamations of imminent civil war. Progress has been made, but that progress has been slow and difficult. Such is life, and such is the process of rebuilding a society from virtually the ground up.

The problem with Drum’s argument is that he (and the left in general) has no plan for Iraq either – other than letting it go straight to hell. That is not a viable course of action – if Iraq fails it will destabilize the whole region and make the current situation look like a walk in the park. Undoubtedly Mr. Drum wants some pie-in-the-sky plan to make Iraq look like Vermont overnight or he’ll declare the war an abject failure. However, for those who are looking at the situation outside the lens of pissant partisanism, it’s a hell of a lot more complex than that.

The security situation will get better as the Iraqis can start to police themselves. The right leadership will help Iraq fight crime and internal corruption. The support of the US and the coalition will still be important, although we’ll likely begin to draw down troop numbers over the next year to two years. Getting Iraq stablized will require more than just a few quick fixes or throwing more troops into the mix. It requires looking at the long-term picture and not running around like headless chickens at every setback.

If we leave early, there’s a strong chance Iraq will collapse. That is not even remotely acceptable. The problem with this whole debate is that the left really doesn’t give a damn whether Iraq collapses or not, so long as Bush goes down in the process. This isn’t a debate about Iraq, this is a debate about Bush in which Iraq can be used as a bludgeon. Sitting around and declaring the war lost doesn’t get us anywhere, and that seems to be all the left has to offer these days.