In Foreign Policy, former NSA director Lt. Gen. William E. Odom (Ret.) argues we should cut and run in Iraq. Odom’s arguments are deeply unpersuasive, and utterly foolish.
Odom argues that Iraq is already in a civil war. The problem with this line of logic is that civil strife doesn’t equate to civil war. Again, Odom vastly overstates the significance of the violence in Iraq. In order to have a civil war you have to have two groups of roughly equal footing, both of which have some kind of cohesive organization, hold territory, and enjoy some kind of foreign support. The bands of brigands causing problems in Iraq aren’t the Confederacy – they’re more like the Crips. Stating that Iraq is in a civil war isn’t supported by the reality of the situation.
Odom then makes another completely ignorant argument:
Withdrawal will encourage the terrorists. True, but that is the price we are doomed to pay. Our continued occupation of Iraq also encourages the killers—precisely because our invasion made Iraq safe for them. Our occupation also left the surviving Baathists with one choice: Surrender, or ally with al Qaeda. They chose the latter. Staying the course will not change this fact. Pulling out will most likely result in Sunni groups’ turning against al Qaeda and its sympathizers, driving them out of Iraq entirely.
This is completely idiotic. Odom completely and utterly fails to understand the psychology of groups like al-Qaeda. A defeat for the United States in Iraq would hand al-Qaeda the greatest victory in its history, embolden them to strike us harder, and prove that we really are the paper tiger that bin Laden thinks we are. We cannot afford the price of surrender in Iraq. If Odom thinks that walking away from Iraq will lead to a better situation for the United States, he is deeply and completely naive. All one has to do is read bin Laden’s observations about the US in Somalia after the disastrous Black Hawk Down incident in Mogadishu to understand the psychology of the enemy.
Bin Laden thinks that America is weak-willed, and unable to endure a trickle of casualties – a force that can be bossed around and is too timid to use its massive strength to full effect. Odom’s “cut and run” posture would vindicate bin Laden’s beliefs. So far al-Qaeda has found little purchase in Iraq, specifically because they cannot hold territories like Tel Afar due to US military action. The Iraqi military is not yet ready to replicate those successes, and the Sunnis cannot win a battle against both Shi’ite militias and al-Qaeda.
An Iraq left abandoned by the United States would become another Somalia – a lawless state unable to defend itself, a breeding ground for terrorism, and a humanitarian disaster on a nightmare scale. Even Kurdistan, the safest and most prosperous area of Iraq could not long survive attacks by both Turkey and Iran. Odom argues that it wasn’t in our interest to allow Iraq to be dominated by terrorists and Iran – so his plan is to allow it to be dominated by terrorists and Iran. Is he so untrusting of the competency of our soldiers that he assumes that the battle has been lost when US, coalition, and Iraqi soldiers and Iraqi politicians are making gains every day?
We cannot afford to have a lawless cesspool sitting on a massive pile of oil in a region that is already a powderkeg. Such a cowardly action would be beyond disastrous – and anyone who thinks that the status quo is the worst things could be is naïve to the extreme.
Odom’s argument that the status of US diplomacy would make a sudden turnaround is equally infantile. The reasons for anti-American hostility have as much to do with America’s role as the world’s superpower as much as it does with Iraq. Does Odom honestly think that the anti-American left would disband if we left Iraq? If our invasion of Iraq was such a diplomatic disaster, why is it that the most anti-American leaders keep losing? If anti-Americanism is such a potent force, why is it that Blair, Koizumi, Rassmussen, Merkel, Howard, and Harper have all been elected despite being generally more pro-American than their competitors? Odom completely overstates the effect of the Iraq war on US diplomacy – it was the US and the French who worked together to put pressure on the Syrians to withdraw from Lebanon – Odom can’t seem to delineate pandering from actual policy impact.
There is no truly credible argument that states that we’d be better off if Iraq failed – yet Odom would have us all believe precisely that. If one’s goal is to embolden al-Qaeda, hand them their greatest victory, and leave a festering petri dish for terrorism in the Middle East, cutting and running would be the ideal way to achieve those ends. If one’s goal is to destroy al-Qaeda’s operational effectiveness, prevent Iraq from becoming a safe haven for terrorism, and retard the growth of Islamic fundamentalism, then abandoning the people of Iraq to the wolves is the most idiotic thing we could do.
I would expect something more than rank cowardice from such a distinguished individual. Sadly, Odom’s arguments are an insult to the men and women whose lives are on the line in Iraq, and would spit on the graves of everyone who died trying to secure Iraq and the United States from terrorism. We owe it to them to ensure that the cause for which they gave their last measure of devotion does not end up being for absolutely naught. That is not what Americans do, and Odom’s arguments are simply shameful.
Is this kind of like where the Pentagon wants to withdraw 30,000 troops by the end of this year? Is that cutting and running?
What about Bush’s new plan to create three autonomous regions in Iraq that are only loosely politically affiliated? Is that ‘finishing the mission?’
You are spoon-fed those talking points and then regurgitate them on a level with Rush Limbaugh. Watch out for the OxyContin.
No, as that leaves nearly 100,000 American troops in the theatre and is conditional upon the training of Iraqi forces. We should be able to draw down our troops as the Iraqis are capable of taking more responsibility on their own.
There is no such plan. The Iraqis are considering such a thing, and that might work in the short term. Kurdistan already is mostly autonomous.
In fact, a loose confederation as a temporary stopgap while issues over sovereignty are resolved has already worked well – for us. Ever hear of a little thing called the Articles of Confederation. If the Iraqis think that a loose federal system will be beneficial until issues can be settled, that’s their choice, and it’s a reasonable one.
Typical idiotic snark in place of an actual argument. Is it truly that trying for people on the left to make arguments more intelligent than those found in elementary school playgrounds, or am I overestimating their intellectual capacity?
Hope springs eternal.