It appears now that the official position of the Democratic Party on the war is one of immediate surrender. The defeat of Joe Lieberman is only the start, the moderate Democrats are being warned to fall in line. Should the Democrats take power, it seems likely that a US abandonment of Iraq will be close to a fait accompli.
However, I ask Democrats who favor an immediate withdrawal to consider the consequences of such an action, both to the United States and to Iraq. Taking a rational look at the situation quickly shows why such a course would be devastating:
Osama bin Laden boasted that when people see a strong horse and a weak horse, they admire the strong and deride the weak. What message would we send to groups like al-Qaeda by leaving Iraq? No one can make a serious argument that a withdrawal from Iraq would be anything less than handing al-Qaeda the greatest victory in their history – in fact it would be the greatest victory the jihadi movement has ever achieved. If terrorists can take down the largest and best-trained army in the world, it will prove to them that they are unstoppable.
Basic psychology tells us that people are more apt to support a winning team than a losing one. After years of defeats, a withdrawal from Iraq would make al-Qaeda larger than the world’s largest superpower. No one who cares about the future of this country can stomach such an outcome.
A withdrawal would ensure that the Iranian backed agents who have already infiltrated Iraq would have free reign of the place. At best we’d see a continuance of the current level of violence. More likely, Iraq would descend into a level of conflict that woudl make the current state of affairs seem tame.
Again, I ask supporters of a US withdrawal: what happens then? Does anyone have a rational basis for belief that the situation in Iraq would get better? What happens to the millions of Iraqs who would be caught in the crossfire? The Iraqi women whose already tenous grip on freedom would be irrecoverably lost? The children whose only shot at a decent life would be destroyed? Does the left really care about them – and if they claim to do so, what are they doing to see to it that nightmare scenario doesn’t play out?
I don’t think that the pro-withdrawal side has thought these issues through. I don’t think they have the intellectual honesty to do so. At worst, I don’t think they care. This is all about temporal and pissant partisan politics – taking George W. Bush down even if it results in increased terrorism and an Iraq that is awash in the blood of millions.
Until the pro-withdrawal side can come up with some serious answers to what the world would be like if we left Iraq to be torn apart, then they cannot be trusted to lead.
If we do withdraw from Iraq, if we do allow anarchy to sweep up that country, then the results of that humanitarian catastrophe – one that is all but certain to kill far more than have died in the current post-war period – is on their hands. Then again, do some, what is the blood of a few hundred thousand Iraqis compared to the more important task of winning elections?
What possible good can come from the U.S. sticking around Iraq to referee a civil war? If Iraq continues to deterioriate, there will be growing numbers of Democrats AND Republicans insisting we leave. There are no good solutions at this point, if indeed there ever were.
Because we’re the only people that can. What possible good can come from it: how about making sure that the headlopping fanatics don’t win? How about shortening the duration of the conflict? How about protecting as many civilians as we can? Not to mention the fact that there’s a good chance that Iraq won’t fall into civil war so long as we’re there to keep the pressure on.
I don’t think Iraq is in a civil war, but it’s getting periously close. If we leave now, nothing’s going to stop things from getting worse.
That’s always true in war. We have a choice between a bad situation, a horrible situation, and a situation that is nothing short of apocalyptic.
If we f*ck this up, the chances that there’s going to be a cataclysmic war in the Middle East jump profoundly. With Ahmadinejad putting us closer and closer to nuclear war in the Middle East, the very last thing we should do is cede another opportunity for him to gain power.
Again, there are viable policy alternatives being called for by Democrats that neither unquestioningly support Bush nor require immediate pull out. In fact, the Democrats seem to be the only people wanting some answers from the President and wanting to see some changes.
Well to be fair, the pre-invasion regime was a fairly good one for women. Women’s rights in Saddamite Iraq were some of the more advanced in the gulf (probably similar to what you see in Syria, and maybe above Jordan which has more of a clan culture). One of Saddam’s top nuclear scientists was a woman. But certainly in the US withdrawal era, women’s rights in the now fundamentalist infested sunni triangle would be questionable. They will continue to be somewhat questionable in the clan like Kurdish region (the Kurds are not known for their women’s rights, look at the most backward areas of Turkey, almost uniformly Kurdish). Nonetheless your point that many liberals who want withdrawal can’t point to any constructive future for Iraq stands.
The only one I can think of was Wes Clark’s suggestions, none of which any Democrats bothered to campaign for. If there are these plethora of Democratic alternatives, why have no Democrats actually tried to enact them?
Pointing fingers won’t change the situation on the ground in Iraq = and the Democrats seem to be more interested in assigning blame than fixing problems.
Jay,
Can you tell one single Democrat whose policy is “immediate surrender”?
The choice is clear when it come to the war: Change course and begin leaving, or keep things the same.
The Bush and GOP policy is one of “staying indefinetely”? My question is how long would be intolerable for your side? 3 years? 5 years? 10 years? Permanent presence? How long?
At least Democrats are coming forward with the hope of bringing our troops home and forcing the Iraqis to secure their own country.
–Chad.
“If we leave now, nothing’s going to stop things from getting worse.”
If we stay now, nothing’s going to stop things from getting worse.
“That’s always true in war.”
A valuable lesson in why wars are rarely prudent means of accomplishing goals….as most post-9/11 hawks have now learned.
This line kills me.
“However, I ask Democrats who favor an immediate withdrawal to consider the consequences of such an action, both to the United States and to Iraq. Taking a rational look at the situation quickly shows why such a course would be devastating”
Mayhap the republicans, you included, should have asked these questions before they made the mess in the first place.
I suspect that the US will never commit troops to an armed conflict again. Countries with whom we have had long standing alliances would probably be allowed to sink into the ocean before that would occur. S. Korea and Japan come to mind most readily.
John Murtha.
Until the situation is stable enough that the Iraqi government can defend itself. It’s not a question of when, it’s a question of determining the metrics of the conflict.
Right now we’ve done a great job of training the Iraqi military. They’re capable, they’re taking over battle spaces, and they’re slowly able to take more the security duties. The biggest problem are the security forces. They’re moonlighting as death squads by night, they’re infiltrated by Sadrists and Iranian agents, and the Iraqi people have no reason to trust them. That’s going to require us to make the same commitment that we did with the Iraqi Army.
We can’t let that go. We can’t leave until the government has a monopoly on force. That means both the police and the military must be able to keep the peace. Until that happens, leaving is just a recipe for failure.
What makes you so sure we didn’t? I predicted 5,000 US casualties taking the country – we’ve had just over 2500 in three years of engagement. I figured that we’d have a much greater humanitarian crisis than we did – instead there wasn’t such a thing. I figured that we’d see much heavier fighting than we did initially. I figured Baghdad would be Grozny on a nightmare scale, and instead we ran through Iraq in unprecedented time.
Guess what, reconstructing a country ravaged by three decades of authoritarianism and war was never going to be a cakewalk. But if we hadn’t taken down Saddam Hussein, he’d likely be as much of a threat to us as Kim Jung Il or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is today. Remember that the Duelfer Report said that the sanctions regime had all but collapsed and would soon have failed entirely.
If there was any mistake made in the last three years it’s that we’ve pulled our punches one too many times. We should have taken out Moqtada al-Sadr early on. The State Department should not have been allowed to sideline Ahmad Chalabi (who coincidentally seems to be one of the few people that both Sunnis and Shi’ites respect – but because State didn’t like him, we sat him on the sidelines and let weak leaders stumble around while the situation got worse).
There are plenty of legitimate and rational criticisms of the war. We didn’t have enough troops, we didn’t understand the culture well enough, we didn’t have a plan. But the Democrats are too busy making up shrill and stupid slogans to understand the complexities of the issue — and the very last thing we need is a bunch of half-cocked appeaseniks allowing Iraq to fall into chaos.
If that happens, Iraq will be awash in blood, and the Democrats defeatism will bear a large share of the blame for that to happen.
It’s quite simple. Terrorists don’t fear surrender. You never show weakness to a predator, and if the Democrats can’t learn that simple fact, they have no business leading this country in a time of war. I’ll take the Bush Administration’s fumbling incompetence before I’ll accept the Democrats naive appeasement any day. At least the Bush Administration is more focused on our enemies abroad than their own countrymen.
We followed the Dems advice in the 70s and millions died in Cambodia, a half million more died at sea trying to escape the communists. The commies weren’t exactly benevolent overlords in Vietnam either. Yeh, I’m so eager to see that happen again, NOT.
From what I’ve seen the jihadistas will be worse than the commies and they’ve already hit us here at home once, but the left can’t even call that an attack anymore. To them it was just a tragedy like Katrina or an earthquake. No human involvement here, move on, nothing to see, unless we can figure out a way to blame Bush.
All of Americas wars have been full of mistakes, some much worse than what’s been screwed up in Iraq. Ever heard of Cold Harbor or Aachen and the US Army’s experiences in those places? Every casualty sucks, but the casualties suffered in Iraq have been minor compared to what we’ve faced before and what we could face again if we let the jihadistas win this round.
The left is blinded by their hate of Bush. Beating Bush and the republicans has become more important than any possible threats to the US, its people, or its friends.
“they’ve already hit us here at home once….To them it was just a tragedy like Katrina or an earthquake. No human involvement here, move on, nothing to see, unless we can figure out a way to blame Bush.”
Not a difficult task considering Presidential Daily Briefings entitled “Bin Laden Determined to Attack United States”, among others, were yawningly ignored for months and not a single staff meeting was held about the threat of a terrorist attack in the Bush administration until the week before September 11…..eight months following Bush taking his oath of office. Why was it such a low priority? Because it was a distraction from their ability to draw up invasion plans for Iraq, of course!
“We followed the Dems advice in the 70s and millions died in Cambodia, a half million more died at sea trying to escape the communists. The commies weren’t exactly benevolent overlords in Vietnam either. Yeh, I’m so eager to see that happen again, NOT.”
We followed the Dems advice in the 60’s and got involved in that mess in the first place. Ever heard of Lyndon B. Johnson? How about Robert McNamara? Henry “Scoop” Jackson (D-Boeing) (or, in Murray Rothbard’s words, “Mr. State”)?
History repeats itself. I’m sure, in a few years, it’ll be the GOP calling for withdrawal, begging a Democratic administration which pledged to “fix” the middle east to pull out of the region before our economy collapses under the weight of accumulated war debt.
And what the hell should Bush have done. Guess what, Bin Laden had been determined to attack the US ever since 1998, and probably before that. What actionable intelligence was there in the August 6, 2001 PDB?
It’s this kind of stupid partisan crap that indicates precisely why the Democrats don’t have the first clue about national security. Unless they want to argue that if Bush had said on August 6, 2001 that we were screening every Arab male in every airport in the country, they would have been rushing to condemn him.
All the Democrats want to do is play pissant politics. When it comes to actually protecting this country, they’re worse than clueless — they’re dangerous.
“And what the hell should Bush have done.”
Having a single staff meeting prior to September 2001 regarding anti-terrorism efforts would have been a fantastic start.
And that wouldn’t have prevented 9/11.
In fact, Bush did have frequent briefings on terrorism, such as the one in which the PDB was presented. Richard Clark’s beef was that the President didn’t meet specifically with him.
Bush had eight months to deal with the situation, much of which was occupied with trying to make up for a 30+ day delay in forming a transition team due to the Florida recount. Clinton had eight years. Trying to pin everything on Bush is yet another example of how the Democrats put politics before all else.
A little history lesson could be usefull to those that advocate the early withdrawal from Iraq. In Vietnam we had effectively transitioned the conflict to the south Vietnamese forces, by 1972. Our forces where largely drawn down and only provided training, reaction forces and air support. Additinally we where providing 1 billion in military aid annually per an agreement with the Russions, who where secretly violating the agreement.
Starting with Nixons watergate troubles the Democrats led by Senator Kennedy began slashing the military aid, by 1975 it was well below 500 million (don’t have time to research the correct number). Seeing the advantages the North forces invaded yet again and the south which soon ran out of essential supplies (ammo, fuel etc..) and was defeated. US forces by that time where largely withdrawn from Vietnam.
If any parallels can be drawn between Vietnam and Iraq is that we need to finish the training of Iraq forces and consolidate the use of force with the elected goverment. Then continue to support them financially and militarily as long as needed. Currently the Iraq military is leading the use of military force in over 1/2 of the country, out troops provide backup and additional support. There is a Iraqi plan with measurable components that will transition each of the 18 provences to self goverment and the use of force currently one provence has meet those goals. Others are near those goals and should make the transition by years end.
As Jay as intelligently pointed out early withdrawal will be both a humanitarian disaster as well as military one. Within months the level of Islamofascist terrorism with sky rocket not only in the middle east, but in Europe and throughout the world.
Dave
Is your party doing the same thing the Democrats just did? Are you going to reufully lament the death of compromise when the GOP does the same thing? Are the extremists taking over?
Has anyone considered that a withdrawal from Iraq by the US would leave a terrible power vacuum that would likely be filled by neighbor and once enemy, Iran. Something tells me that they would have a much better time of it.