Why We Can’t Abandon Iraq
Yes, our Iraqi adventure started on a false premise. Yes, our presence in Iraq is making lots of Muslims (and others) hate our country. And no, having troops in Iraq will probably not deter terrorism in the U.S. or Europe. But we still shouldn’t leave Iraq until we can hang up a real “Mission Accomplished” banner.
It’s nice to be liked as a nation, but it’s more important to get respect. America’s foreign policy has always had an element of hubris to it, even before the Monroe Doctrine. If we’re going to issue edicts to countries like Iran and North Korea, we must be prepared to back up our words with a credible threat of force.
Our earliest foreign conflicts after the American Revolution, the First and Second Barbary Wars, taught us that treaties not only need to be made, but enforced. They also showed that rogue states can often only be tamed when more than one strong power decides to stop their errant behavior; that even a strong American military is more effective when allied with other forces.
If we had heeded the lessons of the Barbary Wars, our first Iraqi invasion would have been decisive. We would have removed Saddam Hussein and supported a new, less awful Iraqi government, and “we” would have been a number of countries, not just the United States.
And, even if we were a little slow to learn, by the time of our second Iraqi War we should have realized that we could best accomplish the objective of overthrowing Saddam and allowing a new, more democratic regime to flourish if we had waited to build a widespread international consensus, and had gone to war as part of a broad alliance dedicated to helping Iraq become a peaceful, prosperous nation.
But we didn’t do these things. We are where we are, like it or not. And whining about how Bush and his cronies lied — or about Democrats who supported the war when they shouldn’t have, or didn’t support it when they should have — will not solve our current Iraqi problem.
Colin Powell’s Pottery Barn analogy was correct. We broke Iraq, and now it is our responsibility to fix it. We jumped into Iraq before we completed our stated mission in Afghanistan, and Afghanistan is starting to come apart again. We broke Somalia, then ran away without fixing it. We broke Vietnam, and ran away without fixing it. The Korean War ended in a nasty stalemate that is still giving us grief. We need to stop this pattern of leaving broken nations behind us.
World War Two was the last war we fought to a full conclusion. And then we helped both our allies and our former enemies rebuild. Most of our major WWII allies and enemies are now strong trading partners. We have foreign policy disagreements with them from time to time, but our citizens and theirs travel back and forth, and our relations are generally pleasant.
Another analogy for you: The world’s best unfinished novel is not as good as a mediocre one that gets finished — and published.
If we pull out of Iraq tomorrow afternoon, radical Muslims will not suddenly love us, nor will the rest of the world’s population suddenly start believing the American government always has their best interests at heart.
If we’re not going to get the world’s love, we might as well try to get the world’s respect. And the best way to do that today is to grit our teeth and stay in Iraq until it has a stable government capable of holding the number of bombings, beheadings, casual executions, and general mayhem down to a level low enough that most Iraqis can go about their daily business without worrying about whether they’re going to get home alive.
Put it another way: the day an American tourist can wander the streets of Bahgdad umolested, at least in the “better” neighborhoods, we can claim victory in Iraq. But if we pull out before then, we will — correctly — be called losers by the rest of the world, and that will make more trouble for us in coming decades than the problems we already have with Iraq — and with Afghanistan, Iran, and North Korea, too.
July 3rd, 2006 at 6:55 pm
I believe the reason the US would not like to get out of Iraq is not its benevolent mission of spreading “democracy”
but rather satisfy its greed for “oil.”
July 6th, 2006 at 1:35 pm
I can debunk that oil myth in short order.
#1: Alaska. We have known oil deposits in Alaska that Liberal Democrats refuse to allow drilling at.
#2: Texas. We have known oil deposits in Texas that Liberal Democrats have made it financially unvialable to drill into
with taxes on oil driolling companies, their workers, and the process.
#3: California. A liberal democrat judge blocked drilling for oil off of the California coast pending a multi-year wildlife
study. However, the length of the study was not determined.
#4: Gas Refinery Process. Gas that is refined for Atlanta GA can not be sold in Augusta GA. Gas that is refined for San Francisco CA can’t be sold
in San Diego CA. When the restrictions against these refinery productions were dropped after Hurricane’s Katrina and Rita
there was no problem delivering Gas to where it needed to go, in fact is suddenly became cheaper.
#5: Closed refineries: There are several hundred refineries spready across the US that are fully capable of processing oil into Gas.
However due to work by Liberal Democrats many of these refineries have been forced into recievership and have to close
doors. This again relates to the unfair Tax’s and fines levied against Oil Producing Companies
Quite Simply Peter, if the US was really greedy for oil we have enough supply in our own borders, and enough
capability to process that oil, that we would never have to buy from a foriegn source at all. Liberal Democrats, however,
have continously introduced legislation to make it impossible for oil companies to survive within the borders of the United States.
Now, conservative Democrats and Conservative Republicans are not totally free of blame here since we did let the Liberal Democrats get away
with making oil an unviable business in the United States, and we did let the judge get in place in California who could
make that ruling. We did let the situation get this bad through our own in-action because we didn’t stand up and say “that’s
wrong” when it happened, and we haven’t done anything to stop or rectify the situation since.
However, if Greed for Oil really was a driving factor in Iraq, or a driving factor in anything, we wouldn’t be sending troops to Iraq.
We’d be sending drilling machines to Alaska, California, and Texas.
July 30th, 2006 at 5:51 pm
Colin Powell hoodwinked our troops into a quagmire and then Powell abandoned our troops in the field when he
conveniently resigned.
August 2nd, 2006 at 3:17 am
It is apparent that this administration will never put in the amount of troops necessary to do the job nor will they ever be able to put together a real coalition of countries with “capable” forces and numbers. Or said more simply: the Kerry plan. More recently, what Hillary is saying. That said, it will take at the extreme least, three years to change anything in a positive direction. The question is, what will come first: A leader capable of pulling off stability, or complete uncontrollable chaos. Unfortunately it looks like the Marines should start looking for a sturdy rooftop that will hold a huey.
t
August 13th, 2006 at 9:57 pm
Interesting, and a mite courageous for someone who generally comes at the world from the left of things. But I must disagree. Iraq will get no better with an American presence, no matter how well-stratigized, benevolent, or determined. The fact of the matter is that we’re occupying Iraq, killing people, getting our people killed, and salting the wounded pride of the Muslim world. The first step to ending this chaos is leaving. Iraq may well find itself in a vicious civil war if we withdraw, but the worst possible solution for that nation, for our nation, and for the world would be the solution that we impose on them. And we wouldn’t be completely abandoning the Iraqis if we left. Their country has a semi-functioning, independent, democratically-elected government that has a fair shot at maintaining order in the absence of an American troop presence. If there is to be democracy for the Iraqi people, it will have to be made of and by the Iraqi people, not by America. Any other path would stink of American puppetry and suggest that we still held to the original causus belli, especially to the Muslim world. If we stay in Iraq, we will not get respect, we’ll only get more hatred and mistrust.
January 28th, 2008 at 6:28 am
After so many years, isn’t it obvious the only nation benefiting from the Iraq invasion is the US?