I read an article by Peter Baker in the Washington Post last week. It was entitled, “Bush’s New Argument: It Could Be Worse.” In it, Mr. Baker writes:
With crucial midterm elections just 2 1/2 months away, Bush and his team are trying to turn the public debate away from whether the Iraq invasion has worked out to what would happen if U.S. troops were withdrawn, as some Democrats advocate. The necessity of not failing, Bush advisers believe, is now a more compelling argument than the likelihood of success.
I want to know why it is necessary that we not “fail.” Even the President, in his latest press conference, said, “The American people have got to understand the consequence of leaving Iraq.” I think he’s right. Before we can genuinely call for our troops to leave Iraq, we have to know what the end result of that process will look like. We have to know what failure means.
According to the President, failure in Iraq is…:
- A civil war between Sunnis and Shi’ites
- Innocent civilians living their lives in fear
- The creation of “a safe-haven for terrorists”
- A message to reformers in the Middle East that the US has “abandoned our desire to change the conditions that create terror.”
- The first domino
- The creation of a more dangerous world
- Chaos in the region
- Telling our troops that they sacrificed for nothing
- A failure to secure our own country
- A sign that “we will have lost our soul as a nation”
Over the next week (not including the holiday), we’re going to go through these one by one. But today, we’ll just cover the first one.
Failure is a civil war between Sunnis and Shi’ites.
There is an excellent cover story in the August 14th issue of TIME, entitled, “Life in Hell: A Baghdad Diary.” The article was written by Aparisim Gosh, TIME’s senior correspondent who has covered Baghdad for the past three and a half years, and I can’t recommend it enough. The subtitle of the story is “As Lebanon rages, Iraq slides into civil war. One man’s view of a land coming apart.” Gosh writes in the story, “In the Red Zone (the name given to the rest of Baghdad by Green Zoners too nervous to venture outside the walls), the sporadic spurts of violence between Shi’ites and Sunnis has given way to a steady stream of blood. Partisans on both sides are arming themselves for battle, and ordinary folks are looking for ways to defend themselves.”
Gosh also tells us about the British ambassador’s letter to London from a couple of weeks back, in which the ambassador wrote, “The prospect of a low intensity civil war and a de facto division of Iraq is probably more likely at this point than a successful and substantial transition to a stable democracy.” Gosh continues, “For ordinary Iraqis…the time to debate if and when a civil war will start is past: it is already under way. It’s a view that I share.”
According to an NPR story, Gosh is not the only one. An Iraqi television station booked two high-ranking clerics, one Sunni and one Shi’ite, to debate whether the country was in the middle of a civil war. But unfortunately for the TV show, there was no debate. Both agreed that Iraq is in the middle of a civil war that started with the mosque bombing in February. The NPR story then points to the mass migration of Iraqis — 182,000 people, according to Iraq’s ministry of displaced persons — all of whom are “being forced to flee because of sectarian violence,” as proof for calling it a civil war.
Meanwhile, the AP reports that “the British deputy to the top U.S. commander in Iraq said the country’s sectarian conflict is not a full-blown civil war but could be described as a ‘civil war in miniature.’” What prevented him from calling it a civil war was the lack of a mass migration, but if we combine that with the NPR story’s 182,000 displaced people, then I think we can start to call the sectarian violence, “civil war.”
If failure in Iraq is a civil war between Sunnis and Shi’ites, then we have already failed.
Come back tomorrow to read “Failure Is Not An Option: Part 2.”
15 Comments
What is happening now would pale in comparison to what would happen if we did leave. All hell would break loose and we, or nato would have to go back in within a year. We wouldn’t go back because of all this shit so it would be up to nato who would do what they do best. Steal. And thats the best case senerio. We are the only thing keeping that country from coming apart, and we are losing the battle. Do we try to stabilize or do we cut and run? I am not sure.
Would pale in comparison? All hell would break loose?
This is from an article from the NY Times today, entitled “Violence grows…”
Are you suggesting that the country isn’t already coming apart?
I’m not entirely sure whether we should withdraw either, but I do know using a civil war between Sunnis and Shi’ites as a reason for staying is, at best, disingenuous.
IF you do not think that the number dead from a civil war wouldn’t be 10 times what it is now your crazy. Also I said we are losing the battle which would indicate I know the country is coming apart.
At times when I get involved in or listen to debates like these…I often wonder what the best and worst case scenario is for both sides…when I have trouble understanding the magnitude of certain decisions, understanding the extremes helps me put something into a context I can understand. I also recognize that 99% of the answers fall somewhere between the best and worst case scenario and it helps me uncover the likely solution.
So, when I hear you guys go back and forth about cutting and running vs staying the course, I immediately start wondering what are the best and worst case scenarios for each…
that would help me to understand the severity fo what we are talking about…
thoughts?
First, I’d like to keep this discussion limited to the sectarian violence. There’s going to be a collection of posts to address each of the descriptions of failure above, and if we can, we should try to keep the comments relative to the specific description.
Now, for me, I don’t see how there is a best-case scenario for us staying, not one that improves upon the situation as it stands today. Even with the United States focusing our efforts on Baghdad (ignoring most of the rest of the country), there have been 200 people killed since Sunday. The best case scenario is that we clean up Baghdad, but “clean up” does not mean killing or capturing the bad guys. It means scaring them off into other sections of the country. And when we pursue them there, they’ll simply return to Baghdad.
With us staying, the best case scenario that I can envision depends upon thousands of insurgents suffering from asthma and dying while running from one city to the next.
The best case scenario of us leaving is that all of the Iraqis come to understand that their future depends on them alone, not on anyone else. If they want peace, they’ll have to fight for it. If they want the sectarian violence to stop, they’ll have to work it out diplomatically, because our guns will no longer be available to them.
The middle of the road scenario sees Iraq busting up into different countries, with Sunnis in one country, Shi’ites in another, and the Kurds doing their thing in the north. This is not ideal because millions of people will displaced from their current homes, but it may stop the violence. This in turn will probably spark some sort of battle for who controls the oil fields, but perhaps there can be a diplomatic solution, where each section shares the profits somehow.
The worst-case scenario is that one militia overcomes the others and take dictatorial control of the nation, ala Saddam. This dictator then starts a massive killing spree of the opposing sect. Which would mean that, after all of our efforts, nothing really changed.
Staying best case would be violence eventually ends as the Iraqi police force takes over security, we pull out and gas prices go down to .99 a gallon with the influx of oil. Kyle if you want to have a serious discussion about this please refrain from “running from one city to next†comments.
Staying worst case would be increased violence between the Sunnis and the Shiites spiraling into a full blown civil war. We then have to stay even longer until everything settles or we have to back one side verse the other.
Leaving best case would be about what Kyle stated. Although because he is such a talented writer he is stating that if we leave there will be a civil war he is just saying it a different way. If we leave all scenarios include civil war, it is inevitable.
Leaving worst case would be genocide and us or NATO having to come back to stabilize the country. Outside forces (Iran, Syria, terrorist organizations) set up camp funding which ever side gives them the best chance to take control. Iraq becomes Iran only with more money from oil. There is more to most of these options bad things we can probably not even think about.
As for “running from city to city,” here is a quote from the Baghdad Diary article:
You say the best case scenario for us staying is that, because of some magic, the strategy that we’ve been following will “eventually” work. I disagree. I don’t think that is a best case scenario. I think it’s a total fantasy.
And you also say that the worst case scenario of us staying is an full-blown civil war. What I’m trying to make clear is that Iraq is already in a civil war. So the worst case is the reality.
I’m totally with you on the worst case scenario of what would happen if we leave. But I’m not sure that the worst case scenario would be the real scenario.
Last night, I was talking to a dude who just started school up here. He was in the marines. He was part of the force that first took Baghdad. He went into Fallujah the first time. And he went in the second time as well. After hearing some of the craziest war stories, I asked him what he thinks of the situation now.
He said, “When we first got there, they loved us. Everyone really was happy to see us. And when we took Baghdad, everyone seemed really psyched about what we had done. Then a year went by, and they were like, ‘Hey thanks for getting us the water, and thanks for getting food for my family, but we gotta ask, ‘What are you still doing here?’”
Then he said, “I think it’s just time for us to go. They’ve got to work it out for themselves. And I really believe that the minute we leave, the violence stops.”
Now, whether this guy is right or wrong is another thing, but he’s had his feet in the sand and he’s talked to the individuals who actually live in the city. I think he may be on to something.
I am hesitant to engage in this topic because neither of us knows enough about what is happening over there to accurately guess what would happen with each scenario. As long as we both agree that the people in charge (generals-cia) know a lot more about this then all of us and 99.9% of the bloggers and journalists.
Anyway in regard to us staying and my magic peace dust. The plan would be to train Iraqis to protect themselves, we have already pulled out of two provinces and they are in total control. Best case is that we continue to do this, with us pulling our troops out of places and thus increasing levels in other places, and eventually the Iraqi’s will have complete control. How is this magic? It is already happening. Best case it continues to happen. Likely probably not but I wouldn’t call it fantasy.
Next you say they are in full blown civil war, I just do not think you understand how much worse it could get. You talk about 100 a day killed, what happens when that number is 2000 a day or more. Now with the amount of oil money you can bet Nato will intervene with peace keepers and we will be 5 steps back from where we are now. Except it will not be us in there it will be the UN and last time I checked they robbed that country for years, so I am not really confident that they will accomplish much.
Also about the “full fledged civil war” right now the only fighting is in the middle part of the country. The kurds in the north and the shias in the south have had no real problems. The middle part is the main issue, if we leave it would spread to the other parts.
The shia are backed by US (training funding) and Iran (training funding insurgents) and are getting some paybackagainst the sunnis.
Oh, and we shouldn’t forget about the Kurds. This is from The World Peace Herald:
The kurds just feel left out, the last thing they would want to do is become their own country. Thats like people in vermont saying they want to leave the US.
They’ve got oil for their money, and cultural heritage for their purpose, not to mention millions of Kurds throughout Turkey and some of the other surrounding countries who would flock to Kurdistan like Jews to Israel. Plus, they’ve been trying to become an independent state since World War I.
Why wouldn’t they want their own country, especially now, when the country they belong to is about three steps away from anarchy?
And hey, Big Dave Krikke, wouldn’t you agree?
They would have less then 5% of the oil, the reserves in the north are far less then what is in the middle. Also the kurds are mostly spread over mountainous area so I really do not think they would have much of a shot of putting up a fight if they decided to leave.
I just really do not think this happens. I bet those iraqi are already back up.
unless salidin rises from the dead to lead them that is.