Events will no doubt present us other crises and opportunities. Lebanon could blow up, something significant might happen in the Palestinian-Israeli situation, the U.S. might bomb Iran, there might be more visible troubles in Colombia, and confrontations over Taiwan or North Korea are certainly possible. But if the antiwar movement is to revive itself after the election that seduced so many into thinking electing John Kerry was important, I would humbly suggest that a central theme from now on should be demanding that U.S. troops come home from Iraq as soon as humanly possible. Although it might not be at the top of many peoples’ priority lists, it should resonate with an increasing number of Americans. And it is remotely possible – some say more than likely – that there are people in the government who want to do it, so a persistent call just might be of some help in strengthening their hands.
The argument should be fairly simple. To be sure, the new Iraqi government just beginning to be brought into existence after the surprisingly successful elections in January has had some growing pains. The U.S. government, curiously averse to admitting that anything is other than rosy except when it is affirming that whipping terror is a multi-generational commitment, is almost certainly exaggerating the number of Iraqis who are properly trained for military or security duties. But the number is increasing. The insurgents now seem to be going after Iraqis working or cooperating with the occupation/transition more than after Americans (although an average of one American killed a day is hardly insignificant). Even some Sunnis seem to be thinking about participating in politics rather than supporting the insurgency or simply standing to one side while the Shi’ites and Kurds run everything.
Sunni Involvement?
A story in the New York Times this week described the possibly changing attitude of Sheik Harith al-Dari, a cleric and tribal leader who presides at the Mother of All Battles Mosque in western Baghdad and heads the Muslim Scholars Association. Although he said in an interview that he still views the insurgency as legitimate, he seems to have reduced his demands slightly. Previously, he had said the Americans must withdraw and all Iraqi prisoners be released from American prisons before he would endorse Sunni participation in drafting a constitution and forming a new government. Now he says a credible timetable for withdrawal might be enough.
"I think Iraqi leaders could speak and appeal to the resistance," the Times reported him saying. "They could tell them: ”If you want to liberate your country, liberation is coming now without any price. So you must save your efforts of blood and money.’"
This is not to say that things will go all that smoothly. Last week, the Times reported an incident in which a carpenter saw some insurgents grouping to attack a mosque, and called his cousins and nephews together and opened fire, killing three of them. The civilians suffered only wounds, no deaths. The story suggested strongly that this incident might mean ordinary Iraqi civilians have had enough of the insurgency and might start to take matters into their own hands more often. When I called several experts on Iraq, however, they all expressed concern that since the carpenter was a Shi’ite and the insurgents were Sunnis, this might turn out to be the opening volley in that Sunni-Shia civil war that everybody fears could happen and hopes against hope will not.
One incident is hardly a trend either way, of course.
Nonetheless, even the squabbling in the elected national assembly is something of a sign that Iraqis are doing politics – war by other means, but generally less overtly violent – rather than outright fighting. The political impulse was squelched by Saddam Hussein for decades, of course, and it will take Iraqis a while to get the hang of it – and they might not do so. But desire for a genuinely Iraqi form of governance, along with U.S. troops leaving, seems to be growing among Iraqis.
Terrorist Magnet
Perhaps the most compelling reason to start bringing American troops home, however, is that they have become something of a terrorist magnet. As recent news reports emphasize, American intelligence on what is going on in Iraq is terrible, although there’s just an outside chance that increasing numbers of Iraqis, insofar as they figure some kind of government growing out of the current constitutional process is likely to prevail in the end, may be willing to inform. But there’s little question that in addition to homegrown insurgents, there are significant numbers of foreign terrorists, some probably affiliated with al-Qaeda, however loosely, and some drawn for other motivations, operating in Iraq.
The main reason it’s attractive for non-Iraqi jihadists to go to Iraq is that there are Americans to kill or terrorize there. Of course, it’s wise not to overlook that they are also getting "blooded" in actual action and gaining experience and seasoning that could be used for attacks elsewhere, perhaps in the United States. It’s not that difficult to argue, then, that keeping U.S. troops in Iraq in an active role, inasmuch as it’s unlikely that they will be able to kill or capture all the foreign jihadists, is actually increasing the danger to the United States and its friends of a future terrorist attack. The more extant terrorists with on-the-ground experience, the more likely such an attack could be.
So a plausible, even a strong, case can be made that bringing American troops home could actually reduce the threat of a terrorist attack on U.S. soil or against U.S. interests elsewhere. We should make that case persistently.
Negotiated Settlement
Gareth Porter of Foreign Policy in Focus recently made a case on Alternet for a negotiated settlement with the insurgents that would involve a withdrawal of American troops in exchange for "the surrender of the insurgents and the reintegration of the Sunni region into the post-Saddam political system."
"In recent weeks there have been multiple indications that some insurgent leaders as well as some in the election-winning United Iraqi Alliance are actively interested in such a settlement," he wrote. "Time revealed that certain insurgent leaders had met with U.S. diplomats and intelligence officers about a settlement under which they would surrender."
The United States might not want to "negotiate with terrorists," but it also doesn’t want the insurgency to go on forever. In addition, opinion polls show an increasing number of Americans believe the Iraq war was not worth the cost in blood and treasure, and should be increasingly open to a call to bring the troops home sooner rather than later.
Intriguing Signals
Then there are those intriguing signals that may or may not be coming from administration figures who have some real influence. There was the Bob Novak column this week, suggesting strongly that "Condoleezza Rice is expected to support administration officials who want to leave even if what is left behind does not constitute perfection. … Officials who know her well believe she favors the escape from Iraq."
Novak quotes a "colleague" as saying, "She is not controlled by the neocons insisting on a perfect democracy before we go." He also opines that "President Bush’s supporters believe it now is time to go and leave the task of subduing the insurgents to the Iraqis." He says Defense Secretary Rumsfeld is not a neocon – which is true in the sense that he viewed himself as an old-fashioned Republican conservative before there were identifiable neocons – although he has sometimes seemed indistinguishable, and that even Paul Wolfowitz bristles at being described as a neocon.
Now Bob Novak obviously has better sources in the administration than I do, although for this column they are anonymous and he is also probably using them to try to push a course of action he views as desirable. But he has a sensitive ear, especially for the Republican Party. People are still trying to read the tea leaves, but it’s interesting to note that both Paul Wolfowitz, just confirmed as head of the World Bank, and former Undersecretary of State John Bolton, posted to the United Nations, where he will doubtless be controversial if he is confirmed, have been moved out of direct policymaking roles inside the Beltway.
Finally, there’s the L.A. Times story quoting Army Gen. George W. Casey, the top military commander in Iraq, as predicting on Sunday that the U.S. would make "very substantial reductions" in the number of troops by March 2006. Casey is the highest-ranking military official to date to predict a major troop reduction within the year.
So our government might actually be gearing up – with fingers to the wind as always, of course – to begin withdrawing troops from Iraq fairly soon. It behooves us to push them to speed up the timetable.
Proper Demands
In doing so, it would be helpful to demand not just that the number of troops be reduced substantially, but that no permanent U.S. military bases be established there. I suspect the government will resist this idea, probably by not acknowledging that it is even in play. I suspect that establishing those bases, in order to have another bastion in the Middle East that wasn’t the increasingly troublesome Saudi Arabia, and not WMD or the imaginary al-Qaeda connection, was the real reason for the invasion in the first place.
Still, we would do well to make this an issue. Although Americans are generally curiously tolerant of stationing troops overseas in Germany, Japan, and other places where their lives are comfortable and not dangerous, having military people in harm’s way is still not popular. Even at this advanced stage of empire, few Americans have the imperial mindset that characterized the British for several generations.
Many British people in the 19th century saw overseas service as an opportunity and an adventure, and some welcomed the chance to get off the potty little island and go to someplace more exotic for a considerable period or even their whole lives. Americans who have volunteered for the military are, for the most part, willing to serve overseas in the name of duty and country. But typically, they begin counting the days until they can come home the minute they get over there.
Iraq, even if a new government assumes power reasonably peacefully, which is hardly guaranteed, is likely to be more dangerous than Germany for American soldiers and Marines by orders of magnitude for the foreseeable future. In addition, of course, bases in Iraq would almost certainly be used to "project power" – i.e., launch other imperial attacks and adventures – in the rest of the Middle East. We should make the case strongly, even if we doubt we will prevail, for not establishing Iraqi bases in the first place.
Iraq for the Iraqis.
