by Damozel | The New York Times has published an op-ed by Barack Obama.
It’s good news, isn’t it, he pointedly notes, that our troops’ sacrifices have got the Iraqis to a point when their government might actually be about ready to take off the training wheels and ride off without us holding the handlebars? (NYT)
And whether they are ready are not — see this BBC article clarifying the quote on which Obama relied — isn’t it about as clear as it could possibly be that we can’t go on babysitting them indefinitely, or even very much longer, without severe strain to major muscle groups?
But while McCain temporizes about when, and maybe even whether, we should leave Iraq, Obama is being called out for ‘flip-flopping’ because he has said that his 16 month withdrawal date was only ever aspirational. At least he is committed to leaving.
You know what, I don’t much care whether this is a flip, a flop, a 180, or a 360 degree turn back to the starting place. It doesn’t matter to me. I also don’t care whether the Iraqis want us to go or might be open to having us stick around awhile longer. The statement by Maliki on which Obama’s piece is based might have been inaccurately reported. My convictions about the need for us to leave Iraq don’t turn on whether the Iraqis ask us to leave. If they do, then I agree with Obama — we pretty much have to go. If they don’t, we still have to go sometime.
For us to get out, we need a president who is committed to leaving. I have no confidence in McCain’s commitment to withdrawal as the goal (as opposed to occupation).
Setting aside what the Iraqis might or might not want, Obama understands why we need not to go on staying there indefinitely.
The strain on our military has grown, the situation in Afghanistan has deteriorated and we’ve spent nearly $200 billion more in Iraq than we had budgeted. Iraq’s leaders have failed to invest tens of billions of dollars in oil revenues in rebuilding their own country, and they have not reached the political accommodation that was the stated purpose of the surge. (NYT)
Political reconciliation isn’t going to happen on our watch. In March of this year, Gen. Petraeus expressed dissatisfaction with the progress of political reconciliation between Iraq’s various competing factions. In October of 2007, the Iraqis were keen to let Congress know that the key benchmark — remember those benchmarks? — of political reconciliation was unlikely to occur on any sort of timetable that would be acceptable to the US (see BN-Politics).
"[A] prominent Shiite cleric and parliament member, said any future reconciliation would emerge naturally from an efficient, fair government, not through short-term political engineering among Sunnis and Shiites…."Reconciliation should be a result and not a goal by itself," he said. "You should create the atmosphere for correct relationships, and not wave slogans that ‘I want to reconcile with you. (WaPo Oct 18 2008)
This has always made sense to me. It also sheds light on the essential ignorance or arrogance on a military strategy that didn’t stop to learn anything about who the Iraqi people were or of the forces dividing them.
The Bush administration didn't anticipate, as Bush ingenuously admitted, the effect on Iraq's ability to stabilize after Saddam of Iraq's sectarian divisions.
Once it was in Iraq, the Bush administration got busy burrowing in under its skin like a tick. If you haven’t been hit in the head yet by the anvil-sized clues that have been falling out of the sky, you might naively believe, as I’m certain Obama doesn’t, that it’s as easy as establishing a deadline.
The Bush administration has always meant to establish a lasting presence in Iraq. Many people, my colleague Deb Cupples being one of them, said so from the first. I wasn’t so sure. But though I might be short-sighted when it comes to reading the hand-writing on the wall, I can see it when it’s pushed right in front of my nose and — unlike John McCain — I know a hawk from a hand-saw.
For example, consider ‘the Declaration that the US and Iraq Should Trade Friendship Rings‘ last November. As Shaun Mullen noted at the time,
I feel like the last guy in the room to get a bad joke this morning
in the wake of announcements in Baghdad and Iraq that there is a quid pro quo deal in which the U.S. will babysit the Shiite-dominated Al-Maliki regime indefinitely in return for giving U.S. entrepreneurs first crack at Iraq’s riches, which lest there be any doubt are its vast untapped oil reserves and not figs or palm-frond chachkes. (The Conspiracy Freaks Were Right).
See also Mullen’s The U.S., Iraq & Empire Building (Or: When a War Becomes a Business Deal). Another anvil was lobbed at our heads when we learned about the Bush administration’s behind-the-scenes negotiations over the all too unratified-treaty-like ’status of forces’ agreement and the Bush administration’s wistful initial hope — now that they have Iran in their cross-hairs — of being allowed to maintain 200 military bases in Iraq. Oddly enough, the Iraqis were not down with that.
There were other 2 Ton hints and intimations in the media as well: the Iraq embassy (if you want to know a great example of where your tax dollars are going, and how much you aren’t getting in return for them, look here and here); the plans to turn the Green Zone into a high end real estate investment (Luxury hotels! Premium shopping! Condos!) and on and on.
On July 10, 2008, Mullen wrote:
[T]he Iraq war has never really been a war of liberation for Bush and the man who would represent a third Bush term. Any doubt about that was removed yesterday when the White House rejected out of hand any timetable.
The war, of course, has been about advancing America’s agenda in the Middle East. Getting rid of Saddam Hussein was just a pretext for foisting the neocon wet dream of democracy on a bunch of people who worship a false God and wear funny clothes.
The welfare of Iraq has been well down a priority list that includes a slew of military bases from which Iran can more conveniently be subverted, target practice for thugs from Blackwater and other U.S. security firms ostensibly guarding diplomats, awarding tens of billions of dollars in no-bid contracts to politically connected U.S. corporations to supply troops with six bucks a pop Coca-Colas and contaminated water, opening the door to rapacious U.S. oil giants to suck up Iraq’s vast untapped oil wealth, and of course scratching Israel’s back. (On Iraq Troop Withdrawals, The Emperor & His Wannabe Heir Have No Clothes)
We have rather carefully followed media stories about the rampant war profiteering in Iraq — and the hemorrhaging of all that missing tax money the Bush administration would like for you to think went to buy giant plasma screen TVs, top-of-the-line rims, and crack cocaine for unemployed poor people. The cost of the waste is mind-boggling and hasn’t been properly counted up yet. There is reason to fear that it never will be.
And if all this sounds all right or even not-too-morally-bankrupt to you, you just might be a neocon. Get an intervention.)
As Obama points out in his op-ed, none of this — none — is about national security, nor ever was.
I believed it was a grave mistake to allow ourselves to be distracted from the fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban by invading a country that posed no imminent threat and had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks. Since then, more than 4,000 Americans have died and we have spent nearly $1 trillion. Our military is overstretched. Nearly every threat we face — from Afghanistan to Al Qaeda to Iran — has grown.…
Ending the war is essential to meeting our broader strategic goals, starting in Afghanistan and Pakistan, where the Taliban is resurgent and Al Qaeda has a safe haven. Iraq is not the central front in the war on terrorism, and it never has been. As Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recently pointed out, we won’t have sufficient resources to finish the job in Afghanistan until we reduce our commitment to Iraq. (NYT)
Does anyone still really believe that the Iraq adventure was ever really about our national security? I don’t mean, mind you, ‘Does anyone affect to believe it?’ The Bush administration and the few who still think they have a shred of credibility affect to believe it. John McCain affects to believe it. (After all: Iran! Military bases!)
But of course Obama's focus is different: the consequences --- which we have unquestionably not yet seen play out --- of letting Bush take our eye off the ball. Rather than track down bin Laden or deal with the Taliban --- those could wait! --- Bush wanted a crack at the Big Opportunities that brutish Saddam Hussein was sitting on with raised middle finger and an ugly sneer. Remember Greenspan’s book and the consternation that ensued because he said that the war was ‘largely about oil,’ and then his lame clarification that he had never actually heard anyone say this outright and didn’t mean that oil was the only reason?
Saddam was an enemy everyone could hate, and a damn sight easier to track down and bring to justice than crafty bin Laden in his cave or all those scattered cells of jihadists. He was a symbolic terrorist and symbol of America-hating evildoers that we could easily defeat. After a few short months of sorting him out and settling things down, we could get back to the real threat.
Was it worth it after all to get rid of Saddam? Allow me to quote Andrew Sullivan, who was for it before he was agin it.
Whether removing Saddam was worth the deaths of hundreds of thousands, displacement of millions, empowerment of Iran, ethnic cleansing on a massive scale, $1 trillion, $145 a barrel oil, up to 5,000 coalition deaths, and the resurgence of al Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan is another matter.
Whether we could have found a less traumatizing, expensive, fatal path past Saddam will be for historians to judge. But it is worth remembering…that the fundamental casus belli -the WMD threat from Saddam - was false. And we removed Saddam over five years ago. The war since is what we are discussing.
But of course, we never have really managed get things settled down to the Bush Administration’s satisfaction. While Bush seems recently to have remembered Bin Laden, neither he nor McCain feels that we ought to be leaving Iraq yet awhile. We haven’t been rewarded yet!
Obama says:
Instead of seizing the moment and encouraging Iraqis to step up, the Bush administration and Senator McCain are refusing to embrace this transition — despite their previous commitments to respect the will of Iraq’s sovereign government. They call any timetable for the removal of American troops “surrender,” even though we would be turning Iraq over to a sovereign Iraqi government.
But this is not a strategy for success — it is a strategy for staying that runs contrary to the will of the Iraqi people, the American people and the security interests of the United States. That is why, on my first day in office, I would give
the military a new mission: ending this war. (NYT)
Obama has made it clear that he plans to take a measured approach to troop drawdown that would take account of conditions on the ground. McCain has said more or less the same thing. The difference is that Obama believes it is time to begin is as soon as possible. McCain thinks it should start sometime later, when he is president and it looks like it’s time. The Bush Administration leaves Iraq when it wants to leave, and it ain’t ready yet. And McCain has decided to style himself as its heir apparent.
McCain’s foot-dragging and rationalizations are a big red flapping warning flag that many Americans, including some Democrats who I know want to see the war end, are deliberately choosing to ignore. As is his reluctance to get down to brass tacks about when we start and how we would carry out an exit strategy. As to protecting American lives, which he said was a principal aim — of course it is. But — keeping that goal firmly in mind, as Obama also has pledged to do — the only real question remaining ought to be how we do that. The Iraqi government has pretty much handed us the answer to the question: when do we begin?
McCain is as hazy on getting out of Iraq as he is on how he will magically balance the budget while still giving everyone boffo tax breaks. And to me there are really only two ways to account for his haziness: either he really doesn’t know, or he does know and doesn’t want to say because his answer won’t go down too well with voters. And either way, it’s been clear for a long time that getting out isn’t exactly at the top of his list of priorities.
Ed Morissey points out that Obama might have jumped the gun in asserting that the Iraqis have invited us to leave (due to a misquote by Maliki’s office). I don’t care. While I’m the first to concede that we owed something to the Iraqis after we went in, that obligation can’t continue indefinitely at the expense of all our other interests such as, for starters, the ‘war on terrorism’ and our national security.
Obama wrote:
Unlike Senator McCain, I would make it absolutely clear that we seek no presence in Iraq similar to our permanent bases in South Korea, and would redeploy our troops out of Iraq and focus on the broader security challenges that we face. But for far too long, those responsible for the greatest strategic blunder in the recent history of American foreign policy have ignored useful debate in favor of making false charges about flip-flops and surrender.
It’s not going to work this time. It’s time to end this war.
I’ve always thought that the whole emphasis on timetables was misguided anyway. It’s just as well that Obama backpedalled away from promising a firm date, even if you agree with those who say that’s what he did. . And he’s right about the stupid overemphasis on ‘flip-flopping’; because the opposite of that is to stubbornly persist in doing the wrong thing in the manner of George W. Bush.
‘How long before we’re out?’ was always the wrong question — we can’t really know that before we get there — but ‘When can we start‘? Obama at least has made it clear that he is committed to beginning. As Jazz Shaw says at TMV,
If you don’t start, you will never finish.
Timetables don’t have to be written in stone. If it takes longer than sixteen months - be it 24 or 32 or whatever - just get started. The journey of a thousand steps, etc. etc. The goal is what counts, and the way to get out of Iraq is to get out of Iraq. (Jazz Shaw, Obama: Mostly Out of Iraq)
Amen to that. As noted above, Bush Inc. has done its best to get US interests well and truly entrenched. Extracting ourselves without damaging ourselves economically more than we have to is another thing — besides getting some troops out while protecting the ones who remain — that will require careful planning to take account of all the circumstances that apply at the time.
So when Obama said at the end of his piece, ‘It’s time to end this war,’ what he really meant was ‘It’s time to begin to end this war.’ And a commitment to beginning is all I ask at this point.
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