I’ve been thinking through what is likely to emerge regarding policy for Iraq from the new configuration emerging in Washington after Tuesday’s elections.
Giving Donald Rumsfeld the boot the day rights after the election was only the first of a series of changes we can now expect. “Stay the course” is now (finally!) history, and the only question is what approach will be adopted to replace it.
Almost certainly, as had been widely predicted, the Iraq Study Group will play a key role in formulating the new approach. Its contribution is needed much more now than it was before November 7, because it was intentionally composed of people with strong links to the two major US parties and is therefore in a strong role to help broker the intra-US political terms of the “deal” that needs to be done over Iraq.
It is my sense that if, as seems to be the case, the people on the ISG consist mainly of political ‘realists” from both parties, rather than ideologues, they may well seek to move very quickly indeed to formulate the terms of that deal. They can use the present political inter-regnum– before the new Congress is sworn in and while the old Congress now has little if any real political clout– to find a workable and bipartisan policy toward Iraq before Inauguration Day in January, and thus to set the agenda for the incoming Congress.
Though JWN readers must know that I have a few partisan sympathies of my own, I do think that finding a workable bipartisan approach to Iraq (and the related issues) is very valuable. Tough decisions will need to be made and a steady hand placed on the wheel of policy if the poor bloody Iraqis are not to have their country plunged into even greater chaos, and if the current violence in Palestine and the strong sense of unease throughout the rest of the Middle East are not to explode uncontrollably and with massive damage for millions of people throughout the region.
US voters have spoken. On Tuesday they made clear (1) that Iraq was a very strong concern for them, and (2) that, judging the present policy a failure, they need to see a distinct change of policy– one that offers a hope of a US troop withdrawal within a reasonable length of time.
My suggestion for a plan
US citizens do not, obviously, want the manner of the US withdrawal to be either: (1) an operational debacle that brings massive or unnecessary troop losses or a too-evident loss of US face, or (2) one that it leaves a completely failed state in Iraq that could, like pre-2001 Afghanistan, incubate further waves of Qaeda-style terror.
To be frank to my Iraqi readers, I should say that it’s possible that most US citizens don’t give a hoot for the wellbeing of ordinary Iraqis– or rather, they don’t care enough about stability in Iraq to be prepared to lose even one US soldier’s life to ensure it. However, as soon as we start thinking about how to bring about an orderly (i.e., not a debacle-laden) withdrawal of US troops from Iraq– whether this is total or even only, in the first place, ‘substantial’– then it becomes very clear that the possibility of an orderly US withdrawal is inextricably linked to the possibility of Iraq having some form of working governance structure after that withdrawal.
(I’m also of the opinion that there is no such beast, at this point, as a “partial” US withdrawal that would have any significant longevity. But this is not the most immediate issue. In my view, the logic of the negotiations and of real Iraqi self-empowerment will anyway, almost inevitably, lead to a total US troop withdrawal within 1-2 years after the start of a serious, internationally supported peace process for Iraq.)
So the question is, how can we even think of any form of stable Iraqi governance structure emerging? The US has had three and half years of complete hegemony inside the country to try to achieve this goal, but failed. Right now it has neither the credibility to be given another chance at doing it, nor, frankly, any signs that it has the capability of getting it right.
It desperately needs help.
But who can help it?
My answer is, basically, these three parties, in this order: Iran, the UN, and Iraq’s other neighbors:
* Iran, because it is, actually, the newly emerging hegemonic power inside Iraq. It has strong links with all the powerful actors inside Iraq, with the exception of some of the Sunni actors. It has immense proximity, and easy supply lines into Iraq along the lengthy mutual border. Plus, at present you could say that the 147,000 US troops in Iraq are currently there only on Teheran’s sufferance: Teheran likes to have them there because their very vulnerable deployment there form a potent self-deterrent against any dreams US officials might have of launching a military attack against Iran.
There is thus, literally, no hope for the US of having any debacle-free drawdown of troops from Iraq without getting the explicit permission for this from Teheran. And that, of course, also means paying a “price” to Teheran that is considerably higher than merely– and very belatedly– agreeing to “talk” to it. No, there will have to be discussions about a range of issues including nuclear issues and the whole question of the security regime in the Gulf region, that go considerably beyond merely “talking”, i.e., saying hello…
* The UN will be necessary to provide a cover of some international legitimacy for whatever the security regime on the ground inside Iraq will be– and to help broker both the intra-Iraqi political compact that needs to be won and the international dimensions of the agreement over the whole transformation of the security situatin in the region.
As noted above, the US is currently in no position at all, on its own, to broker any kind of new agreement among Iraqis. That’s the big thing it needs the UN for; and indeed, it should hand over the lead role in brokering this agreement to the UN, as soon as possible. But Washington also needs the UN to give “cover”– perhaps through some form of re-hatting operation– for a security regime inside Iraq that will continue, in the interim period, to be dominated by the US troop presence, though it could also helpfully be supplemented by some other, non-US and preferably non-western troops– and especially commanders– who have real and substantial experience in peacekeeping, rather than imperial domination.
Read about Nambia and the role the UN played during the transition from South Africa’s (illegal, foreign occupation) regime there to the emergence of a legitimate and accepted indigenous successor regime.
Read about it very fast.
* Iraq’s other neighbors will also be very important… And here I’m talking about, essentially, the whole of Iraq’s Arab “hinterland” stretching from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait down through the entire Peninsula, and from Jordan and Syria across to Egypt, as well as (though to a lesser extent) Turkey.
The fact of the matter will be that for the US to get out of Iraq, Iran is going to have to be given a bigger role in the Gulf (and the broader Middle East) than the US has allowed it to have at any time since the Islamic Revolution of 1979. This will be–already is!– deeply unsettling for the conservative, Sunni-ruled monarchs of Jordan and the Gulf, and also for the conservative, Sunni-ruled President of Egypt. So all these rulers– and even more importantly, the restive Arab populations atop whom they today precariously balance– will need to receive a lot of reassurance from the US and from other participants in the process.
There is no way this can happen if, at the same time, the US and the UN are not actively doing something very productive indeed to engage with the very real and longstanding grievances of the Palestinians. Forget the pathetic old “Road Map to Nowhere” which has gotten us to precisely that destination after four years of blather and hot air. What the Egyptians, Saudis, Jordanians, and others are going to expect to see is something speedy, authoritative, and truly transformational like the Madrid Conference of October 1991.
… Which was convened, we should note, by Jim Baker.
These states (including Syria) will also need to have a meaningful behind-the-scenes role in being a contact group, or whatever, for the transition of power inside Iraq, where they have their own strong interests, fears, and concerns..
… So once we have sketched these kinds of “realistic” paths forward in the Middle East, it becames immediately clear that (1) the Israelis are not going to like a lot of what must lie ahead in these scenarios, and (2) their friends in the Democratic Party won’t like it, either… That’s where the key role in the ISG of Lee Hamilton, a very experienced man who was head of the Democratic-controlled House International Relations Committee for many years, will come in…
The Israelis have already, as I can see, started to read the tea-leaves, and are desperately trying to figure how they stop this train. The bombastic old war-horse Efraim Sneh has again threatened that Israel will will go ahead and bomb Iran on its own if no-one else will do the job. And Olmert is rushing to the US in the coming days…
But Israel’s rightwing leadership has lost a lot of the clout it once had within the US system, by virtue of the now-evident collapse of the neocon network as well of some of the political clout of the Zionist evangelicals.
The Middle East will be waking up to a new day. Let’s hope the ever-looming catastrophes can be avoided and a new sense of realism prevail. Militarism and US hegemonism were, after all, what brought the US and Iraq to the present parlous situation in Iraq.
16 thoughts on “America’s Iraq policy after the elections”
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“But who can help it? My answer is, basically, these three parties, in this order: Iran, the UN, and Iraq’s other neighbors”
Helena, aren’t you leaving somebody out? Let’s not forget who actually defeated the US military in Iraq. It wasn’t Iran. It certainly wasn’t the UN. It wasn’t Iraq’s other neighbors. It wasn’t Al Qaeda. It was basically the combat hardened officer corps of Saddam’s former army – mosly Sunni Muslim native sons of central Iraq. They are the ones who kicked our ass, and they are the key to saving what remains of “the greatest military force the world has ever known.”
Excellent post Helena. I only hope that a course similar to one you outline will be pursued.
Let’s hope that this new situation translates into more multilateralism and does not open up for the antiquated and potentially disastrous partition policies which Biden et al. have been toying with. Surely it would be ironic if the elections results are interpreted as a mandate for employing neo-imperial tactics in the Middle East.
What you explain is the policy this administration should have been pursuing three years ago. Cheney, Rumsfeld, and their merry band of neo-cons bear the blame for delaying it.
Unfortunately I think it is too late for this plan to have any reasonable chance of success. When you consider all the competing pressures in Iraq today, and the ever-wider circle of revenge killings, the situation on the ground gives new meaning to the phrase “…all the king’s horses and all the king’s men, could not put Humpty together again.”
By all means Iraq must remain a united country. Any partition plan will simply mean a continuation of fighting for decades to come. But the process of patching up Humpty is not going to be a pretty sight. And more than likely the US will still end up retreating under fire.
Here’s hoping Jim Baker and Lee Hamilton can keep a lid on the meddling of AIPAC’s policy advisors. Maybe the best thing to come out of the Iraq fiasco is that Washington acquired greater capability of looking the Israel lobby in the face and resisting the urge to blink.
The wild card in Iraq will remain Israel’s linkage to Kurdish interests, given the fact that America pledged to provide the Kurds a safe haven.
Good points, one and all. Thanks. John C., I agree that the “native sons of central (and western) Iraq” need to be constructively engaged in fashioning the working Iraqi governance structure that will permit the non-debacular US withdrawal. (As do, of course, all the other Iraqi factions.) The project to do this is linked to the project to engage the (Sunni Arab) members of the neighbors’ “contact group”– especially given the fact that the native sons have a broad hinterland of safe havens and supporters in the Gulf states and elsewhere. It is also linked to the project to start a meaningful Arab-Israeli peace effort…
None of this will be easy. But a “realist” (as opposed to ideological) US policy toward Iraq can expect the active support of nearly all the other major actors in the world system. Only Israel can be expected to stand– and quite possibly, very strongly indeed– against it.
That (along with, of course, the need to end the suffering of the Iraqi peole and of US soldiers as quickly as possible) is a very strong reason why Baker and Hamilton should get their good, realist project underway as soon as possible– before Biden and other newly empowered congressional Democrats, including strong Israeli allies such as Tom Lantos, etc. can organize too much of a pro-Israeli (or Kurdocentric) pushback against it.
* Iran, because it is, actually, the newly emerging hegemonic power inside Iraq.
“We let the Shia genie out of the bottle,” said a rueful Yitzhak Rabin.
So, After 9/11, George Bush decided to solve his personal Iraq problem by invading the country and ousting Saddam and the Ba’athists. Mission accomplished in three weeks. Bush triumphed. But US invasion, with no end in sight.
Helena, the American let Iran/Shia out of the bottle in Iraq, I appalled by your post, looks to me you favourable to Hezbollah/Iran in any where in ME if I am not wrong.
Helena, the problem you reading Iraq problem as outsider, what you suggesting sorry to say short of site, basically you try to marginalising the core and the real Problem…
I give you some examples some polls which illustrated the opinions of Iraqis from North to the South and from East to the West.
First:
http://www.brookings.edu/fp/saban/iraq/index20061030.pdf
APPROVAL OF ATTACKS ON US-LED FORCES
January 2006……..Shia 41%….Sunni 88%….Kurd 16% …. Overall 47%
September2006…..Shia 62%….Sunni 92%….Kurd 15% …. Overall 61%
Secondly: BRITISH MINISTRY OF DEFENCE POLL: AUGUST 2005119
Iraqis who believe attacks against British and American troops
are justified 45% (65% in Maysan province)
Iraqis “strongly opposed” to presence of Coalition troops 82%
Iraqis who believe coalition forces are responsible for any
improvement in security Plus, at present you could say that the 147,000 US troops in Iraq are currently there only on Teheran’s sufferance:
False, its not and every one knows this just made up scenario and I doubt it very mush, there were US force in Afghanistan before Iraq why you don’t say this about them same borders the difference just they are in the East side not the west.
The fact of the matter will be that for the US to get out of Iraq, Iran is going to have to be given a bigger role in the Gulf (and the broader Middle East) than the US has allowed it to have at any time since the Islamic Revolution of 1979.
Well done Helena, while accusing Iraq of war with Iran 1980 and now you openly stating the ambitions of Khomeini and his mullah in the region.
How things changing here, Iran during Khomeini till now never been friendly to all Arab neighbours not just Iraq despite Khomeini call to weep off Israel from the map same as Ahmadinajad now, they stating these fiery statement but the reality it’s not they looking to expand west and in the Arabian Gulf.
So, I believe what Iraq did should not be blamed from threaten by its East neighbour what Iraq did its just self-defence from enemy starting making troubles inside Iraq and may be sooner or later will bait him as we seeing now in Iraq.
before Biden and other newly empowered congressional Democrats, including strong Israeli allies such as Tom Lantos, etc. can organize too much of a pro-Israeli (or Kurdocentric) pushback against it.
Helena, Just in the dreams, checks today in UN when US VETO Security Council resolution about Beat Hannon ….
If the Democrats win control of Congress in this November’s election, do you think that their policies would move the country in the right direction or the wrong direction in each of the following areas? Iraq.”
Direction………Direction……….Unsure
Right……………Wrong
54%……………….39 % …………7 %
“America needs more than just a shift from Republicans to Democrats in Congress if it hopes to move toward peace in the Middle East. The Palestinians are no better off than they were; and there’s no less danger of a military confrontation with Iran, unless…
American voters need to make it perfectly clear to their congressional representatives that the recent vote was a mandate to end its warmongering in the Middle East.”
http://www.atlanticfreepress.com/content/view/199/32/
“Perle is unrecognizable as the confident hawk who, as chairman of the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee, had invited the exiled Iraqi dissident Ahmad Chalabi to its first meeting after 9/11. “The levels of brutality that we’ve seen are truly horrifying, and I have to say, I underestimated the depravity,” Perle says now, adding that total defeat—an American withdrawal that leaves Iraq as an anarchic “failed state”—is not yet inevitable but is becoming more likely. “And then,” says Perle, “you’ll get all the mayhem that the world is capable of creating.”
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2006/12/neocons200612
Helena,
I am writing this from Sialkot, Pakistan where I am depedent on a slow and somewhat iffy dialup connection that requires my tieing up the phone line of my hosts, so my comment, and perhaps also my reading of your post, will unfortunately be brief and incomplete. For that I apologize.
What strikes me about your remarks here is that I see exactly zero mention of Iraqis in all this. You seem to be suggesting that it is up to the United States, with the assistance of everyone else the world, to determine what is to be done about Iraq. You can imagine, I know, how an Iraqi might react to your apparent suggestion that it is appropriate to continue the Bush policy of nearly total exclusion of the Iraqis in making decisions regarding the present and future of Iraq. In fact, you do not even suggest any effort to put an Iraqi PR facade on the process as Bush did (effectively for the domestic audience, not so effectively for the Arabs).
So, Helena, I ask you, why is it up to the US, the UN, Iraq’s neighbors and whomever else instead of finally, for once in all this mess, leaving it for the Iraqis to sort out their own affairs? In fact, though it may seem impractical to some, in my view and that of many other Iraqis, the Americans should have exactly nothing to say about anything to do with Iraq except for affecting their complete exit – and by that I mean not just military, but all official presence – as soon and as quickly as possible.
Helena,
I am writing this from Sialkot, Pakistan where I am depedent on a slow and somewhat iffy dialup connection that requires my tieing up the phone line of my hosts, so my comment, and perhaps also my reading of your post, will unfortunately be brief and incomplete. For that I apologize.
What strikes me about your remarks here is that I see exactly zero mention of Iraqis in all this. You seem to be suggesting that it is up to the United States, with the assistance of everyone else the world, to determine what is to be done about Iraq. You can imagine, I know, how an Iraqi might react to your apparent suggestion that it is appropriate to continue the Bush policy of nearly total exclusion of the Iraqis in making decisions regarding the present and future of Iraq. In fact, you do not even suggest any effort to put an Iraqi PR facade on the process as Bush did (effectively for the domestic audience, not so effectively for the Arabs).
So, Helena, I ask you, why is it up to the US, the UN, Iraq’s neighbors and whomever else instead of finally, for once in all this mess, leaving it for the Iraqis to sort out their own affairs? In fact, though it may seem impractical to some, in my view and that of many other Iraqis, the Americans should have exactly nothing to say about anything to do with Iraq except for affecting their complete exit – and by that I mean not just military, but all official presence – as soon and as quickly as possible.
The fact that most Iraqis loathe occupation or that nearly all Sunnis bless attacks on Americans does not answer the key issue: whether Iraqis are prepared to stop killing each other. That will only happen when there is a police force that is impartial and strong enough to act on tips on insurgent whereabouts, regardless of sect. Mere withdrawal of US forces would not assure this. The police would probably disintegrate even further into sectarian factions. Some might claim that it is no business of the US to care, but the same critics will surely blame the US if Iraq turns into a Ruwanda or Somalia. This might vindicate their urge to see the US disgraced, but this offer little solace to Iraqis, except the Sunni insurgents would would use it as the cue to commence the 10-year battle to return to the top.
I’m sorry, but these proposals are yet another cop-out. They also fail to respect the sovereignty and independence of Iraq.
The only honourable and viable way out of the tragedy caused by America’s war of aggression against Iraq, which has been shamelessly exploited by Iran, is to NEGOTIATE WITH THE IRAQI RESISTANCE. Please endorse an online Statement to this effect by the Brussels Tribunal and the International Anti-Occupation Network: http://www.brusselstribunal.org/WayOut.htm#endorsers
I’m sorry, but these proposals are yet another cop-out. They also fail to respect the sovereignty and independence of Iraq.
The only honourable and viable way out of the tragedy caused by America’s war of aggression against Iraq, which has been shamelessly exploited by Iran, is to NEGOTIATE WITH THE IRAQI RESISTANCE. Please endorse an online Statement to this effect by the Brussels Tribunal and the International Anti-Occupation Network: http://www.brusselstribunal.org/WayOut.htm#endorsers
“these proposals are yet another cop-out. They also fail to respect the sovereignty and independence of Iraq.”
Exactly. In fact, they ignore it completely. Thank you Alison. But negotiate what with the resistance? There is nothing to negotiate. Every single aspect of the U.S. presence is illegitimate and destructive, and nothing good will come out of any part of it, including any “negotiations”.
I am afraid you are right, Shirin. The American government has never done the decent thing and it never will. Instead of negotiating an orderly and comprehensive withdrawal, it is plotting to eliminate Saddam and negotiate a long stay in Iraq with a bunch of ex-Baathist traitors. That is what the secret talks in Amman are all about. It is sickening and will only lead to more injustice and more bloodshed.
I think all talk of “staying” means protecting the Sunni population while all talk from here on out of leaving means abandoning them to the fate of all minority losers in civil wars. Which is what US is now prepared to do.To avoid a bloodbath the US will enforce a period of “exodus” for the Sunnis (like Palestinians) and integration into neighboring Gulf states. No, the Israelis won’t like it but Helen is correct that Iran will be promised many concessions for “laying low” for some period while Sadr reconfigures a new government. i suspect the necons will be laying low for a while as well and pro-Zionist dems will have to promise Israel some other goodies like missles or fighter jets.