Respsonses to "What to Do in Iraq: A Roundtable"

Web Exclusive (posted July 17, 2006)

by Fred Kaplan

Fred Kaplan is the "War Stories" columnist for Slate and the author of The Wizards of Armageddon.

After the analyses and critiques, one is faced with the discomfiting question: "So what would you do?" Or, as Kevin Drum poses it: To withdraw or not to withdraw; and, if not, why not?

I would stop far short of Christopher Hitchens, whose preconditions for even considering departure—repair all industrial damage done by the sanctions as well as by the war and "inflict a battlefield defeat on the Baathist Party and al Qaeda"—define the term "permanent basing." (They're also implausible under even the most optimistic of scenarios.) However, though I've been critical of the war, I cannot support a total American pullout, nor do I see the point of setting a timetable for one. The key phrase here is "total pullout." I see no problem with substantial withdrawals—of, say, at least half the U.S. forces by early '07—or with setting benchmarks for reducing even more.

All Iraqi political factions want the Americans to leave at some point, but they also want them stay for now, and as long as that's the case, the United States has an obligation to do so. Drum asks what good American troops are doing there—a reasonable question. Sectarian riots break out in Baghdad in broad daylight, 140 people are killed in four days, and American troops stay holed up in their garrisons. But it makes sense to stay out of communal conflicts as much as possible and to keep a very low profile, for both our own troops' well being and the Iraqi government's perceived independence and thus legitimacy.

Still, to the extent that a viable Iraqi government and military exist, they will need outside help—which for now means U.S. help—for training, logistics, air support, intelligence, and border protection. They have no ability to do any of these vital tasks, nor will they for several years. A core deployment of roughly 30,000 U.S. personnel is required for these missions, even if all the other troops come home.

Should the Iraqi government collapse and the military crumble into sectarian militias, the big danger would be that Iraq's neighbors would rush into the power vacuum, whether out of aggrandizement or defense: the Saudis taking over Sunniland, the Iranians unfurling their "crescent arc," the Turks crushing the Kurds. At that point somebody would have to step in and mediate, to stave off not just a civil war but an even bloodier and more destabilizing regional war. Here, too, the United States is—at least potentially—in the best position to play that role, a position that would be enhanced by having a military presence on the ground.

For Washington to play such a constructive role, however, it would have had to lay the diplomatic groundwork ahead of time. That is why I support the otherwise amorphous idea of a "regional conference"—not because it might devise a peace pact or a formula for security (it won't), but because it would at least get all the players in the same room talking. If all hell did break loose, and if regional discussions had a chance of containing the conflagration, the forum for such negotiations would already be up and running.

Under these circumstances, military forces would serve as back-up to a diplomatic campaign. So the more important question in this debate is "Where's the diplomacy?"